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Redundancy- Out, but not down.
June 19th, 2008
On The Job:
Redundancy- Out, but not down.
Redundancy has been an occupational hazard for 20 years, and downsizing became a global hobby in the employment market. It’s a stressful process, and a truly scary one.
But there’s another side to redundancy, and it can be a major positive, maybe even change your life for the better, if you play it right.
A few tips from experience:
Pre Redundancy:
Look around. Don’t wait for the axe to fall. Figure out how you can have the redundancy cake and eat it too.
In this case the obvious move is the right one, if you time to get the payout first. Find another job, and take the money from the redundancy with you.
(All you need to do is put your start date after your redundancy payout. Everything happens automatically.)
If you can, move upwards, otherwise move sideways, in terms of income.
It can be done, and it has been done, by many people. Give yourself enough time to do it, and it’s easy.
You can wind up a long way ahead, financially. Don’t overlook this option.
Post Redundancy
Don’t stagnate. That’s the real danger. You get rusty, your skills start to look outdated on the CV. That’s a potentially serious problem. Do something positive which you can use on your CV as an added skill or useful interest.
If you can’t get a job, get some training. Stay current, as much as you can. Training and education are legitimate reasons for gaps in the CV. They also look very good, and they do add value to your skills.
Don’t spend, if you have any choice in the matter. The money is better where it can give you some backup. Keep the bills under control, and keep it real, generally. The major risk is running out of money. Share costs, cut costs, do without things, whatever you need to do, but stay afloat.
Give yourself a goal that you actually want to achieve. This is critical. If it’s something you really want, you won’t get discouraged or bored. It can turn into a very good career move, if it relates to a personal talent.
Steer clear of the booze and anything else that cost money and paralyzes the brain. All that crap is just another way of going broke. The main difference is that you can do it a lot faster.
Job security. If you want security, (or as close as modern jobs get to it) look for jobs in big organizations with a built-in hiring program. There’s quite a few of these, like government agencies, big corporations, and other businesses which are so big they tend to do things right.
Your application winds up on a conveyor belt, but it doesn’t come off that conveyor belt until something happens about a job, one way or another.
Don’t waste time on non-jobs where you can wind up using up time and money on something that’s not paying you. No steady wage covering your costs, forget it.
The Career Angle
Redundancy is sometimes considered a real career killer.
Not true.
To make a career you have to move on, anyway. Nobody makes a career out of standing still in their professions. Millions of people have been made redundant. There’s no real impact on a career except the time factor.
Get the brain in gear, and make the career move you were intending to make anyway. Just crash through the situation, in the direction you were intending to go. Do it right, and you might make a really good move.
Career change approach
Career change is a form of jumping ship. It can work, and often does. If you’ve got options, use them. Redundancies do have the effect of allowing you to change careers. Sometimes getting out of an industry that’s doing big cutbacks is a very good idea, so the redundancy may be getting you off a sinking ship.
This is a real, workable, option, for most people, although not many take it up. If you’ve got the capital, and a realistic business opportunity, you could do a lot worse. If you have a business idea that will bring in at least some money, you’ve at least got a good sideline, cutting costs.
Never mind the psychoanalysis and jingles.
Redundancy is a problem that needs to be buried before it becomes a problem. If you can use it for something good, it’s an asset, not a liability.
Hit the ground running, and don’t stop running until you’re sure you’ve got somewhere. It can involve a bit of hard work, but you can come out in front, in one piece, and much better than when you started.
Also from personal experience:
There are people in this world who’ve taken several redundancies, one after the other. They’ve not only kept the money, they’ve got good jobs, paid off their houses, and are living very well indeed.
Really, redundancy can be the best thing that ever happened to you.
One Response to “Redundancy- Out, but not down.”
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July 9th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Excellent advice! Many people have found that redundancy is just the jolt they have needed to take some action to push their careers forward.
It can be a bit of a tightrope, but as you say properly managed it can be an opportunity to get both a new job and an injection of capital.
If you do find yourself out of work as a result of redundancy make sure to use the time to good advantage.
It is a really good idea to try to get some additional qualifications. This can be helpful on several fronts. Obviously it will give you the advantage of additional training. Also, it will demonstrate something about you as a person, that you are pro-active person and always seeking new opportunities to increase your skills and knowledge base.