Helping People to Deal with the Traumatic Effects of Organizational Downsizing and Change

Abstract

Unfortunately, organizational downsizing and change is continuing to have an impact upon employees across the nation. To help employees to deal with the emotional effects, organizations frequently ask counsellors to design group interventions or debriefings in order to help employees to cope with the downsizing and/or other significant changes. This article provides an overview of some of the emotional effects that employees may experience and discusses how a modified critical incident stress debriefing agenda may be used to address employee needs. Individual counselling interventions are also described.