Employee Survival Guide® - Job Loss, Grief, and Professional Identity

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, it's Mark here, and welcome to the next edition of the Employee Survival Guide, where I tell you, as always, what your employer does definitely not want you to know about, and a lot more. Hey, it's Mark, and welcome back. Today we're talking about job loss, grief, and professional identity. There is little to no information about the personal toll job loss takes on employees who are fired or laid off. I often write about severance negotiation and skip over this topic until now. The irony here is that as an employment attorney, I deal with the client job loss in every case I have. Although I am not a licensed

Starting point is 00:00:46 therapist, I do spend an enormous amount of time counseling clients through the job loss grieving process. As a society, we treat job loss and grieving job loss as a taboo subject. Terminated employees are just expected to get over it and move on to the next gig. Terminated employees are just expected to get over it and move on to the next gig. There is a great deal of shame in our LinkedIn workforce, and people are programmed to only reflect strength and positive attitudes. Your professional identity. If I met you on the street, you would probably tell me about yourself starting with what you do for employment. Most people start random conversations this way to break the ice.

Starting point is 00:01:33 I would expect you to say you've been in the same career for quite some time, but have changed jobs as the economy ebbed and flowed over the years. According to one source, Employment is a key element in life that goes beyond basic psychological, social, and economic needs. Quote, people outside the family. It links individuals to goals and purposes that transcend their own and defines aspects of personal status and identity and enforces activity, end quote. No one is immune from the negative hit the ego takes when the job loss occurs. Years ago, I was working with a female president of a subsidiary to a well-known publicly traded company. I had negotiated the employment agreement that got her there, and several years later, she came to me because the company had decided they had to move in a

Starting point is 00:02:37 different direction, a common explanation given to many of my clients. I remember the phone call with the executive today. I guess clients leave impressions on me. The call started out normal, but I could sense undertones of sadness which came in waves during the call and eventually overwhelmed my client. She abruptly burst into tears and commenced five to ten minutes of sobbing on the phone. At first, this was quite awkward because it was unexpected. We had been discussing the non-compete buried in her incentive compensation agreement and what would happen if she went to work for a competitor, that her restricted stock would be forfeited. I paused and commenced listening to this woman sob uncontrollably.

Starting point is 00:03:27 But I realized that all she wanted was to be listened to. I guess most people just want to be listened to during this critical period right after they receive the notice of termination. But what struck me about this conversation was the comments the woman made about herself and how this job was her complete identity and that she worked her ass off to get to the C-suite over a long career. She was blown away to see it all ripped away from her in an instant. And she remarked she did not know what she was going to do as she believed her career was over. More specifically, her identity as a high-powered executive was over. Job loss and grief.

Starting point is 00:04:15 Do you feel any pain when you lost a job? Did you get angry about losing the coveted position you worked so hard for? Do you blame anyone, or did you accept personal responsibility for being terminated? Maybe the termination was out of your control altogether. According to one source, quote, the grief process encompasses a wide array of emotions, cognitions, and behaviors. Part of a healthy grief trajectory are high levels of emotional distress and intense reactions of grief, which persists for only a brief period after the job loss, while a person remains capable to function in all aspects of one's daily life,

Starting point is 00:05:02 end quote. Here are the stages of job loss grieving process. Number one, according to this one source, quote, initial shock. In some cases, terminations come out of the blue. In other situations, there may have been some warning. In either case, there can be shock when the message is received that you no longer have a job. It may take some time to absorb the reality of the news. Number two, anger.

Starting point is 00:05:42 You may feel anger towards your employer, towards yourself, and even towards your family. Such thoughts and feelings are normal and a normal part of the grieving process, but it's important not to get stuck in this stage and to move forward. Number three, resistance. Sometimes you may find yourself having difficulty fully accepting the reality of the situation of the job loss. Number four, sadness. It is normal to experience feelings of sadness and to want to withdraw emotionally after a job loss. However, if your job search goes on a long time or you have predisposing factors,

Starting point is 00:06:20 you may become vulnerable to clinical depression. Getting professional support is critical as depression can interfere with your energy and effectiveness in finding a job. And number five, acceptance. Finally, you will come to accept what has happened. You don't have to like it, and you'll just move on. End quote. The personal impact of job loss. According to one source, quote, dismissal from work belongs to the top five most stressful life events.

Starting point is 00:06:57 Dealing with involuntary job loss mostly involves a confrontation with the secondary losses, like financial security, involves a confrontation with the secondary losses, like financial security, status, social contacts, structure, identity, and sense of self. Although one might argue that involuntary job loss is a psychological trauma that causes post-traumatic stress-like symptoms, for example, anxiety, irritability, hypervigilance, or depression-like symptoms such as dysphoria, worthlessness, and blaming oneself. We conceptualize job loss that way that may yield typical symptoms of grief, including separation distress, yearning for what is loss, a sense of bitterness or numbness, and difficulties to accept the loss and its implications, end quote. The bottom line in any job loss is a sudden loss of professional and personal identity. As an employment attorney, I counsel job loss every day among my clients, and I accept it as a normal part of my professional life. I am the person you talk to to explain why you were fired,

Starting point is 00:08:08 whether you had anything to do with it, your shame, your guilt, your victimization from discrimination, and a host of complicated personal questions that just run real deep for many people. Grieving the loss of a job for some employees can be very difficult and often compared to grieving the loss of a loved one. Job loss can lead to long-term mental crisis. Grief from losing a job can turn into a long-term mental health crisis.

