Made redundant? If you followed this plan, you’ll be back at work faster
Posted on 11:58am, 5th April 2010 • 1 Comment
You manage potential workplace risks by planning ahead, so always have a plan in place to protect you against the risk of being made redundant.
In every job you legitimately have access to so much of the information that would be gold dust to you if you were made redundant. There’ll be contact details (home and business) of colleagues, suppliers, professional associations, training bodies and so on. You’ll have kept brief notes about conversations you’ve had with these people, tips they’ve passed on to you, help you’ve given them. All of this is part of the normal traffic of working life. Transferring such non-confidential data onto your home PC shouldn’t upset anyone.
If you’re unlucky enough to be made redundant, though, that information could shrink the time you spend hunting down the next good job.
You want to know how to set up a database so you can manage your job search project effectively now you’ve been made redundant? No problem – you go to your PC and look up X who’s a whiz at setting up databases, has heard you’ve been made redundant and wants to help but couldn’t think how until you rang him. As X sorts out your database, he passes on useful job search tips picked up during his own experience of being made redundant a couple of years ago.
You’ve seen a job advertised that might be right for you but the ad’s too short on facts to tell? Again, you go to your PC and find Z who works for another branch of that company in a similar role; she’ll talk you through the skill sets needed to succeed in the job and the salary range likely to be offered.
You want advice on which recruitment consultancies are worth talking to about your job hunt? While we’d generally not advise that you rely on recruitment consultancies to find you a job, your PC lists 10 contacts able to recommend or warn against many of the different recruitment consultancies you’re considering.
Try to keep in touch with all your contacts often enough to build up a mutual friendliness. Think about what types of help you can conveniently give that have high value for particular individuals (eg commenting on a new graduate’s CV from the perspective of a potential employer won’t take you much time but will reassure both the grad and their worried parents). Email the occasional non-controversial joke. Having ongoing relationships with these people makes it far easier for them to suss out how they can best help you if you are made redundant – and it also improves your and their working day.
Post-election, there’s a lot of fear about while we wait to hear how the new government’s budget cuts will impact on the number of people that will be made redundant over the next 18 months. If ever there was a time to “be prepared”, it’s now!
Lynda W • 17th May, 2010 at 11:25 am