With more people unemployed than at any other point in my career, I wake up most days thankful that I’ve got a good job. The one thing not so good about it is the responsibility I feel when we need to cut jobs and tell employees they no longer have theirs. The feeling of guilt was at its highest when I told a friend of mine two weeks ago that we no longer had a job for him.

I hired him a year ago. He is a leader at the church and with my son’s Boy Scout troop. The writing was on the wall a couple of months ago that his job may not last, but I held out hope we could avoid letting him go. We couldn’t.

I remain sick over bringing a friend to the company only to tell him a year later that we don’t have a job for him anymore. Ultimately, my responsibility is first to the company. Radiant can’t be a great company for people to work for unless it is first a strong company. That means when times are tough we may need to reduce the number of employees. Almost every employee will be the friend of some other employee, just as the one who I gave the bad news to was for me.

The stories we read today belong more with black and white images on a yellowed newspaper. Headlines are nothing compared with seeing someone you respect and admire lose his or her ability to earn a living. I have no experience managing in times that resemble a depression, and that causes me hesitation and guilt when I make decisions to eliminate jobs. Reducing the size of our workforce is a last resort, but it’s a resort I feel we must visit no matter who it affects.

When I gave my friend the news last week, he reminded me why I have always admired him. I felt like he was consoling me more than I was him. I needed it.

This entry was posted by Andy Heyman, Chief Operating Officer on Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 at 8:05 am and is filed under Executive. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.