Often, the labor market’s dynamic puts us in huge transition processes that can be caused by external, uncontrollable factors. The changes of social systems, war, conflicts of state, regional or world crisis, natural disasters and pandemic diseases are part of the challenges that we’ve seen influence the organizational work.

Moreover, this process of change from one way of functioning (before the factor) to a different one (during and after the new factor) leads us to define this process as transition.

Once a transition happens, the individual is placed in a condition of imbalance and preparation for restoring the balance once again. In the same way, these transitions we mentioned influence the organizational work, which as a separate entity needs to create a managing strategy. Organizations are created and led by people who can’t be completely separated from their experiences during the process. Thus, this brings us to one of the greatest challenges – controlling the human factor and being objective while making and delivering organizational decisions during the transition period.

One of the basic psychological occurrences that marks the human experience of the environment and the events are human emotions. They are, without a doubt, the moving factor in the protection from danger but can also become a threat to our functioning especially, when our consciousness becomes narrow and we start acting prematurely. In the long run this can lead to negative consequences.

Furthermore, when there’s a process of transition in the organizational work, emotions can appear on any level – fear of the unknown (one of the first emotions that appears in the human life in general), anger and rage because of the lost comfort, sadness – if there are negative information after the individual’s actions (employee cuts or blocked hiring, etc.) and hope for a positive outcome. Nonetheless, the managerial function has a responsibility for making and communicating important decisions and is one of the most complex categories that activate in times like these thus, having a timely understanding of the challenge is especially important.

Salary and wage cuts, employee dismissals, forced vacations, technological dismissals, food and commute cuts, work in shifts and change of teams are just a part of the negative effects of the transition which the management has to make to keep the company. If the managerial function, allows emotions to take over the decision making process and doesn’t focus on the facts, numbers, rationale and optimal projections the effect can be noticed on an individual level.

These decisions can affect any employees directly, the employee and the manager on an interpersonal level and it can influence the company’s activities – that have to continue as usual even after the transition.

Undoubtedly, all of the above mentioned emotions are also felt by managers - however, their role implies a maturity in handling new situations as well as emotional intelligence for feeling their own and recognizing other people’s emotions. This emotional intelligence, as the most important work function predetermines the making and delivering of decisions.

In accordance to this, the tactic of “count to ten”, calmness and awareness of their own feelings as well as external help in the form of psychotherapy or counseling are key for proper behavior and implementation of decisions in the transitioning period.

Let’s not forget that after the transition there’s a period of re-establishing the entire functioning. For all of us, this represents an opportunity to build anew our autonomous business place in the sun that can be seen through how we handled the challenging period -  in terms of our capabilities and the existing comfort zone. And is there a bigger reward in the organizational work besides setting an example for the next generation?

This text is originally published in the new HR portal www.24hr.mk