Starting point is 00:08:46 I remember working with a client many years ago who had a long career in the sales and the computer industry. He was in his mid-40s, divorced, and had a young son he adored and looked forward to spending time with him during his parenting turns with his ex-wife. The guy was quite personable and sales seemed like a natural fit for him. He also liked to take diving excursions with sharks in cages all around the world. True story. However, life somehow just did not seem fair to this fellow after his employment termination. And several years later, I came across his name in an article in a national newspaper where he had ingested some form of liquid obtained from the dark web and essentially committed suicide in a mirrored car in the heat of summer.

Starting point is 00:09:43 No one found him for some time until the smell became unimaginable. He was wearing a business suit when the emergency personnel opened the door. Managing the stress of job loss. According to one source, and I'll quote this. I found this a helpful steps for you. Number one, give yourself time to adjust. Grief is a process. Number two, keep open communications with others significant in your life. Accept support from those who care about you. They may also be a source of job information. Number three, spouses, partners, and children are also affected by your job loss. Explain the economic forces that led to the job loss. Reassure children that the family will work together to get through this time. Number four, Number four, make a job-seeking plan.

Starting point is 00:10:50 Create a strategy and consider the search as your current job. And I tell people to do this every day, too. It requires planning, energy, and daily attention. Number five, update your resume. Number six, use community and networking resources available to you. Number seven, practice how you will interview and answer questions about the reason for changing jobs. That's an important one. I usually tell clients to say that you made a personal decision to move in a different direction, something that's neutral, something that you can't decipher, something that they can't check on.

Starting point is 00:11:32 Number eight, practice good self-care. Sleep, exercise, relaxation, good nutrition are all important, are more important than ever during the stress of unemployment. Use the extra time to set up that exercise program you never had time for when you were working so hard. Avoid the use of drugs and alcohol to deal with stress. That cannot be understated, folks. That's an important one. Take scheduled breaks from your job search and allow time for fun. Also, very important.

Starting point is 00:12:06 You need to be in good emotional shape to do your best in job interviews. Number nine, get professional help when needed. If you find yourself being tearful, anxious, sad, irritable, having trouble with sleep, too much or unable to sleep, or unable to motivate yourself, you may consider getting help for depression from a mental health professional. End quote. You are not your job. So many people get sucked into the false belief that their jobs are who they are as a person, and then get completely derailed when they lose their employment. get completely derailed when they lose their employment.

Starting point is 00:12:53 I remember recently working with a male executive who suffered from throat cancer and eventually lost his voice box. He had a synthetic device inserted in his windpipe to facilitate his communication, but his original voice was lost forever. The client was a salt-of-the-earth kind of guy and extremely well-liked. He had been a manager and later an executive in the same industry for the better part of his whole career. He came to me when the employer began interfering with his position and moved him around the company and eventually demoted him back to the same city when he started with the company some 20 years ago.

Starting point is 00:13:27 I handled the matter, put the client onto disability benefits, and obtained a very sizable severance package from his employer. I call this the hat trick in employment law. The employer did not like the fact that their once star executive could no longer speak in his original voice and had to use a mechanical voice device when speaking with the company clients. If you were in the executive's shoes, you may have thought the world was ending for his career and his personal identity was over.

Starting point is 00:13:57 This client was different, and he taught me a lesson, a valuable lesson about job loss. After losing his voice box to cancer, after losing his finances from being fired, and after losing the management position he held, you would have thought the client would crater and implode into depression and lose the will to live. But this client was different, and his resilience to form a new life left a profound impression on me that your job is not who you are. Your identity is not derived from what you do for work. Your identity is entirely different and separate.

Starting point is 00:14:34 Many clients I've dealt with just cannot separate their work identity and their personal sense of self. No one really talks about this issue because people fear it as a sign of weakness to even discuss it. Job loss and the loss of personal self is an enormous issue for many people, but it does not have to be. Unforeseen positive results from job loss. Losing a job can also become an unforeseen positive transformation, and I have seen clients over the years just pivot successfully without losing a sense of self-identity. Many clients do not buy into the idea that their job is who they are. These clients transition between jobs without falling apart and making huge leaps forward in a way thought impossible before the termination.

Starting point is 00:15:23 in a way thought impossible before the termination. One door closes and another opens. I have to say that most clients I've worked with actually find better paying and more personally satisfying jobs after being terminated or laid off. I brought you this topic because I felt it's not been talked about. And it dawned on me after 26 years of doing employment law that why haven't I ever talked about it? But hopefully you found these thoughts and comments and processes helpful for you and you can benefit from them. Maybe you can start a conversation with people

Starting point is 00:16:01 close to you that you're going through something like this. Right now, and it's now February, middle of February of 2023, we're experiencing lots of layoffs, especially in the tech society sector but across many industries. And we're trying to decipher whether we're going into a recession or not. But maybe we can do something different and talk about job loss and grieving jobs in a way that's, well, emotionally healthy. In a way that we can feel we can talk about job loss without the shame and guilt of it and that we're not perfect. And, you know, maybe it's a new change. So I hope you thought that this was an important topic for you. And please share it if you would like.

Starting point is 00:16:55 As always, I do try to hit the hard topics like this because I just see them. I see what my clients are going through. So until next time, be well. Thank you. If you like the Employee Survival Guide, I'd really encourage you to leave a review. We try really hard to produce information to you that's informative, that's timely, that you can actually use and solve problems on your own and at your employment. So if you'd like to leave a review anywhere you listen to our podcast, please do so.

Starting point is 00:17:24 And leave five stars because anything less than five is really not as good, right? I'll keep it up. I'll keep the standards up. I'll keep the information flowing at you. If you'd like to send me an email and ask me a question, I'll actually review it and post it on there. You can send it to mcaryu at capclaw.com. That's capclaw.com.

Employee Survival Guide® - Job Loss, Grief, and Professional Identity

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