Corporate Survival Skills

A jobless rate of around 8%, the looming fiscal cliff and a business community destabilised by the presidential election make it understandable that many people feel uncertain about their job security.  Having said that, there are some practical steps you can take to help keep your job in these difficult times.

My idea for this post came from a good blog I came across recently – “5 Ways to Keep Your Job in a Down Economy” by the International Leadership Corporation from August 2011.  The insights were simple and useful, and I thought they were worth sharing.   For these five, I’ll start with their five tips, before adding four more of my own.

1. Build solid relationships

There’s nothing old-fashioned about networking at any level of the organisation.  Even if we’d like to think of downsizing as a purely rational process – based purely on individual merit – the fact is that, at such times, personal relationships come into play and can make the difference between those who stay and those who don’t.

2. Diversify Your Skillset

Generally speaking, the more expertise you have, the more facets of a company’s operations you understand, the more useful you become.  

3. Be More than willing

 Especially like this sentence.  Simply put, but well said.  In difficult times, attitude counts.

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4. Positive Relationship with Your Manager

Ensure open and frequent communication with your superior. Update him the progress of your work, the difficulties you encounter and the ideas you have for improving processes.

Demonstrate reliability and responsibility.

Respect deadlines, follow through on commitments and take responsibility for mistakes instead of making excuses. 

Identify how your contributions directly benefit the team or organization, make sure you are proactive in asking for feedback and asking for it.

Build trust by being someone your manager can depend on, especially in difficult times. Stay away from office politics or behaviors that could damage that trust.

5. Get proactive

Never sit back and allow someone to tell you what to do. Find problems before they escalate, and propose solutions and start improving processes.

Offer to take on projects or tasks that bring out your skills and added value.

Keep abreast of industry trends, competitor movements and changes that impact your organization. Take this information and use it to come up with new ideas.

Focus on solutions instead of just pointing out problems. Provide your superior with well-documented recommendations.

Prove your ability to work autonomously and take ownership of your work. 

It concludes: “While most of these suggestions are not demonstrations of your technical prowess, they are demonstrations of your ability to fit into a very limited system of people and processes”.

When a business is in redundancy mode and your aim is to survive, you want to fit in.   And you want to be seen as a solid, valued member of the team and not give anyone unnecessary ammunition to make a difficult decision easier.