Caroline Esterson (00:01)
So, last week we did a series of short, punchy episodes to help you if you've ever been made redundant. Or even maybe if you're sitting there thinking, is this it? And today I want to shift our focus a little. We're going to talk about something almost no one is prepared for in work. It's not being made redundant, but it's about being the ones who stay.
Because the emotional hangover of surviving a redundancy wave is real. It's messy, disorientating, and it feels a bit like quietly folding your laundry after a massive argument with your partner. Your hands are just going through familiar motions, but the rest of you hasn't caught up yet.
Welcome back to Little Moves, Big Careers, the podcast for people who want to do well at work without losing their soul, their sanity or their ability to say, no, Derek, I will not absorb Karen's job and keep smiling. I'm Caroline Esterson, your career confidant, workplace translator, and someone who has seen and experienced a lot of organisational chaos up close.
Today's episode is a big one because survivor syndrome is one of the most under discussed emotional realities of modern work.
And let's start off with the guilt, that gnawing feeling that you shouldn't complain because technically you're one of the lucky ones. It's the guilt of still logging in when others can't.
Or the guilt of updating documents that used to have someone else's fingerprints all over them. Even the guilt of deleting someone's name from the project board and feeling like you're erasing them for the second time. It's not just, why did I stay? It's why them? It's what does this say about me? It's am I allowed to feel sad when I kept my job? It's did I benefit from someone else's loss?
And then there's the weird silent rituals that no one talks about. Standing beside an empty desk, pretending not to stare, being handed their project and saying, yeah, that's okay, I'll pick it up. While your stomach falls through the floor. Avoiding messaging them because you don't know what to say. Even though you think about them every day.
feeling relieved you're still here and hating yourself a tiny bit for that relief. This kind of guilt isn't there to punish you, it's empathy with nowhere to go. It just circulates around and around and around. And it's important for you to remember in these moments that you didn't cause it and you didn't choose it. And that feeling grateful doesn't make you complicit, it just makes you human.
The real question isn't whether you feel guilt. It's actually what do do with it? Because shrinking doesn't honor anyone, whereas showing up does. Let me give you a real example from early in my career because honestly, it does still sit with me every time I hear the words redundancy. I was told I needed to let go, my team of five, no warning, no context, just it has to happen tomorrow. I was utterly devastated.
I asked what support was in place for them. There wasn't any. Then I asked a bit naively, is my role safe? I was reassured it was. So I got in my car and I did a whistle stop tour of the Southwest. One heart breaking conversation after another. Each one in a different office. Each person utterly blindsided just like I was. I did
the admin, handed in the laptops, supported them as best I could. Two days later, after I've done all of that, I was told my job was gone too. Now, to be fair, they did offer me a role at head office, but I just couldn't accept it after that because they'd lied to me. And once you've seen how a company acts when it matters, you just can't and see it again.
And here's the weird part, you know, in some way it would have felt better to do the redundancies knowing I was also on the line. I would have done the D professionally, whatever, and it would have made the conversations honest, not lopsided. Shared truth creates dignity even in the painful moments. And I share this because we talk about redundancy.
Like it's a transaction, a moment. It isn't. It's emotional. It's identity level. And it changes how you show up long after the paperwork is done. And for a lot of people, that's actually where the anxiety begins. Not when jobs go, but when the dust settles and you're still standing there trying to figure out what safety even means now.
So right behind the guilt comes the anxiety. Not dramatic shaking in a corner anxiety, but the quiet lingering kind where your whole system is on alert because part of you thinks this might actually happen again. You're relieved you're still here, but you don't fully trust the ground you're standing on. Your nervous system is in don't get too comfortable mode. And although it's high on organizational agendas,
Psychological safety is rarely considered after redundancies. Maybe you might be offered a Teams call with HR and a PDF that looks like it was made in 1998? The reality is though, they're too picking up the pieces and trying to move forward. Dealing with this sort of discomfort is messy, weird, and everyone is full of wishful thinking that it might just go away soon if only we stop talking about it.
So instead of relaxing, you start scanning. What's the next sign? Will there be another round? Who decides that? Do I need a backup plan? Your body goes into threat response while your job description still expects business as usual. It's not paranoia, it's just your nervous system doing its job. Because after a shock like that, your brain doesn't want celebration, it wants safety, context, and it wants predictability.
So if you're feeling on edge, doesn't mean something bad is coming.
It means you're operating without the information you need to stand confidently. That feeling is a signal and that's where leadership really matters. What most people need after organisational trauma isn't motivational speeches. Rather, it needs clarity, consistency.
communication that doesn't insult their intelligence. other words, leadership that tells your nervous system, you can take your hand off the fire alarm now. It's okay.
Once the fear settles, something else creeps in, doesn't it? Pressure. And it can feel like a pressure cooker in that environment because when people leave the work, doesn't. Projects don't pause. Expectations don't shrink. They just shift sideways onto the people still standing. Suddenly you're carrying two jobs, maybe even three. And you know, it's not presented as a reward to you. No one calls it an opportunity.
It's just assumed you'll take it on because that's what the team needs. And you don't want to be the one who pushes back.
And this is where people start performing at 120%, not because it makes strategic sense, but because they're trying to send a signal. I'm valuable, I'm committed, I'm safe. It looks like loyalty, but underneath it's just self-protection. You're building the boat while rowing it, while pretending to enjoy the ride. You're keeping culture afloat while also trying not to drown. And slowly you start to resent the very work that you do to care about.
