A case study of sensemaking during the trauma and healing of organizational change

Layoffs pose significant challenges for organizations, as employees must collectively make sense of traumatic change while continuing to work together. Drawing on data from meetings and follow-up interviews, this study examined how employees processed uncertainty, avoided blame, coped with survivors' guilt, and used work to manage emotional strain. Over time, they attempted to construct a ‘new normal’, but their communication revealed ongoing disturbances in healing. The findings extend communication research by emphasizing the iterative, identity-driven, and emotionally complex nature of sensemaking during and after change, illustrating how healing is nonlinear and marked by both progress and disruption. Meetings emerged as key sites for collective emotional sensemaking. Practically, the findings suggest ways that leaders can avoid superficial symbolic gestures and instead foster ongoing dialogue, emotional processing, and collective accountability. Meaning-making during change should be understood as a participatory process that unfolds over time, requiring leaders to accommodate divergent experiences and emotions.