Layoffs are an inevitable reality of the contemporary work life: Prof. Dheeraj Sharma, Director, IIM Rohtak

"IIMs can develop curated content on avoiding, managing, and rebounding from a lay-off. Such content would be useful for employees across industries and is likely to help them sail through a termination with lesser discomfort."

In today's fast-changing job market, global layoffs have become a prevailing reality, leaving countless individuals grappling with uncertainty about their professional futures. In an exclusive interview, Prof. Sharma, Director, IIM Rohtak, shares invaluable advice on how to stay relevant and thrive in the face of layoffs. With a strong emphasis on cultivating the right mindset and acquiring essential skills, his insights aim to empower those affected by layoffs to reclaim their career paths and seize new opportunities. Moreover, we delve into the pivotal role played by management education institutions like IIM in providing crucial support programs and nurturing entrepreneurial aspirations. Additionally, we shed light on best practices for employers in responsibly handling workforce layoffs.

Excerpts:

DQ: As the director of an esteemed institution like IIM, what advice would you give to individuals who have been affected by global layoffs on how they should adapt their skills and mind-set to stay relevant in the job market?

Prof. Sharma: In last several decades, the employment relationship is becoming more transactional leading to layoffs by firms, resignations, and work-place negligence. Overall, attitude towards work has changed in recent years. There was a time when students in school would write on sheets of paper “WORK IS WORKSHIP” to internalize the fact that KARMA is essential for everyone. However, post COVID, attitude towards work has become such that work is now considered as drudgery. Hence, the need of the hours is to adopt a career–centric mindset rather than a job–centric one. Individuals should view each job as a stepping stone in their career path at large. Individuals must devote themselves to work and do the best they can in their capacity. Rather than looking for external attribution for their successes and failures individuals must look inwards. A growth mindset instead of tenure-mindset would help employees recover and rebound from the pain of being fired and will steer them towards better opportunities in the future. In addition to the right mindset, the possession of critical and valued skills would also help terminated employees attract comparable jobs swiftly.

DQ: How can management education institutions like IIM play a role in helping individuals navigate the challenges of global layoffs? Are there any specific programs or initiatives offered by IIM that address this issue?

Prof. Sharma: IIMs build not only an individual’s knowledge but skills and attitude. In line with the recommendations as of National Education Policy, IIMs foster an individual’s ability to continuously learn, a necessity in a turbulent economic environment. IIMs do not just train their students in core functions like accounting, finance, economics and operations. They also provide holistic training by educating students on ethics, resilience, etiquettes, ingenuity, and entrepreneurial proclivity. The aforementioned help the students face the challenges of corporate life like job insecurity and mass layoffs. Further, we at IIM Rohtak offer a range of MBA elective courses such as etiquettes, ethics, organization development and change, power and politics, happiness in the workplace (positive psychology), entrepreneurship, spiritualism, and strategic human resource management. These electives can help IIM students manage their careers but also to manage their lives.

DQ: In your opinion what are the key skills or competencies that individuals should focus on developing to enhance their employability in a post-layoff scenario?

Prof. Sharma: The first and foremost thing that employees can do is to try to keep their names off the list of laid off employees. Individuals need to be proactive in protecting their jobs in a turbulent business environment. Failing consistently in delivering results, resistance to change, poor performance reviews, poor interpersonal conduct, poor work-place attitude, and poor job related skills must ring the alarm bells that a layoff is not too far. Unfortunately, if one is laid off despite their best efforts, they must try to upgrade themselves with the latest skills demanded by their industry and develop/nurture positive attitude towards work. Such attitude, skills and competencies would help them secure a new job in no time. Further, employees must also ensure that they do not end their relationship with their previous employer on a bad note. Individuals should not burn bridges with their previous employers so that they can continue to receive some kind of support in the form of referrals, recommendations, and financial support from their previous employers. Finally, psychological capital comprising of hope, optimism, resilience, and self – efficacy is yet another psychological nutrient which can help individuals ace the challenges that come with a lay-off. Defensive pessimism – being mentally prepared for a layoff and preparing contingency plans – can help individuals harness anxiety instead of succumbing to it.

DQ: How can IIMs and other management institutes collaborate with industry partners to provide relevant training and skill development programs for individuals affected by global layoffs?

Prof. Sharma: Industry partners can seek collaboration opportunities with IIMs to develop layoff training programmes for working professionals. Layoffs are an inevitable reality of the contemporary work life but individuals can be systematically trained to deal with layoffs effectively. IIMs can develop curated content on avoiding, managing, and rebounding from a lay-off. Such content would be useful for employees across industries and is likely to help them sail through a termination with lesser discomfort. Upon request, customized content for particular industries can also be developed by top-tier management education institutes like IIMs to cater to the needs of specific industries.

DQ: Are there any specialized courses or executive education programs offered by IIMS that specifically cater to the needs of individuals looking to reskill or upskill after a layoff? Can you provide some examples?

Prof. Sharma: IIMs offer a number of training programmes catering to diverse audiences. IIM Rohtak, in particular, actively promotes professional development of practicing managers through well designed and well–delivered Management Development Programmes (MDPs). Currently we are offering a multitude of certificate programmes in important industry–relevant domains such as data analytics, project management, supply chain and logistics management, digital marketing, HR analytics, business analytics and market intelligence, among others. All of these courses can help in up-skilling after a layoff, support in honing their competences to stay relevant in their job roles, or aid in preparing for new job roles. Further, we also offer an executive post graduate certificate programme in general management which provides business knowledge across all streams of management. We also offer a one year program (PGPX) for working executives. Individuals can enroll themselves in such courses along with their jobs from the comfort of their homes.

DQ: What role can IIMs play in fostering entrepreneurship and promoting self-employment as an alternative for individuals who have been laid off?

Prof. Sharma: We at IIM Rohtak work hard to not only create business managers but also entrepreneurs who are not employment seekers but employment givers. In our flagship MBA programme, we offer advanced and specialized elective courses on entrepreneurship. Most of the MBA students initially end up working for corporate but many turn to entrepreneurship a few years later and are able to use the IIM education to build their ventures. Further, we regularly invite and bring leading entrepreneurs for guest lectures and summits to interact with our students and share their rich learnings with our students. We also offer business internships on entrepreneurship to less–advantaged audiences, such as female students enrolled in colleges of Jammu & Kashmir. The focus of such two-month long internships is to expose them to different aspects of setting up and running an entrepreneurial venture independently. We believe that our efforts would help them set up their own small businesses when they return to their hometowns.

DQ: What advice do you have for organizations and employers in terms of handling layoffs responsibly and supporting the affected employees in their transition? Are there any best practices that can be adopted?

Prof. Sharma: Employers and organizations need to handle layoffs responsibly as layoffs represent a severe setback for the affected employees. Firstly, while deciding who will go and who will stay, organizations need to ensure that the procedures used for arriving at such decisions are fair and transparent. Secondly, generous severance packages also help, to some extent, the affected employees cope with the loss. Thirdly, organizations can offer help to the laid off employees in securing or seeking new jobs through referrals and letters of recommendation. They could also help those who are laid-off by redirecting them to upskilling organizations (such as IIMs) and also organize career counselling services. Fourthly, organizations should be transparent about their performance expectation, work-place conduct rules, economic health, and the broader economic environment. In that case, employees would face lesser shock if layoffs become imminent. Finally, employees too should strive not to do the bare-minimum. The employees must attempt to work beyond the minimum and engage in organizational citizenship behaviors by going beyond the call of duty to demonstrate their commitment and trust in work.