It’s not true…being made redundant IS personal!

“Don’t worry, if you get laid off, it’s not personal, it is just a business making necessary cuts”

Rubbish!

Redundancy is not decided by a machine, or robots, or some mechanical process where names are randomly selected – the decision to make someone redundant is made by people, and it completely personal!

There is no doubting, that for some people – being made redundant is a blessing;

• it frees them up from a job they dislike, and
• puts some money in their pocket, and
• gives them some freedom!

But when the decision is made, it involves people sitting around a table, being asked to select the members of their team that they can afford to ‘let go’

So, if you are one of those lucky people that love yur job, and are passionate about your work; then the good news is that there is little chance that you will be ‘on the list’ to go…if however, you do not like your work, but you need the income, and so you ‘just turn up’ then do not be surprised when you get called into the meeting room to be told the news “sorry, we longer need you…but it is not personal, just the business making some necessary cost reductions!”

Let me tell you, if you need your current job, and you do not have a personal brand – then you need to start developing one now!

I would recommend trying these steps (if it not too late)

• Work out what it is you love about your job – then volunteer to do more of it!
• Decide who the decision makers are in your business, and get to know them better – do not suck up, but think of ways you can help them achieve their objectives,
• Look to serve..serve customers or your colleagues, either way, you do not do your job JUST for yourself – practice a service attitude, not a selfish attitude, and look to serve customers or colleagues more!
• Being GREAT is cool – but the other 95% of your colleagues are also GREAT…you also need to be POPULAR; people need to know you, and they need to know what you do..so rewrite your job description, and let others know what it is you do?
• Be more interesting, and take more interest..read more, and share your findings and learning’s with others.  Ask others how they are going, and what they did for their weekend?
• Take an interest in others by recommending a reading list on the subject they are interested in!

There are so many other tactics you can use to raise your profile, and reinforce your personal brand…just remember that being made redundant IS PERSONAL, so if you need your job…get to work on the other important part of your job – YOU!

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Tags: Decision making, Employment, Job description, Layoff
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 at 3:34 am and is filed under Executives. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.