How to Protect Yourself from a Layoff

The economy is in a little bit of trouble. When interest rates go up, businesses that rely on loans have to balance their budgets, so they tend to lay people off.  

Let’s take this episode to learn how to protect yourself from being laid off. 

Some signs of a looming layoff include:

• Heightened or more frequent budget tracking
• An announcement of a future reorganization
• Delayed payment terms with vendors
• Sudden budget restrictions
• A hiring freeze 

If you're seeing these signs, then let's make sure you have your defense all set, so that you can keep your job through the potential impending layoff. 

If you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, you know that I’m not a leadership apologist. I don’t go around saying that every leader got there because of their hard work or intelligence. 

But I do think that most people in leadership are not stupid. They make the best decisions they can with the information they have, just like you and me. 

If you want to protect yourself from getting laid off, it’s NOT enough to be a hard worker and assume everyone will notice.

You HAVE to make sure people know what you do and what you bring to the table. Basically, senior leadership, or at least your boss’s boss, should know how amazing you are at your job. 

...And that you’re flexible enough to do any other role the company needs.

Let's get into the details in this podcast episode.

Book a complimentary management coaching conversation at https://calendly.com/catherine-vanderlaan/free-60-minute-leadership-consultation

Email me at catherine@managementmaterialcoaching.com to ask a question or get in touch.

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Find out more about Management and Leadership Coaching at https://managementmaterialcoaching.com/

