focus on the entire picture. For instance, they see the need for cutbacks in money and finance, yet they often pay more attention to the people they let go than the ones they keep. They may provide the laid-off workers with outplacement counseling, resume writing assistance, and other sources for potential job leads. Some companies even extend their health benefits, offer early retirement incentives, and often give severance packages. But, where's the generosity for those who remain to do the work? The blow of staying with a company that has downsized needs to be softened too. Employees often feel threatened that their own jobs may be in jeopardy, they may have a growing mistrust of the company, and they have little understanding of what management is doing or what their role will be in the company's future. Managers must pay attention to the survivors too. I suppose that honest and sensitive communication is the most prominent challenge in every downsizing. Executives and managers are trained to think they should have all the answers before they talk to employees. In my own experience with my own company, ITT Automotive, this was the case. For many months we heard rumors about the sale of the new Henderson plant, the sale of the Morganton plant, and the closure of the Asheville plant. Monthly employee meetings were postponed, and employees went fishing for answers, the wrong ones I might add. Rumors flourished and expanded as they passed from employee to employee and from plant to plant. ITT should have given us the information as soon as they received it. (E.g. jobs will be lost but we haven't finalized which ones yet.) They should have held the regularly monthly meetings and promised to get back to us with answers to questions that they didn't have answers too. They created a great mistrust among the workforce by withholding information. They made us feel as though we were a bunch of children and that we couldn't handle the truth. Ex...
