Friendly Fired: Setting Up a Redundancy Support Group

A redundancy support group is for colleagues who have been made redundant from an organisation at roughly the same time, although there is some fluidity in that some people may join and others leave over the lifespan of the group.

Many of the difficulties people face having been made redundant are practical and emotional. Peer support helps individuals to overcome both. The practical, in terms of supporting each other through the change with advice or ideas, the emotional by helping people through the loneliness, loss of confidence or motivation and, in some cases, anger. Emotional departure does not always happen at the same time as physical departure and the time lag can be difficult to cope with, causing a sense of isolation and possibly strong feelings of need for affiliation as well as rejection. Being able to maintain the connection with the company through other leavers can ease the transition.

Peer pressure helps individuals to move forward