Stress is high, but employers can help

By Nicole Lucht

Sunday, Dec. 14, 2008 | 2 a.m.

It’s the question of the season:

Will I lose my job?

The concern and its inherent anxiety go through the minds of workers as employers, big and small, are having to make wrenching decisions to cut payrolls. Some make modest trims — such as the 2 percent cut at Sunrise Hospital & Medical Center — while others cut deeper — a fifth of the employees at Trump International.

Nevada’s unemployment rate has climbed for two years, starting from a low of 4.1 percent in April 2006 and hitting 7.6 percent in October. Economists are estimating continued increases through 2009, perhaps topping out sometime in 2010.

Businesses are going bankrupt, many shutting their doors forever. Even government workers, long perceived to have secure jobs, are being laid off as officials scramble to shore up budgets.

As employees, managers, spouses and others watch the bad news, heart rates increase, the grapevine heats up and tensions mount. Add the stress of the holidays.

Notice that teeth-grating, distant-eyed look on a co-worker or employee? That could be the look of someone worried about losing their job.

But there are things businesses can do to help alleviate job anxiety. The best thing employers and managers can do is communicate as openly as possible with employees.

“Communication is key,” said Joan Burge, founder and chief executive of Office Dynamics Ltd., a Las Vegas-based workplace training company. “It’s just knowing how much to communicate and what to communicate.

“Sometimes it’s just saying, ‘We acknowledge that economic conditions are tough right now. We acknowledge and know that you may be anxious and feeling uncomfortable and uncertain about the future.’ ”

Speaking with employees, either at a staff meeting or individually, can help them get a better idea of how the company is faring and how they can help the company reach its goals.

At Boyd Gaming, employees and executives gather for town hall-style meetings to discuss employee concerns and update them on company happenings, spokesman Rob Stillwell said.

One question at a recent meeting was the status of Echelon, the company’s Strip project. Rumors swirled that the project would be scrapped, although Stillwell emphasized it is merely delayed because of the tightened credit market.

“Certainly, anxiety can be made a lot worse if you don’t provide an update with honest information,” Stillwell said. “To the extent that we can talk about where we are, what we’re doing and what plans we have for the future, sometimes your employees become your best promoters.”

The restart of Echelon will signal that the company is moving forward with its strategic plan.

“It was equally important that they understand why we had to make the tough decision to delay construction,” Stillwell said. “We didn’t cancel the project. Our long-term strategy for the company is to have a major presence on the Las Vegas Strip. That is a key to our future. This is a cycle, and while there are new realities to our economy, the economy will turn and it will get better. It’s just a matter of when.”

The company also distributes a newsletter called the Boyd Buzz, with Chairman Bill Boyd and Chief Executive Keith Smith alternating columns on information the company wants to distribute to employees, Stillwell said.

How management reacts to the recession is crucial because employees watch management.

“They’re always onstage,” Burge said. “Employees listen to everything they say, they watch everything that they do.

“If they’re going around with a sour attitude, how could an employee possibly be encouraged or motivated? Not that they have to be a cheerleader, jumping all around, it could also be what I call a very steady attitude.”

When a business starts reorganizing the workplace and doesn’t explain to employees its reasoning, employees make assumptions, said Burge, whose company has made some cutbacks. But if employees are given a heads up that the company has to do some belt-tightening, and they really care about their jobs, they won’t want to lose them and in turn, step up their efforts.

“Sometimes they say, ‘How can I make a difference? I’m not in sales, I can’t help increase our bottom line,’ and yet every employee, every single day, makes a difference,” she said.

The one thing Burge tells employees is they have to bring enough value to the company so the employer doesn’t want to lose them.

Burge experienced layoffs as an employee in the 20 years before she struck out on her own.

As a working mother of young children, she was given two-weeks notice from one job. At another layoff gave her more than a month’s time to find a job. She said she preferred having the extra time to secure a job.

But she also recognizes the tricky situation employers are in. There is certain information that can’t be communicated to employees, and then there are things the company just simply doesn’t know.

“It’s a fine line between knowing what to communicate and how much to communicate, but communication is important,” she said.

A version of this story appeared in this week’s In Business Las Vegas, a sister publication of the Sun.