So you are humming right along in these poor economic times and you are feeling pretty good about yourself, your life, your family and your job...when all of the sudden your entire department/team/office gets the ax...CHOP!
Yes, this can happen to you, at anytime and at any level within an organization. It is an immediate zero-sum scenario as the company obtains financial gain by not paying for an employee and the employee obtains financial loss by not being paid by the company. But it stops being zero-sum very soon for the company as they shift your work to other departments/teams/employees thus retaining results but paying less to achieve the results...yea for the company...boo for the employee.
So what happened? Could have this been prevented? Can't I work for less? What do I do now? All valid questions which you may or may not have the answers. To help with the how and why, it is best to understand the most important thing to any organization...the bottom-line. No matter if it's a for-profit company, non-profit organization or a government agency...they ALL have budgets to manage and a executives, Board of Directors, possibly shareholders and Wall Street to please. So for all of these decisions made at the top...you get the chop! Despite what your organization says, no organization exists for the benefit of the employee, they exist for a higher purpose called money. Without money no organization can exist, plain and simple. So when business is slow, budgets are reduced and bottom-lines are affected, the single biggest cost to an organization is it's labor...here comes that ax again...CHOP! For many organizations, the cost of an employee to a company does not stop with a salary, it extends to the multitude of benefits and taxes that are paid by the employer for the benefit of the employee...this adds up to big bucks and big savings when an employee is axed...look out! CHOP!
So at the high-level you know understand the whys. So what happens in this type of scenario and can you spot it ahead of time? Possibly, you can spot this ahead of time by noticing a significant shifting of work and employees from your department/team to other places. This can be the single most glaring warning...so watch for it. Also, don't be lured into false hope when the yearly holiday party has not been cancelled, that would be too easy since most organizations keep everything scheduled as is until the official announcement takes place and only then do they start cancelling events and changing a schedule. The entire office of yours truly was chopped in the tech bubble THE day of the office holiday party and one week before Christmas...I thought the axe at the office was for chopping down a tree, guess I was wrong. On that day, when everyone brought in gifts and food, the regional VP called each one of us into his office one at a time to deliver the blow...CHOP, CHOP, CHOP, CHOP, CHOP, etc, etc. The VP was not happy about this at all since many of the employees were people he has known for many years from his previous company. Lucky for us there was a nice severance and they permitted us to use company assets, laptop, software the office for another two weeks after the holiday. I wasn't upset about being let go, but more surprised they couldn't wait until after the holidays, but year end is year end and they obviously wanted to make this round of cuts before the end of the year. Needless to say ts was a downer of a holiday mainly for my family, but not necessarily for me. I could have been a scrooge and cancelled Christmas but I chose to forge on ahead as if nothing had happened. While we were away seeing extended family I brought my laptop, tweaked my resume and started some target searches for a job. Being end of the year I knew the pickings would be slim, so I mainly focused on the resume and contacting a few people in my network. After the holidays I went full steam ahead armed with a new attitude, optimism and a tweaked resume...my preparation and efforts yielded two interviews and two corresponding job offers!
So the question is how did I do this during the tech bubble bust? Did I recognize the writing on the wall? Yes and no...I recognized more on a macro-level that the high-flying tech era could not last and I wanted to be POSITIONED in an location that was resistant to job loss with greater OPPORTUNITIES, which is why I negotiated a move packege when I was hired with the company to be moved to another office. What I didn't see was the when...I really thought it was going to be another quarter or two before something might happen...after all they just paid for me to move here about three months ago. I was wrong on the when, but fortunately I was right on the macro and the decision to move to a more job-friendly area. I created this successful rebound by POSITIONING myself to take advantage of OPPORTUNITIES...are you seeing the words in caps? POSITION and OPPORTUNITIES...you must put yourself in one to take advatage of the other. When you do this you can easily rebound from many adversities in the job market. Many people are not able to take advantage of such a scenario and it is very possible I might not be able to repeat if it where to happen again. That said, I have the experience and the warning signs to look for in case it does. So this leads us to the next question...is there anything you can do to stop it...no, but you should take the following steps to ensure you are protected in the event of a lay-off:
* Review and update your base-line resume with all of your accomplishments and important qualifications.
* Make yourself indispensable to your company.
* make yourself available to new opportunities in your company.
* Declare yourself travel-enabled to your company...100% if necessary.
* If you feel you are at risk, start researching companies you would like to work for.
* If the axe is imminent then start applying to other companies.
* Keep your options open and be willing to move to another location.
* Keep your eyes and ears open around the office and look for signs of impending doom.
The bottom-line is to treat this event the same as the company does...business...don't get upset, depressed or pessimistic...the company is doing you a favor by creating a new opportunity in your life. Life is an adventure...have fun!
