How to have a brilliant redundancy
Redundancy is back in the news with the number of people looking for jobs in May rising at its fastest pace since December 2020, according to the Recruitment and Employment Confederation.
I’ve worked for years with people who have been made redundant. I’ve seen companies handle it sensitively, and I’ve seen companies handle it brutally, in one particular case where employees were expecting a personal development review meeting only to be told they no longer had a job - on Zoom and during the depths of lockdown. I also remember a company that gave their employees so much notice about the redundancy programme, like 18 months, that all commercial vigour was sucked out of the organisation as people coasted to the end date.
You can opt for voluntary redundancy (VR) or have it foist upon you. The latter can hit confidence and leaves my clients second guessing their abilities and achievements, despite unblemished track records. It’s worth recognising in this case that people are made redundant three to five times in their careers on average, and that it is rarely personal.
Clients who take VR ostensibly have more control over the situation because they chose it and thus are more chipper, but once the pillars of a full-time job are removed, even they can feel lost and sensitive to their self-perceived failings at work.
So how do you have a good redundancy, voluntary or otherwise? I think the answer here is structure, sprinkled with a heavy dose of effort and reward.
This might be allocating three hours to job search in the morning ( or afternoon depending on how you best function during the day ), followed by a treat such as a coffee with a pal, following by a bit more job search.
Job search can be mixed up too, it’s not about spending 9 hours trawling through LinkedIn, although obviously LI is a crucial job search tool. You might like to choose an afternoon a week where you become your own recruitment consultant and start making hit lists of local companies, or companies you’d like to work for and approaching them directly, or calling your warm network contacts and inviting them out for a coffee/coffees. See these as information gathering /sharing opportunities rather than a sign of desperation.
Take all the help you can get, whether that’s your company’s outplacement programme, a friend offering some interview practice, or indeed, the support from an independent career coach. It will broaden the mind, provide fresh ideas and confirm that you’re already making great progress.
Look after your mental health through exercising and getting the support of those around you. Get into a routine that suits you and your body. You might fear that taking the time out to do this is eating into precious job searching, but you need a break to rest and reflect, plus think of all those positive brain chemicals you’re releasing into your system from working out. Let family and friends know you are looking for work and enlist them to look for you too. Let them know you might have good days and bad days.
This article from Healthwork has lots more useful tips for staying positive during this phase.
Finally, you will find a new job, or even a new way of working such as a adopting a portfolio career. One of the privileges of redundancy coaching is seeing the stress from clients’ faces slowly disappear as they get into the groove of effective job search, knowing they are making space for themselves and their mental health and ultimately, landing bigger or better jobs.