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he HR holistic approach to downsizing includes six fundamental HR areas (see Figure 1). A downsizing plan that does not include strategies for all six fundamental HR areas will fall short of its goal to heal the surviving workforce. If a specified ingredient is omitted from a formula for a certain medicine, the medicine would not heal the illness for which it was intended or it could cause harm to the individual taking the medication. This, too, is true if "ingredients" are omitted from the HR strategic downsizing plan. If one or more of the six fundamental areas of HR are not addressed, the surviving workforce will not be fully healed. All pieces of the pie must be in place to produce a healthy, productive surviving workforce. The neglected areas will breed lack of trust and commitment. The negative results of the neglected areas will overshadow the positive results produced by the areas for which strategies were implemented.HUMAN RESOURCES HOLISTIC APPROACH THROUGHOUT DOWNSIZINGTherefore, the author presents an HR holistic approach that requires implementing programs throughout downsizing to:* ensure employee involvement from the onset;* fully anticipate and develop a whole communication strategy that is likely to create trust and engagement;* establish support programs to help both separating and surviving employees adapt to the change;* design fair selection processes to rebuild trust and commitment of the workforce;* align human resource management strategies and systems to support and enhance the new business strategies;* and invest in the survivors to increase the capability of the workforce to meet the new challenges ahead.Implementing programs addressing all six fundamental HR areas is the premise of the holistic approach to healing downsizing survivors.STRATEGIES FOR SIX FUNDAMENTAL HR AREASHuman resource leaders clearly play a major role throughout the initiative to focus on the people issues. When a downsizing occurs, it is not uncommon for the brightest to voluntarily exit the organization, leaving gaping holes in its structure (Carpenter, 1995). To keep the talent within the organization and to build the survivors' commitment, issues such as quality of the work environment, shared decision-- making, flexible work arrangements, compensation and benefits must be addressed. These are factors over which human resource professionals have some degree of control (Solomon, 1992). Therefore, HR has the opportunity to add value by taking a key leadership role throughout a downsizing initiative to lessen the loss of talent and to restore the productivity and commitment of the surviving workforce.This key leadership role for human resource leaders must begin at the planning process of downsizing to increase the chances of the initiative to be successful (Kuczynski, 1999). Research supports that organizations with a strong HR orientation before and during downsizing perform significantly better than firms with a weaker HR orientation (Lam and White, 1998). The HR-oriented organizations perform better because the surviving workforce is healthier and productive after the downsizing initiative. The focus for HR at the planning process is to have strategies in place that ensure employees are involved, treated fairly, informed, supported and possess the necessary capabilities to deal with the challenges ahead. For HR to accomplish this, downsizing plans must take a holistic approach and include strategies in the following six fundamental HR areas (as depicted in Figure 1).
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