Transcript

0:01

[Applause][Music] it is not your boss's job to protect your position it is your boss's job to protect the company it is your job to promote yourself it is not your boss's job welcome to management material my name is Catherine vanderlaan I started my career at the bottom as an assistant and worked my way up to become the boss's boss in eight years and man I love management if there's anything I've learned it's that what got you to where you are now won't get you to where you want to be welcome to management material hey guys I'm so excited you're here today we have a little bit of a not a very nice topic actually it's not something that attracts people it's not something that's really positive it's not something that people like to talk about but I do think it's important I think that we should talk about layoffs we should talk about why they happen we should talk about how to protect yourself from a layoff now I've been through a few layoffs I have been through like four or five of them and I I saw the signs throughout I saw a lot before they happen so let's talk about that now because the economy is in a little bit of trouble you and I both know that the economy is in trouble layoffs are starting to happen again and it's because when interest rates go up businesses that rely on loans have to balance their budgets so they tend to lay people off if that doesn't make sense to you let me explain it just a little bit more just a couple more seconds here most businesses or a lot of big businesses have loans these giant like hundreds of millions of dollars of loans that help them get off the ground now these loans tend to have either adjustable rates or they have a balloon payment at the end of say five years so businesses have to refinance those loans and when the federal interest rate goes up interest rates across the United States and different banks and around the world go up because a lot of people borrow money from the federal government a lot of banks borrow their money from the federal government to get the money for the loans so it's this Ricochet effect or this like domino effect when Federal rates go up a lot of businesses end up having to lay people off because their monthly payments on these loans that they just refinanced to a way higher interest rate go way up so they need to balance their budget and they lay people off anyway let's take this episode to protect yourself from being laid off I'm happy to have learned this early and I I've been through four or five five rounds of layoff at different companies and every single time there were signs that layoffs were coming like managers getting really picky about things that didn't really make sense to me a sudden budget and spending restrictions like a hiring freeze or all of a sudden changes in payment terms from like 30 days after an invoice to 90 days after an invoice things like that and and lots and lots of emails from Finance yeah so if you're seeing things like a hiring freeze that's a sign that spending is being restricted and there might be a layoff coming anyway my career has always been centered around what my family needs I'm the breadwinner my husband is a Chi Alpha campus missionary and I mean guys ministers really unless you're the minister of a big church ministers don't really make much money and missionaries make even less so I I've called myself for our tiger marriage my husband's biggest supporter and because of that my career has always had an offense so wanting to get promoted or find a better job and a defense keeping myself from getting laid off or fired so today we're going into the defense and in the next episode we're going to talk about getting promoted so the offense a few years ago I survived a round of layoffs at my company and in that layoff there was this really hard-working thoughtful and and productive manager I knew who was laid off and that that shocked me at the time I really I could not understand why she was laid off and other people were not I was like why why did they pick that manager instead of this manager which is not very nice by the way but I I everybody thinks it right so I was like why was she laid off that makes no sense huge projects wouldn't run without her she was hard to replace she had been there for years and years and I didn't think she was a high earner I was pretty sure she wasn't and she produced so much value to the company I just couldn't wrap my hand around why she was laid off then one day a few colleagues and I were talking about it we were trying to make ourselves feel better we had survivors guilt we were all still there we were not laid off and we were trying to figure out why she was laid off we all thought we all agreed that losing her was just a horrible decision and some of my colleagues ended up blaming management for being incompetent you know they they must not know what she did so incompetent of management to lay her off and they just ended up having this this idea that management had no idea what they were doing now I tend to think as I'm sure you've heard before I tend to think that people make reasonable decisions with the information they have and so I thought about what information they had now the reason we're talking about this is so that you can protect yourself against a layoff that that didn't happen for her so let's dissect why she was not protected well here's the number one reason and the number one way that you can protect yourself from a layoff management had almost no information about her that woman was a really hard worker but her work went unnoticed a lot of the time a lot of the time just people didn't know what she did she was a giver and she filled in where other people were lacking she knew everything that was happening and what needed to happen and if people weren't picking up their own slacks she picked it up for them while she was doing all of her own work she also was not a self-promoter she didn't talk about herself and she stayed really really private so people didn't know her so they didn't like her and they didn't know about her work because she just kept her nose down and kept working she also seemingly okay this was not the whole thing but for management Management's perspective she had a skill set that they didn't think we needed in the company anymore we weren't using those same systems that she was an expert in so here is my conclusion it came down to visibility that was it it came down to visibility senior leadership the people who made the layoff decisions did not know what she did and how valuable she was they didn't see her hard work they didn't see much at all and so they didn't think she was valuable and they laid her off okay here's the point if you've been listening to this podcast for a while you know that I'm not a leadership apologist I don't go around saying that every leader got here because of their hard work or intelligence okay I'm not I just think that people make the best decisions with the information they have nobody's trying to be incompetent in their jobs here's what I do think I think that most people in leadership are not stupid they make the best decisions they can with the information they have just like you and me just like everyone else they're also really good at showing their work so if you want to protect yourself from getting laid off it is not enough to be a hard worker and assume that everyone's going to notice if you've been working at companies for any amount of time maybe any amount of time over a year you know that nobody