Bearing bad news is not the risk it used to be. In the old days an Emperor would chop off your head for having the audacity to bring him bad tidings.

Things have changed considerably since those days but, unfortunately, being born in the 21st Century does not let the bearers of bad news completely off the hook. The trouble with bad news is the psychological burden that it imposes on the bearer.

In the current economic crisis, the results can be seen in the stress levels exhibited by HR practitioners all over China. But a more important issue is the detrimental effects that cannot be seen. This involves fatigue, insomnia, anxiety; and in extreme cases depression and divorce. Worry is a serious drain on individuals, and on corporate effectiveness.

The upside of all this angst is that the financial crisis has taught China’s HR community lessons that could not be taught in a boom. This assumes, of course, that there is someone in the office who has experience to deliver the necessary teaching.

Two big issues that are being learned on-the-job are Firing and Flexing. For the purposes of our discussion the process of adjusting output to the level of projected sales is called Flexing, but it might easily be called adjusting or downsizing. Firing is one action within the process called Flexing.

Then and Now

Before the crisis, a common approach to the issue of firing/flexing was that you should act as the staff member’s friend, and work with them towards an equitable solution. This is something along the lines of the Buddhist ‘Middle Way‘.

This was largely because firings were isolated, once-off events that were mostly concerned with non-performance of duties. HR’s objective was to minimize the negatives for the company, and ensure that the person left on reasonably good terms.

Using this approach to the broader issue of flexing the workforce also worked well because there was enough money in the kitty to pay out compensation or relocation expenses, and the labor laws were sufficiently weak to allow the employer a lot of wiggle room. Employers were not required to make a huge effort on compensation, so any reasonable offer was welcome.

The friendship approach worked well on the staff side because the person being fired knew that they could find a new job easily, and because there was money on the table that they did not want to jeopardize. So the friendship approach allowed everyone some ‘face‘, and the elephant in the room could be avoided.

The Extremes

Now that the crisis has hit, and firing/flexing is much more common, the natural tendency for people to split into different camps has emerged. A lot of this is personality related, and to be expected.

In my mind I have identified three groups among those who have to lay people off, or reduce their days/shifts/salary/benefits. These are the Empathizers, the Narcissists and the Deniers.

Obviously this is a little tongue-in-cheek but the psychological elements and the behaviors are valid and evident.

The Empathizers still want to treat all of the staff as their bestest, best friend but now the crisis has pushed them to a more extreme version of who they were before. The current situation is rife with tension and pain, so this is understandable.

The weakness of this approach is that there is no emotional distance from the affected staff member. All boundaries have collapsed. The ones doing the firing suffer heavily, and anecdotal evidence suggests to me that in the end they will resist management pressure to fire.

On the opposite end of the Empathy-Autism scale are the people with very little empathy, the Narcissists. They don’t understand how other people feel because they have no Theory of Mind.  They will happily take on the dirty jobs, like firing the 400-person late shift, but the risk is that they will do it in such as way as to alienate many people. Lawyers will have a field day later on.

The third group of HR staff that I have seen are the Deniers, who find every and any sort of reason to avoid retrenching staff.

This seems to be a common enough problem in China HQs and Asia Pacific HQs, where the corporate staffing stays high. Meanwhile the factories cut staff to the bone.

Most of the Deniers don’t seem to have much of a problem with firing hundreds of factories workers, on the basis that they are in another location far away; will go back to their farm; and will live as they lived before they got a job in the city.

The Deniers usually have a problem letting go professionals; people like themselves. They are not narcissistic but they seem to have fallen for the Beijing Olympic Delusional Syndrome (BODS). They just don’t see the need for redundancies, and feel that the company is not being entirely straight about their motivations for the cuts.

The Balanced Majority

The vast majority of the HR staff that I have discussed this issue with are not Deniers, Empathizers or Narcissists. Like most of us, they have a little of each personality trait, and will adjust their approach according to the available information and the situation they find themselves in.

HR staff that are successfully managing the firing/flexing process are the ones with sufficient self-esteem, and emotional distance, to be able to respect the people they are firing, without breaking down the barriers that keep us all sane.

It may seem a little trite, but HR can suffer as much as the people being fired. For those who have been fired there is closure, but for HR practitioners there is more waiting around for the next round of cuts.