Healing the Wounds

I’m a survivor of a series of layoffs and my negative emotions and feelings were piling up inside. I know that layoffs are a new way of life for me, and I knew I had to find some way to process what I felt so I could return to purpose and productivity in the face of the recognition that there is no security in my field. This book really helped me to do that. It reminded me that my employer doesn’t owe me security, that I do. It describes the transition from a time when a person could spend their entire career with one employer. That paradigm is over, and it is time workers recognize this. I was reminded that I’m responsible over my own career path. This book freed me from an outdated mental paradigm.

Most books dealing with human resource issues are predictably detached and devoid of emotional consideration for employees. Leadership consultant David M. Noer’s refreshing study takes the opposite approach. He boldly issues a warning that the current global wave of downsizing has created a traumatic “layoff survivor sickness,” which employees can cure only by forging a new relationship with their employers. Although large corporations and top executives may have caused the 2008-2009 recession, lower-level employees shouldered much of the burden. That makes this report particularly timely. Looking ahead, Noer advocates a new employer-employee relationship that will empower employees and break their unhealthy codependency with their employers. This unsettling idea is a byproduct of the global, on-demand economy. getAbstract finds Noer’s book refreshingly insightful and clearly written, and recommends it to aware, forward-thinking employees, ex-employees, executives and human resource professionals.