CAN YOU PROTECT YOURSELF FROM A LAYOFF?
Steps you can take to Avoid being laid off.
Layoffs and cuts back are forecast through out every US industry. If one believes this view of the employment future, how should you prepare? If you feel you are at risk, what can you do to manage the threat?
Middle Managers and Top Sales Executives are typically the first to go. Their jobs are easily spread among others or disappeared completely. And their job titles represent the most common in corporate America. How do you protect yourself from being one of the many? How do you make certain you can find another job?
How do you protect your job?
If decisions are made to cut the product or team, you have little recourse. But there are steps to take to remove the bulls eye from your back:Your first defense against a layoff is to make absolutely certain you are doing your job to the best of your ability and you are exceeding corporate expectations. Ask your manager what you can do better. Then do it.
- Look for ways to save money in your department. Demonstrate fiscal responsibility and help your employees do the same. Let management know what you are doing and offer to help other departments do the same.
- Look around the company to discover vital tasks that need doing and which will contribute to the bottom line in either savings or new customer acquisition.
- Keep in mind your customers are having similar problems. Propose ways to partner with them to prevent a crisis.
- Suggest ideas which are vital to improving the products or services the company sells at little or no cost.
- Work hard to demonstrate your concern for customer retention. Sell your ideas on how better to service the customer base without spending more money.
- Communicate your efforts to other departments and become known within the corporation as the go-to person for mentoring and solutions critical to keeping the company on track.
- Take credit when you do any of the above and let management know you are vital to the corporate mission.
- Last, but not least, now is the time to network, network, network. When the time comes, you will already have a leg up on the competiton.
It happened: Often you have no way to protect yourself from a layoff. Here’s what you can do to make yourself employable even in a down market filled with many others after the same spot you hope to land.
- Ascertain what distinguishes you from all the other candidates who do what you do. Lead with it as you approach opportunities.
- Determine the single highest priority hiring companies look for in a new hire in your position. Define yourself as the embodiment of that priority.
- Line up your references to taut your abilities and experience in that area.
- Target companies smaller than the one you left and represent yourself as an expert who can not only do the job, but as someone who can train and cross train the department to weather the downturn in business.
Above all else, always appear confident. Remind yourself daily of your successes and remember it is the economy, not your abilities that caused your unemployment. Self assured people always get top consideration for new opportunities regardless of the employment market.
Themocracy