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. 2017 Sep 29;17(1):758.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-017-4789-3.

Risk of psychological ill health and methods of organisational downsizing: a cross-sectional survey in four European countries

Elena Andreeva  1 , M Harvey Brenner  2   3 , Töres Theorell  4 , Marcel Goldberg  5   6
Affiliations

Risk of psychological ill health and methods of organisational downsizing: a cross-sectional survey in four European countries

Elena Andreeva et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: The manner in which organizational downsizing is implemented can make a substantial difference as to whether the exposed workers will suffer from psychological ill health. Surprisingly, little research has directly investigated this issue. We examined the likelihood of psychological ill health associated with strategic and reactive downsizing.

Methods: A cross-sectional survey included 1456 respondents from France, Sweden, Hungary and the United Kingdom: 681 employees in stable workplaces (reference group) and 775 workers from downsized companies. Reactive downsizing was exemplified by the exposures to compulsory redundancies of medium to large scale resulting in job loss or surviving a layoff while staying employed in downsized organizations. The workforce exposed to strategic downsizing was represented by surplus employees who were internally redeployed and supported through their career change process within a policy context of "no compulsory redundancy". Symptoms of anxiety, depression and emotional exhaustion were assessed in telephone interviews with brief subscales from Hospital Anxiety Scale (HADS-A), Hopkins Symptom Checklist (SCL-CD6) and Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI-GS). Data were analyzed using logistic regression.

Results: We observed no increased risk of psychological ill health in the case of strategic downsizing. The number of significant associations with psychological ill health was the largest for the large-scale reactive downsizing: surviving a layoff was consistently associated with all three outcome measures; returning to work after the job loss experience was related to anxiety and depression, while persons still unemployed at interview had elevated odds of anxiety. After reactive medium-scale downsizing, unemployment at interview was the only exposure associated with anxiety and depression.

Conclusions: The manner in which organizational downsizing is implemented can be important for the psychological wellbeing of workers. If downsizing is unavoidable, it should be achieved strategically. Greater attention is needed to employment and health policies supporting the workers after reactive downsizing.

Keywords: Cross-sectional survey; European countries; Psychological ill health; Reactive downsizing; Returning to work; Strategic downsizing; Surviving a layoff; Unemployment.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

All participants of the Restructuring Survey received an invitation letter with information about the study and provided their written informed consent in accordance with the Helsinki declaration. The national parts of the survey were approved by the respective research ethics committees: Tudományos Kutatás Etikai Bizottság in Budapest (the Scientific Research Ethics Committee, Ref.no: TUKEB 187/2008), the Regional Research Ethics Committee in Stockholm (Ref.no: 2009/337–32), the Research Ethics Committee of Kingston University in London (approval from January 22, 2010). The French survey received approval from the “Comité Consultatif sur le Traitement de l’Information en matière de Recherches dans le domaine de la Santé (CCTIRS)” of the Ministry of Research (March 12, 2009) and the legal authorization of the “Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL)” on April 23, 2009.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Flow chart: selection and participation in Restructuring Survey
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