Here's the truth, doing more doesn't guarantee your safety.
Often it just hides the fact that the organisation hasn't recalibrated reality in line with recalibrating their FTE.
You're a human being, not a bottomless productivity tap. So choose one thing to be visibly excellent at this month, not everything. Because impact isn't proving you can carry more. Impact is choosing what matters and making that unmistakable. And before we move on, there's a very real danger here too. What starts as a temporary response to a crisis quietly becomes the new normal.
You stretch just for now. You take on more because there's no one else. You skip breaks, delay leave, work late, smooth over gaps. Then suddenly it's not crisis behavior anymore. It's baseline expectation. The organization adjusts to your overperformance like it's the standard operating capacity.
Once that happens, pulling back looks like slacking, not restoring balance. That's when the culture starts to shift and the whole system gets shaken like a snow globe. Trust dips, whispers rise, people question leaders, team identity cracks. Everyone's trying to figure out what does this mean now?
Who are we without them? What's safe to say out loud? Culture doesn't collapse, it wobbles like the bright red jelly at a kids party wobbling on a paper plate while chaos breaks out all around it. And those wobbles need steady hands to save it.
Survivor syndrome shows up consistently across studies.
Those studies cite higher stress, lower motivation, reduced loyalty, decreased confidence and weakened team cohesion. One study found productivity can drop by a whopping 20 to 40 % after a redundancy wave, not because people don't care, but because they're emotionally overloaded and organisational clarity is collapsed. The translation is this, people don't need pizza in a town hall or a rousing speech from the CEO via Teams.
They need honesty, stability and a plan. This is where you get sharp and practical. Good leaders name the reality without spin because people can smell waffle at 50 meters. They rebuild clarity. Who owns what, what's changing, what's not. They support survivors. Yet the survivors, the people still standing are not fine.
Then they redefine priorities, cut the noise, stop expecting people to deliver the same volume with fewer people. And then finally, they check in like they mean it, not you okay, but more like what's one thing you need more clarity on this week? And this is the subject of our big conversation guide for leaders in this episode. You can download it from the show notes.
It will really help you to get clear with your team about where the priorities lie.
So we've set the scene and I know it looks bleak, but actually it doesn't need to be. Now we get personal, high impact, practical, unapologetically honest. Let's explore how you can rebuild with clarity, confidence and boundaries. First, rebuild your clarity. You need to know what's your new role now. Not last month, not pre-structure, now.
manager what are the top three outcomes you want me to prioritize in the next four to six weeks? Two, rebuild your confidence.
wave is fragile even if your job's safe. So here's your two-minute move to help you stay in control.
List the things you still do brilliantly, then just one thing you want to develop next.
This will help you recalibrate and focus on what you're really good at. That in itself will help to rebuild your confidence. And three, rebuild your boundaries. If you don't set constraints, you become the default solution. Lines that might help you with this. What things do you think should come off my plate if I take this on? Which deadline is flexible? Where does this sit in the new priorities?
These aren't rebellious, they're actually professional oxygen for you and your team. It'll prevent burnout.
In simple terms, you honor the friendship by doing your job well, not by shrinking. Send love to your friends, stay connected with them, but don't carry responsibility that isn't yours.
Caroline Esterson (14:02)
So summarizing what we've already said, firstly, do a role reset, write new top three priorities.
Number two, have a clarity chat with your manager. Number three, pick one thing to be visibly excellent at this month. And four, stop doing ghost tasks that belong to people who've left. And remember, redraw your boundaries before burnout redraws them for you.
Caroline Esterson (14:40)
So before we wrap this episode up, a quick heads up. The next five episodes are going to be a little different. We're heading into the festive season. I don't know about you, but I love a good story at this time of year. Real stories, honest stories, the kind that feel cozy, but still punch you in the face with a life lesson. So the next five episodes, we're doing Christmas stories.
each one short, hopefully delicious and full of workplace wisdom and plenty of mmm yep that really happened energy. Think Mold wine vibes meets career strategy. They're designed to be snackable, reflective and perfect for that weird time of year when you're technically still working but your brain is already in a Santa onesie curled up on the sofa with a mince pie and hot chocolate. Make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss a story because these ones are special and you might just hear yourself in them.
Now for the cheeky slap of truth. The crime.
No. Sometimes what doesn't kill you just traumatizes you quietly until you're doom scrolling indeed at midnight. So the reframe. What you go through changes you. What you choose next strengthens you.
That's up to you. It's your move to make.
So surviving a redundancy wave isn't a lucky break. It's an emotional workout no one trained you for, but staying doesn't make you guilty. It makes you a witness and a builder. You get to shape what comes next. You get to rebuild clarity, culture and connection. You get to lead differently with honesty, compassion and backbone. Small intentional moves matter.
And if you're listening to this, you're already the kind of person who rises through the messy moments. Not because it's easy, but because you actually give a damn.
Caroline Esterson (17:04)
Thank you so much for listening to Little Moves for Careers. If this episode spoke to you, share it with someone who needs it. The more we talk about this stuff out loud, the less people feel alone in it. And if your company needs help building cultures that don't actually burn out the people keeping them alive, that's exactly what we do. Workshops, speaking, leadership labs, the fun but actually useful kind. Just email me, caroline.
at inspireyourgenius.com and I'd be thrilled to chat things through with you. Right, go hit subscribe so you don't miss the first Christmas story. I promise it's better than your office secret Santa. And remember, as always, make your move, even if it's tiny, especially if it's tiny.
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