Healing the Downsized Organization [Hardcover]

Delorese Ambrose (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 30, 1996

Healing the Downsized Organization is for managers and employees who must make sense of dramatically changed workplaces after reengineering, restructuring, or downsizing. Here are "best practices" from those who are successfully reinventing their organizations and re-creating healthy workplaces. Documented examples from executives, managers, and employees who have bounced back from this challenge reveal how they minimized pain during downsizing and discovered promising possibilities for changed employer-employee relationships.

Dramatic profiles of four organizations--representing manufacturing, media journalism, education, and health care--provide lessons you can practice today, whether downsizing is unfolding now or whether it looms in the future. From interviews with CEOs, managers, and employees, you will understand how individuals at all levels have handled the tension between personal and organizational goals, managed the human struggles, and achieved victories as they cut costs and redeployed resources to face competition or changing market conditions.

You will learn how these companies and individuals coped with downsizing, including:

         ¸ how "survivors" regained momentum, focus, and job satisfaction after downsizing
         ¸ what kinds of company-employee interactions allowed trust to be rebuilt
         ¸ how managers succeeded in balancing the concerns of those who left and those who stayed
         ¸ ways to be an effective leader in the transitional period
         ¸ approaches to forge a new employer-employee social contract for the emerging workplace

Healing the Downsized Organization is the recovery book for the downsizing of America.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Ambrose's (management, Carnegie-Mellon Univ.) first assumption in this work is that employees who are laid off are better off. If readers can get past that, they may find some value in the book. Even though Ambrose states that only a third of organizations actually benefit from downsizing (indeed, 60 percent of the companies rehire to fill vacant positions), she does not raise the issue of opposing the action. Instead, she concentrates on relieving the side effects of the layoff, which include despair, anger, depression, and insecurity. Ambrose offers descriptions of representative organizations and a summary of lessons for the employer on downsizing, e.g., allow grieving; involve employees in decisions that affect them; when possible, retrain and retain employees; and continue two-way communication. Yet while employees are expected to learn specific skills that may not be transferable to another employer and to be loyal to the company, the company still cannot offer job security. For a franker look at downsizing, read Michael Moore's Downsize This! (LJ 5/15/96). For public libraries.?Peggy D. Odom, Texas Lib. Assn., Waco
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Ambrose's prescription for restructured organizations includes lists of concrete, practical activities to effect positive internal change. On the other hand, consultant Ambrose by no means gets immersed in all the details; instead, her Rx focuses on lessons to learn, from the almost hackneyed "Stick to your knitting" to get and give continual input, which are then customized for each company. An even more productive addition to this already radical business book is the inclusion of real-life cases and employees. Copperweld, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Onondaga Community College, GE Appliance, and the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh become her benchmarks for evaluating workable ideas, along with a few of those institutions' survivors who, in their stories, become role models for change. Sporadic "I-me" pronouns detract a bit from the trust-telling momentum that readers have enjoyed; despite a commercial here and there, valuable for employee and employer alike. Barbara Jacobs

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 264 pages
• Publisher: Harmony; 1 edition (December 30, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0517704994
• ISBN-13: 978-0517704998
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,317,503 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Healing the Downsized Organization, May 5, 2009

By 

Gretchen L. Neve (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Healing the Downsized Organization: What Every Employee Needs to Know About Today's New Workplace (Paperback)

This book is a practical guide offering strategies and practices that help organizations, their leaders, and their employees recover from a layoff. Whether you are planning a layoff, in the middle of one, or dealing with the aftermath, the author provides a framework for addressing both the business side and the people side of the equation so that the organizational trust, resilience, and communication required to deliver on business goals on the other side of the layoff can be developed or restored. Relevant research, models, and case studies speak the questions and concerns of anyone charting a way through the turbulent waters of organizational change and preparing for the new world of work. After reading it, I had a better grasp of my own experience going through a downsizing as an employee. Delorese Ambrose offers real stuff for real people who want to know how to deal with a difficult situation as well as is possible. You would never know that the book was written more than 10 years ago--the principles and applications are just as valid in today as they were when the book was published. Get it! Read it! It is very helpful.