S'poreans on the difficult, but not impossible experience of moving on from being retrenched

"The announcement, you get it in the morning, by the end of the day your computer's gone, your email is terminated — super efficient."

Nigel Chua | March 25, 2023, 10:25 AM

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Retrenchment can be a difficult and emotional experience. In this article, we explore different perspectives on retrenchment from those who have experienced it firsthand.

Hear from two workers who experienced retrenchment, and a career coach, as they offer tips for coping with the stress and uncertainty of getting laid off, along with their advice for those who have friends or family members who have been laid off.


James (not his real name) got retrenched in late 2022.

The Singaporean, in his twenties, was one of several workers in the tech industry who found themselves without a job as giants like Shopee, Amazon, and Twitter laid off employees here and abroad.

He recalled a senior person announcing the layoffs in a tone he described as robotic. James mimed the voice, deadpan:

"'It's a very very difficult decision for us', 'We need to stay vigilant' — things you should be saying with a lot of heart, but [were said with] no heart."

Then, James remembered being ushered into a room in the office with other workers, where those being laid off would be called one by one to return company equipment.

The process was "very quick, very fast, and very very efficient."

"The announcement, you get it in the morning, by the end of the day your computer's gone, your email is terminated — super efficient."

The retrenchment exercise was carried out somewhat coldly and impersonally.

Surprisingly, James said he didn't mind at all.

He explained that this was not the first batch of layoffs in the company, and he was somewhat prepared that he might be among the next to go.

Moving on quickly

James noted that others might have different priorities after getting retrenched, but said he was clear about his: To quickly secure a new job.

"I knew exactly what I had to do. The first thing I did was to update my resume, and after that, look at LinkedIn, look at all the job sites, and then just send, send, send, send, send."

"Don't take a break first, chiong first," was James' advice to young workers in his position.

In other words, secure a job first, and then negotiate a start date that will allow for some personal time.

As it was, by the time he went home on the same day he got retrenched, James was already prepared to break the bad news to his parents with a soft landing in the form of an update on his applications for new jobs.

Still, he was careful to manage their expectations.

"You don't want it to make it sound like you're one of a few, the lousy one. So you know you kind of oversell it like, 'oh, yeah, it's very bad. A lot of people got retrenched, you know?'"

The fact that he was scheduled for an interview the very next day did help assuage their worries too.

James also pointed out that while he applied for jobs rapidly, when it came time to think about accepting offers, he was more prudent.

"For me, luckily, because I've got some savings, I was not in a rush," he said. "I didn't want to take the first [job offer] that comes through the door, because it's not an emergency for me."

James' retrenchment was one with an obvious silver lining — his new role is in a new industry, one where he is more confident of future prospects, and with higher pay to boot.

Retrenchment as a "fine art"

For Richard Koh, however, the experience was quite different.

In 2016, he was let go from a company where he'd worked for 10 years.

Koh explained that among his former colleagues, there was an unspoken understanding about retrenchment.

For some, getting retrenched was "not about whether you're good or not".

Rather, it was simply a matter of company restructuring according to its business needs, something he and his teammates had witnessed multiple times — "kind of a normal thing that happens."

"In a sense they made retrenchment a fine art," the 61-year-old mused.

Compared to James' experience, Koh's retrenchment was conducted with greater sensitivity — he was asked into a meeting room to speak with his immediate supervisor privately, and was given some latitude to decide how and when to break the news to his team.

But even with all of this, it was a difficult experience — one that he had been dreading.

"The fear of retrenchment actually comes with your age, and also comes with your own personal situation," said Koh.

Age not seen as a quality

Koh, who was 54 when he got retrenched, explained how age has a bearing on how one deals with retrenchment.

"When you are in your 50s you always have this uneasy feeling about when is your turn.

Maybe people don't see age as a quality, but as a bit of a liability? Because if you could retrench someone who's older, or more senior, you can hire two young people."

Koh called this mentality "false wisdom" while acknowledging its prevalence in some companies.

He's seen how it leads some to think that when one hits the age of 50, they should "tread softly, don't make too much noise, don't create problems for people, do your job."

However, knowing one may soon be retrenched does little to dull the sense of dread, Koh said.

Koh recalled his immediate thoughts when he was told he had to be let go.

"It's like a blow to your confidence. You thought you were doing okay," he reflected.

"To question, 'Whoa, did I do something wrong?' would be a natural reaction."

A question of identity

"Most of us identify ourselves with our jobs. So when a job loss happens, it's also an issue where [retrenched workers] feel that their identity has also been shaken up," Yogeswary Nithiah Nandan, 41, explained.

"As a result, they begin to have a lot of self-doubts," added the senior career coach at the Employment and Employability Institute (e2i) who's worked with no small number of retrenched workers in her eight years in the field.

