T.E.A.M. Employee Assistance Offers Some Solution Focused Counseling

        As Life at DaimlerChrysler Goes On, What About the Survivors?

    TROY, Mich., March 27 Remember what you felt when you
heard just a week or so ago about those laid-off DaimlerChrysler employees who
asked "Why me?"
    Good news.  Many of them are already beginning to get the short-term help
they need from a Troy-based company, Total Employee Assistance & Management,
Inc. (T.E.A.M.), a leading provider of employee assistance programs and crisis
counseling.
    These dislocated employees and their families are in the process of
searching for answers to make sense of it all.  Even while they are receiving
help in a number of areas, like getting their financial house in order and
looking for a new position or occupation, they must also move past the shock
of being forced out of their jobs.
    The laid-off DaimlerChrysler employees and their families are already
strengthening their mental fitness at special T.E.A.M. solution focused
counseling and by attending a number of different transitional workshops.
    But what about the so-called "survivors," the people working next to empty
cubicles and eating lunch at half-filled tables?  Many of them are wracked
with doubts and worries.  Even though they still have jobs, they could be
suffering from fearfulness, apprehension, sadness, helplessness, and even
guilt.  Weighed against this is a sense of relief.  They, after all, survived.
    "High seniority people are especially at risk for having such feelings,"
says Kent Sharkey, President and CEO of T.E.A.M., a psychotherapist and
employee assistance expert whose organization has helped almost 100 companies
during the last 12 years, while providing assistance and counseling services
to some of Michigan's largest employers and approximately 300,000 employees
and family members throughout the United States.
    "Even after years of valuable service to their company, the veteran
employees now feel anyone is vulnerable," explains Sharkey.  "This is
unfortunate, because most companies look for concrete ways to improve their
situations as they redefine themselves and get back on track.  This process,
unfortunately, produces significant changes in organizations and processes."
    "As for the survivors, they are now going through a powerful process of
second guessing," says Sharkey.  "Is this over?, they ask.  Or maybe they
wonder if they are next to be let go.  The overriding fear is the appearance
that all the survivors are vulnerable.  Why not?  They are surrounded by
physical signs such as the empty cubicles and they witness the flux and change
in the departmental culture, and the lessening of close friendships and
relationships."
    "Most glaring, on a personal level, is a tangible that is hardly uncommon
in today's workplace," counsels Sharkey.  "They equate their luck in surviving
with what invariably happens to them personally, being concerned that they may
be told to take on an increased workload.  They have to shift into a new gear
of trying to embrace the change, and get on with it."
    "It's as simple as this," says Sharkey.  "They survived, and the company
expects more from them.  They need to come to grips with this, too.  People
must actively work through their feelings.  This will lead to decreased
anxiety and a return to a reasonably normal professional life."
    What does Sharkey advise in this complex situation?  "The survivors need
to manage their feelings or their feelings will start to manage them.  In
other words, they need to move out of their feelings of shock and fear.  If
they are fortunate enough to be offered an Employee Assistance Plan, they
should take advantage of it, quickly.  Most such programs are promoted by the
companies themselves through their human resources departments or through
contracted Employee Assistance Program providers."
    "We are just one such resource.  Our counseling is a proven, effective
tool that brings unconditional, unbiased support to the dislocated and
surviving, and to their families," says Sharkey.
    "Companies interested in our Employee Assistance services should call
1-800-448-TEAM."