notices your hard work and you might have assumed that people would notice how hard you work but people don't notice everyone is so busy thinking about themselves and what they do they don't look outside say oh wow Sharon over there she's a really hard worker oh over there Ashley she's such a hard worker nobody cares and so you have to make sure that people know what you do and what you bring to the table basically senior leadership or at least your boss's boss should know how amazing you are at your job and and here's the other key to protecting yourself from a layoff they also need to know that you are flexible enough to do any other role that the company needs the alternative to a layoff if there are eliminating your position is to put you in a different position so that's the two things you need you have to Showcase your value to the company what you're providing to the company and your flexible learning attitude guys quiet quitting isn't going to cut it in this market if you are quiet quitting consider yourself laid off really soon so please stop that maintain boundaries sure but also have a flexible attitude about the work you can take on and then make sure management knows how productive and eager you are to keep learning and growing I am not saying to let them take advantage of you I am saying to stay flexible and to stay eager to learn new things okay here's what I hear all the time as I am coaching clients as I am helping people through and coaching is not just listening to a lecture from me by the way it is about working through your situation and when you're coaching you are talking about 90 of the time so this is not coaching this is you listening to me anyway a lot of what I hear from people is that seems like so much work I just want to do my job and go home yes and no think of visibility and making sure people know what you're doing and how much value you bring to the company think of that as part of your job it is your defense to keeping your job it is your defense to keeping a paying position that is paying your bills that is part of your job it is not all of your job but it is part of your job so if you are going into the office or doing your work and doing your job and just going home you are not doing part of your job you are not protecting yourself from a layoff part of your job is to make sure that other people know what you're doing and how valuable you are to the company so make sure you're doing that and the other objection I hear is I don't know how how do I be visible what do I do there are just a very few things when we were in person in the office I I did something kind of funny that nobody else really did I made my strategy presentations and what my team was doing into these colorful visual charts I would take them I'd print them out and I'd post them in the hallway and boy did I get a lot of responses people knew what we were doing people knew how valuable we were because we Quantified it people knew that we were an amazing team that we all got along they knew all of our names and our faces can you say visibility guys they knew it I also would create those things and they were like Stellar because they're visual people like to see visual data they like to see visual progress reports they'd like to see visual products like people like visual things and so I would take those and I would email them to my boss and well my boss likes Brown tagging and this helped him keep his job so he would email them to his boss and then maybe his boss if he thought it was really really great would email it to his boss and that was kind of the end of the line it's not like it got to the CEO but everyone then knew who I was and occasionally I would ask my boss hey can I talk to your boss about something I'd like to understand X Y and Z and so then I would schedule a meeting my boss would say yeah great because it makes him look good too so I would talk to my boss about the meeting and beforehand what I was going to ask how it was going to go and he would prep me for that meeting and then I'd go in and talk to his boss and well hey you have some one-on-one time some air time there that gives you visibility now you can't go in with stupid questions you have to go in and actually contribute and help and grow and think of it from a manager's perspective and and make sure that you are contributing and helping your manager grow and your boss's boss grow and be a contributor you can't just go in for the visibility you have to go in for something else but it does give you the visibility so those are two ways that you can be visible get some one-on-one time with your boss's boss to ask some intelligent questions that will help you and the rest of the company and the second way is to create a visual basically progress report or or something that showcases what you do and send it to your boss okay there are all different ways and I'm sure you can sit down and strategize and brainstorm how to do that I can think of five more off the top of my head the other thing I hear all the time is isn't that my boss's job well no it is not your boss's job to protect your position it is your boss's job to protect the company so if your boss doesn't know what you do and I hear that a lot my boss has no idea what I do it is your job to tell your boss what you do to show your boss what you do to make it visual to make it compelling to make it fun to read it is your job to promote yourself it is not your boss's job so here's the bottom line guys in order to increase your chances of surviving a layoff in order to keep your job or keep a job you need to show your work and show your flexible attitude like you're flexible you can do whatever the company needs to do I learned that from a friend of mine who's a vice president in finance he said he survived every layoff he's been through and it's been a few and he said management knew that I could do anything they wanted so whenever there was a layoff if they were eliminating my position they just put me in another position because they knew I could learn I could grow I could contribute and I showed that I was known for that throughout the company now here's a caveat this won't work all the time but I have seen it work over and over and over again if this is your best bet to surviving a layoff so go do that talk to your boss about scheduling a meeting with his or her boss so you can ask intelligent questions and ask about career rear tracks create a quick presentation in pictochart or canva or somewhere that shows what you do in a fun quantifiable way whatever you do to become visible also make sure you're making your boss look good while you do it the shortest way to the shopping block is by making your boss look bad while you're trying to make yourself look good all right if you're trying to sabotage your boss's career or make your boss look bad while you're trying to make your boss look good consider yourself laid off don't do that but do Loop your boss in go talk to your boss and make it a point how eager you are to learn how you want to pick up different kinds of work and showcase what you're already doing to make the company better alright guys that is it for today now go survive that layoff all right I will see you in the next episode[Music] thank you for listening to management material if you like what you're listening to please rate US on iTunes I track those ratings like I tracked my GPA in college and let me know what else you want to hear about I'm an open book I can't wait to see you in the next episode[Music]