"Why was it me, and not someone else?" is a thought many retrenched workers struggle with, she elaborates.

"It will take them some time to see it in a more objective manner rather than think of it like it was very personal."

Sensitivity is important

Her training and experience point to the importance of treating a retrenched worker with empathy.

"Whether it's on a day, or whether it's a week later or a month later, I think it's very important to be very sensitive to them. We should never go and say something inappropriate, like, 'Oh, it's okay.'"

And while workers may have retrenchment benefits, that can be a sensitive topic too, Yoges cautioned.

"Never go and tell them, 'Okay lah, now you got this amount already,'" she said, explaining that even those receiving considerable retrenchment payouts may have questions or worries that their payouts can't solve.

"If you have nothing appropriate to say it's better to just keep quiet and just let them speak," she said, before one starts to talk about how to help them move forward.

Circumstances and benefits

Retrenchment benefits do help cushion the blow, of course.

While each company's practices may vary, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) website states that the "prevailing norm" for retrenchment benefits lies in the range of two weeks to a month of salary for each year of service, though this depends on the company’s financial position and the industry.

Employees' compensation for loss of employment are not taxable, and there is no need to pay CPF contributions.

For Koh, whose company paid out a month per year, his retrenchment benefit was 10 months' salary — enough to comfortably pay the bills for around a year.

Instead of seeking out new employment, Koh went on to fulfil a longtime dream by starting a cold brew coffee business with his wife. The couple have since sold their shares to a partner.

The experience running the small business was a big example of how retrenchment opened doors for Koh, and one he looks back on with fondness.

What helped was that Koh's children were already grown up, and he had one less thing to worry about.

It's not difficult to imagine how this would be different for a parent with young children from a single-income household, for example.

Advice

James, Koh, and Yoges each shared their advice for those who have recently been retrenched.

Do ask for help

"You should not be shy to ask for help. And I'm not only talking about assistance in terms of employment or financial, but I'm also talking about support — speak to somebody, because it's it's something you're actually going through," said Yoges.

She points to the importance of taking good care of oneself, and making sure one has avenues for support.

"If you are feeling stressed, you should speak to a friend or family member.

Why I'm saying this is because some people might feel, 'Oh, should I tell? How will I be seen?'"

This is especially so in cases where a retrenched person's primary social circle was their friends at work.

Take a step back

James, now employed by another company, looked back on his retrenchment as an important wake-up call.

"It's very common for a lot people to have a kind of tunnel vision of the work we need to do. We can tend to be not very aware of the direction of the entire industry."

"On hindsight, maybe we could have been more self-aware," he said, reflecting on how the end of Covid-19 restrictions meant a dip in demand for tech solutions like the one his company provided, since people were resuming more physical meetings and activities.

This was what led him to seek out opportunities in other industries, and fortunately, he found one that recognised his past experience and allowed him to apply what he'd learnt from his previous work.

Don't think retrenchment affects your employability

James, not being particularly emotionally attached to his job, was willing to speak with others about his experience getting laid off.

"I don't openly advertise it to the whole world that I'm retrenched. [But] if people ask me, then I'll tell them lah."

He observed that friends and acquaintances had a variety of responses to the news, jokingly saying that some seemed more concerned about the situation than he was. But one thing stood out:

"[Whether] you're retrenched or not, it's not really like, 'Oh, you are a failure.' It's more like, 'wah, sian', you know?"

Meanwhile, Yoges said that she'd never heard of a job-seeker getting rejected solely because they were retrenched.

If anything, with the pandemic and structural shifts in the economy, employers are more open to hiring workers who have been laid off, even if they are from a different industry, she said, citing the example of air crew joining the healthcare industry when air travel ground to a halt in 2020.

Yoges also commented favourably on a recent phenomenon of retrenched employees posting their contact details on LinkedIn, stating simply that they'd been laid off and were looking for work.

Besides the benefit of making new connections through such posts, Yoges pointed to the emotional support, saying:

"They would have also felt supported when they see messages [such as] 'Oh, what happened? My company's hiring'.

I did read a few encouraging messages. And I think that would also be helpful for those who have been laid off."

Know your options

Koh's advice: "You have to be clear in your mind. What do you want to do?"

"Some people will say, okay, maybe I will got to another industry, do something different. Or it could be [like] for me; I was thinking I'll stay in the industry and just reach out to other people in the same industry and see if there are job opportunities."

But Koh had always wished to have a small business. "Maybe it's time I should go to give it a try. After all, what have I got to lose?" he remembered thinking.

In Koh's opinion, this process of exploring options can, and should start even if one is not at risk of being retrenched at all.

"It's good to ask the question to yourself: 'If I was retrenched, what am I gonna do?' It's not something that you would think about in the past, but in the current climate [you should]."

Top image by Adrien Olichon on Unsplash