JOB SECURITY IS A MYTH

IR Systems Inc. ^ | FR Post 12-2002 | Editorial Staff

[vannrox]

Job Security

JOB SECURITY IS A MYTH
I have often been told by people seeking a career move that they are looking for a large stable, secure company. My response is simply that the size of the company or the market they serve has nothing to do with job security. The classic example is listening to CEO's state that "Our employee's are our greatest asset"

While this has a warm fuzzy ring and is certainly politically correct it is right up there with "World Peace". If you doubt this, then please explain to me why the first response for companies in difficult times is to "Lay Off" their "Greatest Asset".

You need to understand that in most corporations, employee cost is the single largest controllable expense that they have. They cannot control cost of raw material, taxes, or those things required to meet their customer needs, but they can reduce heads and split out the workload.

Your only security in the work force is you. Your skills, Your education, Your experience and Your ability to make a difference. Your employer must feel that you are more valuable and responsible for their growth and survival than the alternative. You must be viewed as a necessary tool for the company growth and survival. You must contribute to the bottom line not deplete it.

To insure your security you need to continually enhance your skills, understand where you bring value and always be conscious of how you influence the company's profitability. Size of company doesn't matter, profitability does.

You might think longevity in an organization increases security; it often has the opposite effect. Ask anyone who had a ten or fifteen year career that was laid off. Their marketability is very low. Companies often view them as people that have experienced one methodology verses someone who has been exposed to several companies with different management styles.

Ask yourself this question from your employer's perspective: If you had an opportunity to hire one of two equally qualified people; one had worked at three companies the other only one, who would you hire?

The days of the gold watch are long gone. Working at one company until retirement is very rare today. Much of this is due to the evolution of companies to remain competitive, and much to the individuals need for personal growth, challenge, and interest.

The lure to stay at one company is good benefits, building a retirement fund, and maintaining stability in your life. The reality is that most companies offer similar benefits, most retirement programs are now 401k's that you take with you, and the only stability is between your ears.

The reality is, if you stay in the same place for an extended period of time you don't grow. I am not advocating that people should become job hoppers, but I am suggesting that you need to evaluate your position and insure you continue to learn, you continue to grow, and that you and the employer will both benefit by staying with your current company.

1. There are several advantages to selecting people who have worked at more than one company:
2. They have greater exposure to different methodologies and techniques.
3. They have a better understanding of organizational structure and how companies work.
4. They have the exposure and ability to create a larger network of business associates.
5. he longer people stay at one company the more comfortable, and less creative they are.
6. The more comfortable people are the less motivated they are.

Don't misunderstand my point. I am not advocating that a panacea is created by leaving your current employer and working for another. I am suggesting that it is an option and there are positive aspects to working for more than one employer.

Once you have come to the conclusion that you are becoming stifled in your current position you need to do a full review of your options. The first is not to cut and run but to identify where you might bring added value in your current company and continue to add to your skills and personal growth. This may be a promotion in your current department or it may be a lateral to another. Either way you will face new challenges and obstacles that require you to get out of your comfort zone.

There are more advantages to moving than compensation. If you have made job changes in the past and analyzed the effect you should understand some of these. Typically people change jobs for several reasons.

 

[vannrox]

Hum.

[dirtboy]

The one factor this essay fails to acknowledge is the importance of employee loyalty to a company. A company can have the smartest people in the world, but if they are not loyal and do not trust the management, they will not perform as well. Companies that throw people overboard at the first sign of a downturn screw themselves over the long run.

[Dog Gone]

This makes it sound like it's a good thing to get fired.

[RobFromGa]

It's written in Republican "code words"-- translate it with your ring and you'll see that it is really a racist screed trying to get minorities to quit their jobs so white supremacists can swoop in and take them.

[dtel]

"Working at one company until retirement is very rare today. Much of this is due to the evolution of companies to remain competitive,..."

If those old companies were so damn uncompetitive, how come gas cost $.19 a gallon, back in those terrible old dark ages?

[Dog Gone]

By jove, you're right.

[lucysmom]

As employees age, jobs become more and more difficult to find.

[Alouette]

how come gas cost $.19 a gallon, back in those terrible old dark ages?

That's when a car cost $1000 and you could buy your dream house for $10,000. Oh, and the average wage was $40/week.

[ninenot]

The one factor this essay fails to acknowledge is the importance of employee loyalty to a company

Actually, there's another factor the article ignores (as do many employers who lay off experienced workers,) and that is the factor of "institutional memory."

Most organizations have poor documentation in all departments. Often the only way of knowing 'what works' is a long-term employee who knows, e.g., that the dies for XYZ customer must be set up 1/8" offset--or that, e.g., the ABC customer must have their shipment routed through Pittsburgh.

When those long-term employees, who have either knowledge or a well-developed sixth sense about typical problems and customer issues, are cut, the company's service level goes down.

