If you’re worried about your job security in 2024, you’re not alone – you only need to turn on the news to see that redundancies and restructures are happening left, right and centre. So, what should you do if you’re worried that you may be next?
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You needn’t have spent too much time reading the news this year, to know that big layoffs and restructures have been happening everywhere, across many different sectors in NZ.
So, it’s no wonder that many Kiwis are feeling a little – or a lot! – on edge at the moment about whether or not they might be next.
If you’re one of those people, we sought out some advice from Charlie Hughes, the Associate Director at Humankind, an NZ HR services company. She says that if you’re concerned about your job security there’s one thing you should do:
“Get planning, as soon as possible,” she says. “Preparation is obviously really ahard with uncertainty and job security and there’s a whole raft of things you can’t actually control. But, there are things that you can.”
Charlie says this planning is really in two parts – the first part is from a financial planning perspective, while the second part is a career planning perspective.
“So, from the first point of view, think about your finances,” she says. “How can you prepare financially, should something change? It’s important to understand what your redundancy entitlements would be. What provisions are in your contract?”
Anything you can understand now, and do to help your finances should the worst happen, will put you in a much better position.
The second aspect is to think about career planning.
“Whilst there is all this uncertainty in the market, it’s a great opportunity for us all to take stock of where we are and what we want,” says Charlie. “What are our skills? What are our strengths? What do we want from our roles? If something has happened, do we want to stay in the same role? Do we want to stay in the same industry?”
Charlie says you ideally want to have thought those things through well before you’re in a situation where you have been made redundant. Losing your job – something we all know a lot about at Capsule – can be a very emotional time. It’s very normal to feel shocked, afraid and have a flight or fight response. It’s also often a state in which it’s hard to make clear, rational decisions.
“Absolutely, there is always that emotional change curve that you go through after being made redundant,” says Charlie. “If and when there is an impact your role, you are likely to go through those stages of shock, anger, frustration, and we all we know that we all move through those different emotional states at different speeds. So, actually providing yourself with the headspace before any change happens is very valuable. It’s a really helpful way to make sure you don’t make any flippant, fast, emotional decisions should change happen.”