Research: Threat of another shutdown does lasting harm

WASHINGTON — For federal workers, these intervening weeks between the end of the longest partial government shutdown in U.S. history and the looming Feb. 15 deadline for funding the government might seem like a temporary reprieve. They’re at work, their paychecks are back on track and they’re busy catching up on work that went unfinished during the 35-day furlough.

But research by management experts shows that the threat of imminent uncertainty at work — such as a furlough, a layoff or other stressful workplace event — can be just as fraught to workers as the event itself.

“Psychologically, they’re exactly the same thing — the threat of the event happening and the actual event happening,” said Anthony Wheeler, a management professor at West Chester University in Pennsylvania who has studied workers who have undergone the traumas of furloughs as well as the threat of a layoff.

“The more an organization announces something is going to happen, the more that gets ‘decoupled’ from the event itself,” he explained.

In other words, the barrage of media coverage, tweets from President Donald Trump, communication from their bosses and chatter about the pending deadline surrounding the State of the Union address can make the threat feel just as real. In Trump’s speech Tuesday night, it came up again: “Congress has 10 days left to pass a bill that will fund our government, protect our homeland, and secure our very dangerous southern border.”

Said Wheeler: “The announcements become shocks themselves.”

Research, he said, has found similarities between furloughs and layoffs, even if layoffs mean a more permanent loss of income and job security, while a furlough is temporary.