Numb HR

Recently I was one of the hundreds of HR pros working through brutal RIFs in 2022. From Netflix to Tesla and even the start ups I’ve worked for, HR pros sat across from leadership that told us we needed to cut costs by cutting people.

The world watched as companies sent a mass email, had employees join a mass Zoom call, or simply cut IT access without explanation. People around the world witnessed our profession demoralize and dehumanize their workforces in one of the most vulnerable phases of the employee lifecycle.

We watched, in real time, as HR traumatized people for life.

And then there were companies not in the news, filled with behind the scenes HR warriors battling for one on one layoff conversations, placement services, Cobra reimbursements, larger severance packages, and basic human decency.

In February I worked alongside epic HR teammates and business leaders that filled an entire day with one to one layoff conversations that were soul sucking, painful, and unforgettable. Once those conversations were over I jumped on with the People Operations team to be sure we paid these impacted employees accurately and quickly.

And then I logged off and cried like every other person on the team.

Let me be very clear - RIFs are always harder for impacted employees than they are for the employer. As awful as good HR feels about coordinating RIFs, people losing their jobs and their benefits are in much worse circumstances. Let us be sure our HR trauma does not warp the true victims in these scenarios - the employees.

As other RIFs began to explode across our LinkedIn feeds like tiny bombs of employee destruction, it became evident to me that companies executing this life-changing news in unacceptable ways were filled with Numb HR.

Coping Mechanisms

Our brains are these really miraculous machines wired to protect us at all times, at all costs, no matter what rational thoughts we have. Mayra Mendez, PhD, LMFT explains emotional numbness in this article as: “[Emotional Numbness] is the mental and emotional process of shutting out feelings and may be experienced as deficits of emotional responses or reactivity.” The article goes on to state: “Quite often, feeling numb is temporary. However, for some, emotional numbness becomes a strategy to protect themselves from further emotional or physical pain.”

When we look at companies laying off hundreds of employees in these barbaric ways, it indicates to the HR world that our fellow HR warriors in those companies are wholly, and collectively, Numb. To allow mass emails or zoom calls to communicate life changing news proves HR pros numbed themselves from how the employee would feel entirely. Leaders and HR pros around the world used a coping mechanism to get through these decisions and that coping mechanism wrecked thousands of people in 2022.

Come Back Home

Whether Emotional Numbness has been caused by the immense trauma HR pros have been facing since 2020, or personal trauma that almost all humans experience throughout their lifetime, the repercussions of not addressing this numbness is catastrophic.

If you find yourself unable to fight like hell for employees, to raise your voice to its highest volume in the boardroom when RIF discussions are happening, to set hard boundaries as a professional that indicate to leadership you will not participate in primitive practices, then it might be time to come back home.

Home to the real reason you got into this thing we call a career; home to the heart of your HR practice and your life’s work; home to your humanity.

There’s Help

I remember telling my therapist after the first RIF, “I don’t really feel the sun shining anymore. It’s like the world is muted, the colors are muted, and I’m this massively productive human that cannot feel anything during the day.” From personal and professional trauma in 2022 alone, I felt my brain protecting itself by slipping into that numb state.

And together we worked to get those feelings back, even the difficult ones like anger, frustration, despair. Feeling those emotions about decisions being made at work helped me come back home to why I do this HR thing - the people over profit mission I’ve committed to since day one.

For me, being open to my support system about feeling numb, engaging in physical activity six days a week, sleeping regularly, and getting outside were some of the practical things that helped me return to myself. While your de-numbing, re-feeling process may look different, I need you to know that there is help, warrior.

We must fight to feel, friends. We must stay in this painful, beautiful fight and allow those feelings to produce the best HR work of our careers. It’s time.