The effect of redundancy on survivors

Redundancy Methodology

The Impact on Survivors of Redundancy-Based Downsizing:

The subject of this research being the broad investigation of organizational redundancy, the focus in the methodology is on employee morale and the experience of personnel during redundancy driven change. Quite often, change will bring with it uncertainty. And indeed, it is not totally uncommon for change to be accommodated by downsizing, shift of personnel or, particularly in this era of recession, redistribution of available funds. These are conditions which represent a threat to the stability of the employee experience and, even where a threat to job security is not implied, the presumption or fear that such is the case may promote lowered moral, reduced dedication to the job and an overall lag in performance at a time when a need for the energy and commitment is at its highest. This subtopic of employee motivation and morale centers on a number of issues such as damaged organizational commitment, Survivor Syndrome and the imposition of undue stress. Following a brief discussion on these redundancy and downsizing-based byproducts, the proposal here will provide a brief outline of the methodology intended to examine the issue more fully.

Discussion:

The issue of addressing organizational redundancy is inherently associated to the tasks of downsizing, shifting responsibilities and selecting those employees which should be retained thereafter. These employees are referred to in our research as Survivors and it is their shared experience which attracts the attention of the proposed methodology. First and foremost, we proceed with a brief discussion on the disconnect between those arguments in favor of redundancy-based downsizing and the realities for those who will remain behind to experience its effects.

Indeed, the notion of redundancy would be largely predicated on the view that greater efficiency with respect to personnel is synonymous with a smaller staff size performing more functions. Therefore, the impetus to eliminate organizational redundancy would carry aggressive downsizing implications such as are noted in the research by Streeter (1992), who reports that "the fiscal constraints and scarce resources that dominated funding of public and private social services throughout most of the 1980s further promoted the notion of eliminating redundancy as the primary means of achieving optimal efficiency." (p. 97)

However, as our research has premised, the approach taken by many firms towards eliminating redundancy does not necessarily imply an improvement in organizational efficiency. To the contrary, the elimination of personnel may carry with it a number of consequences to the culture, delegation and morale experienced by those who remain behind. The manner in which redundancy is addressed, the methodology here proposed will consider, will have a determinant impact on how remaining personnel attend to their responsibilities, affiliate with the broader organization and perceive the security of their jobs and roles. Streeter makes this case, indicating that many organizational theorists are reconsidering the implications of redundancy-based downsizing. Accordingly, Streeter indicates that many analysts are today "arguing that the great concern for eliminating duplication and overlap within and between organizations has led to disregard for the benefits that accompany redundancy. For example, W. Richard Scott notes that duplication serves as 'a repository of needed variety and heightened responsiveness, and provides and important safeguard against system component failures.'" (p. 97)

To this extent, we can see that what is often referred to as 'redundancy' during the process of justifying and executing downsizing efforts may instead be perceived or characterized as a multi-layered strategy for ensuring that tasks are accomplished, timelines are adhered to and benchmarks are achieved. An elimination of these layers can increase the strain felt by those who remain in place and can simultaneously produce a sense of insecurity for those who may now struggle to complete their responsibilities or fulfill expanded roles. Often, the elimination of redundancy will foist greater pressures or higher job expectations upon individual employees. This will occur both at the expense of these expectations and the feeling of confidence and accountability felt by the individual employee. By assigning fewer individuals, agencies or task agendas to a single organizational problem, it is often the case that the organization will place greater strain upon those left behind as they attempt to maintain the same standards of quality and proficiency as existed prior to downsizing.

To this point, the article by Miranda & Lerner (1995) posits the argument that the elimination of 'redundancy' can sometimes have the opposite impact of that which is desired. Accordingly, Miranda & Lerner argue that "there are good grounds for suggesting that efforts to improve public administration by eliminating duplication and overlap would, if successful, produce just the opposite effect. That so many attempts have failed should perhaps alert us to what sociologists would call the 'latent function' of this type of redundancy. This possibility alone is sufficient warrant for transforming a precept into a problem" (p. 1)

This helps to contribute the basic imperative of our research, which has been to measure the degree to which redundancy-driven downsizing impacts organizational survivors. The research available on this subject helps to underscore the hypothesis guiding our methodology, which is that redundancy-based downsizing has a negative impact on organizational efficiency even as it proposes to improve said efficiency. This denotes a conflation of efficiency and the cost of operation. The methodology executed here is intended to illustrate that the impact of redundancy-based downsizing on survivors and on the operational capacity of the organization on the whole will be negative and will be likely to impede upon efficiency.

Methodology:

Research Question:

The primary research question asks the following: What is the impact on survivors of redundancy-based downsizing?

Objectives:

The research endeavor proposed here is intended to redirect many of the previously held assumptions concerning the elimination of redundancy at the organizational level. Therefore, it is expected that the research process will confirm the findings of our literature, which reports to the personnel-driven conflicts inherent to the redundancy elimination strategy. To this end, the primary purpose of the research is to measure the impact that the elimination of redundancies has on the survivors who are left behind to maintain the organization.

This purpose contributes to a number of objectives that will be attended to by the research process. Among them, the research will be interested in determining the impact on the morale of those who are left behind of watching co-workers and friends depart. There is a concern requisite to this discussion that this occurrence will alter the day-to-day experience of personnel. It is also incumbent upon the present research to determine the extent to which survivors feel that the redundancy identification and elimination have been managed fairly, both as this impacts the departed and the survivors. It is also an objective of the present research to determine how committed survivors feel to the company in light of the redundancy proceedings. This would be measured through performance quality and the willingness of personnel to respond affirmatively to such requests as overtime work.

Ultimately, these objectives will feed into the objective of establishing a set of recommendations concerning the execution and handling of redundancies. In particular, recommendations would center on questions relating to the necessity of performing such downsizing. If it is deemed necessary, recommendations here would guide organizations on how best to identify core redundancies, how to eliminate these fairly, and how to engage survivors in the process of moving forward.

Research Instrument:

The research instrument used to execute the proposed methodology would be a survey to be randomly distributed to the members of selected regional organizations who have recently committed redundancy-based downsizing initiatives. The primary qualification for participating organizations would be the execution of such downsizing in a period of between 6 months and 2 years. It is expected that this duration would reflect both a significant enough passage of time since the downsizing to allow for accurate assessment of personnel experience and a short enough passage of time such that turnover since the time of downsizing will not have been too great.