Can it be recovered? Sometimes, yes--by hiring TWO new (but lesser-paid) employees to 'fix it.'

The key here is "lesser paid."

[lucysmom]

Much of this is due to the evolution of companies to remain competitive,...

Competitive here does not refer to quality, but to innovative ways of grabbing the "fast buck". Focus on stock price has reduced corporate planning to the short term.

[usconservative]

This makes it sound like it's a good thing to get fired.

Sometimes it's a blessing in disguise. It was for me back in '91 when I was working for a small software house that specialized in financial software for car dealerships.

That layoff spurred a successful consulting practice that I started the day after I was laid off. I built up a small yet profitable customer base which allowed me to continue to pay my bills, put a roof over my head, and food in my family's mouths.

The experience I gained from that consulting business ended up landing me a very good job with a large Executive Search Firm (#1 in the world today) as a Sr. Level Programmer/Analyst and Network Engineer, while maintaining my consulting business.

The experience I gained while at the Executive Search Firm along with the contacts I built up helped me turn my consulting practice into an ISP in 1995. I quit the Search Firm in March of 1996 to dedicate myself to my ISP Business. (BAD MOVE!!)

As my ISP business was going under in 1997(largely due to one of my partners cheating on the books and draining the place dry of cash) I interviewed with a large Advertising/Media conglomerate that was looking for someone with the vast background and experience I had been building up since '91 to help get control of their large server & network environment.

While I started here with a job well below my capabilities, I've advanced up to a level of success that I never really imagined. I was promoted to the Management Team within my first 7 months here, spearheaded the Y2K effort, Disaster Recovery effort, Database Migration efforts, consolidated the data center & server environments, and managed to cut costs through efficiencies and savings. Each year I've been here, I've returned a minimum of 25% of my budget back in at the end of the year while continuing to improve the environment and add value.

I've now been here 6 years, and each year my job has been different. The things I've managed to learn (through 4 Upper Management changes in 6 years no less...) certainly will make me valuable elsewhere, provided I move SOON. It used to be that companies valued stability and loyalty - those days have long since passed. If you're not changing jobs every 3-5 years chances are you're not learning anymore and you've gotten "fat, dumb and happy." Being here 6 years, I'm bordering on the edge of that and I know it. Sometimes ya just gotta know when to move on, and that's the best "stability" anyone could have IMO.

[dirtboy]

Great point. For the first time in my life, I recently started working for a large corporation, and am staggered as to how difficult it is to locate key facts. And if a person holding those facts goes out the door, you have to start over.

[dirtboy]

If you're not changing jobs every 3-5 years chances are you're not learning anymore and you've gotten "fat, dumb and happy." Being here 6 years, I'm bordering on the edge of that and I know it. Sometimes ya just gotta know when to move on, and that's the best "stability" anyone could have IMO.

That's a good point as well. I was at my last job seven years, and probably should have left after 5 1/2.

[dtel]

A very good post.
I would add one thing, keep in mind that no matter how talented you are or how many "skins" you have on the wall, if companies are not hiring (as telecom is now) you can still find yourself on the outside looking in.
I moved around, but still stayed in the same industry, I would highly reccommend moving to different industries also.

[ContentiousObjector]

absolutly, One of our competitors had what I call “Pop Layoffs” a few years ago, not necessary, just everyone else is firing people so they had better do it too.

Several months later some enviro-terrorists trashed one of their facilities in Oregon, and unfortunately the people who designed it and knew any more than how to turn the equipment on and off had all been fired.

So the company had to fly in people from the company that made the equipment and engineers from the firm that designed the facility in Holland and Japan at something like $8000 an hour and what would have been an annoying overtime project for some employees turned into a $2,000,000 fiasco for the company.

Obviously the half dozen senior people fired from that facility didn’t make more than $2,000,000 combined.

That is the story we tell when asked why we have never laid off an employee

[Dog Gone]

There's another angle to being laid off that is really good news. I'm in the oil industry where we go from boom to bust on a regular basis. I've been through more downsizings than I can recall, but it's probably more than ten.

The good thing is that these corporations generally offer generous severance or early retirement packages, sometimes worth two or three times your annual salary.

You can get rich making a career of getting fired.

[razorback-bert]

Ditto, I was employed by one company in Houston for six days before it shut the doors, I got two weeks vacation pay, one month serverance and other going away presents.

[Dog Gone]

I'd like a couple dozen of those six-day jobs a year!

[Question_Assumptions]

If you are good, it is actually safer to work for a small company than a big company, in my opinon. At a small company, the executives will all know your name and know what you are doing. At a big company, you are often just a job code at the level where lay-offs are decided.

[ninenot]

Being a retainer search guy (and now not so rewarded for it,) I wonder which Firm you worked for?

Paul R Ray is banko, H&Struggles cut about 40% of their professionals during 2002, and KornFerry had to find $50MM in private-placed debt to OPERATE in 2002.

Not all that many ExecSearch firms are large, anymore.