Career
SURVIVING
Redundancy
SIX TIPS FOR COPING WITH ROLE REDUNDANCY
I
Barry Horne
is Principal of
Executive Career
Coaching. He
has provided
career transition
(outplacement)
coaching
services to
executives,
managers and
professionals
across the
Mining, Oil and
Gas, Energy,
Engineering,
Financial
Services,
Professional
Services,
Transport,
Tourism,
Agribusiness,
and Tertiary
Education
sectors.
n order to survive in a globally competitive environment,
modern organisations are constantly looking to better position themselves. This means that they take steps to improve
their offered products or services, change the way they build
products or deliver services, and look to reduce the costs of production or delivery. Such steps have implications for how business
is conducted and the number and types of roles required in the
future. Therefore, organisational change, restructuring and reengineering can be considered normal, and a role redundancy event a
high probability across an employee’s career. Anticipating, preparing
for, and dealing with role redundancy are increasingly important career management skills.
In this article tips are provided that can help employees who feel
that role redundancy represents a genuine career threat.
1. Be Alert
Pay attention to political, economic, industry and organisational trends
that could potentially affect your job security. Trends worthy of attention include:
• Government decisions that affect the viability of your industry or field
of employment.
• Major international political and/or financial events (e.g. Global Financial Crisis).
• Pressures felt across your industry (e.g. increased automation).
• Increased merger and acquisition activity in your industry.
• Financial pressures experienced by the business you work for.
You owe it to yourself to remain alert; make no assumptions about your
professional indispensability.
2. Be Prepared
If you notice trends challenging the ongoing viability of your organisation, division, team, or role, you can position yourself by:
• Confidentially sharing your concerns, thoughts, and feelings with
family members or close friends.
• Auditing your financial situation and formulating budgetary or other
strategies that could lessen any lifestyle impact of sudden job loss (seek
professional accounting or financial advice, if appropriate).
• Creating a high quality, up-to-date resume and aligned LinkedIn pro-
10
www.smpmagazine.com.au | Winter 2015
By Barry Horne,
Principal of
Executive Career
Coaching
file (access professional career coaching support, if necessary).
• Increasing your professional visibility (e.g. attend industry and professional events).
• Rapidly increasing the rate at which you invite people to connect with
you on relevant social media platforms (e.g. LinkedIn).
• Taking stock of all key relationships you have as a consequence of
your employment and making sure you know how to contact those
people in future.
• Reflecting on, and documenting, your achievements in your organisation (which are more easily recognised when in the physical environment).
• Remaining alert to all opportunities of potential career interest (including some internal opportunities that might be in “safer” areas of
your organisation).
3. Be Dignified
You may think you know how you will react if notified of role redundancy, however, your actual reaction may be different. In a similar way,
it is presumptuous as author of this article to provide well-intended
directives on how you should behave when notified.
If you find yourself participating in a notification meeting, try to:
• Pay attention to proceedings (but recognise that you will not necessarily
remember all that takes place and can always ask for clarification later).
• Maintain your composure (but acknowledge your human condition
and that feelings will attend the event).
• Refrain from making comments directed personally at organisational
representatives or that more broadly threaten the organisation.
• Understand that if your emotional reaction is considered totally unreasonable the organisation may harden its stance towards you and
choose not to exercise options that it had otherwise intended to of-