work/life fusion: redundancy

The motto for today is, "Do something funny for money!" If the following career anecdote makes you laugh, help the two of us meet this Comic Relief request and donate a pound to this excellent cause!

"Jonathan, worked in a team who were all very unhappy. Things hadn't gone well for the whole team for a while. Their much respected boss had recently left. Gone with him were his beliefs in hard work, personal responsibility and mutual respect.

The boss who took his place had his own ideas. Hard work was one of them but personal responsibility and mutual respect were replaced by suspicion and self-interest (and wheedling and favouritism and political subterfuge).

This change of team leadership coincided with the company hitting hard times. Redundancies had begun and Jonathan and his team were all under threat as the next round of cuts approached. To boost morale, the new boss collected Jonathan and the team together to give them a pep talk. The whole team were of the same mind before the meeting: afraid, de-motivated, disgruntled, looking for answers. You could cut the solidarity in the air with a knife!

At the end of the pep talk (which included motivational management messages to the team including, "Team well-being is not my responsibility!") the new boss asked for a show of hands to the question, "Is anyone still unhappy about this situation?"

If they were being honest, everyone's hand would have been in the air. As it was, only Jonathan's hand went up."

Maybe you had to be there for the full comic effect. Maybe you had to see with your own eyes, a management performance that Ricky Gervais would have been proud to have written. Maybe you had to see Jonathan blush. Or maybe you need to know that Jonathan's honesty, bravery, selflessness and professionalism have helped his career blossom ever since.

Maybe you just won't think this telling of the story is funny but, even if you don't laugh, see if you can still find it in your heart/wallet/purse to donate that pound, euro or dollar to Comic Relief.

Have a great weekend wherever you are!

All my best,

Paul

Wednesday, 21 January 2009

All our career case studies (so far...)

We're always looking for new work/career related stories on this blog. If you have thought about sending something in, here are all of our previous case studies to show how useful a personal example can be. You might have read a few of them before but they have never appeared in something so innovative and convenient a list until now:

Norris's story: Redundancy/Layoff in a Team

Prem's story: Short & Long-term career planning

Boulos's story: Job satisfaction

Oliver's story: Internal promotion

Laura's story: Career Inspiration

Gray's story - Career Choice from Within

Lise's story - Returning to Work

Ash's story - Career Decision Making

Ash's story - Career Decision Success!

Naida's story - Adapting to Change

Alex's story - Redundancy/Layoff with a Positive O...

Update on Alex - Outplacement Success

Grace's story - Career Change

[Han wondered if this was what HR meant when they warned him of a personnel freeze]

Don't waver any longer. Send us your comment or question and share in the benefits!

Best Regards

Paul

Friday, 21 November 2008

In career choice, less always means more

Kicking off a job search can be a daunting task because it is often the time when the greatest variety of career choice seems open to us.

The mission for those of us who have been in this position - and for those of us who are facing it now - is not only to narrow our range of career choices but to complete this narrowing process without damaging our longer-term career prospects. In other words, the aim is to define career choices with the greatest potential for satisfaction and fulfilment over time.

Traditional job search advice supports us with tried and tested tactical wisdom. We receive advice on answering interview questions, preparing our CV/resume, using the Internet in our search as well as the wide variety of recruitment services available to us on and off-line. This advice is all very helpful and many of us can point to past successes thanks to support, hints, and tips of this nature.

But, tactical job search advice finds it harder to answer questions like, What should I do with my career from here? What work does my experience qualify me for? What career or job will I find most rewarding? Where can my career go after redundancy? as well as old interview favourites such as, What will I be doing in 5 years time?

Until recently, questions like these were up to the individual to answer as best as they can.

The good news is, career management that looks to provide individuals with the ability to answer these questions is now much more accessible. As an example, the decision support and case studies on this blog talk regularly about defining personal success through understanding an individual’s values, talents and goals.

As this definition of personal success emerges, career choices begin to define themselves more clearly at the same time. The overwhelming variety of career-choice at the start of your job search can be narrowed and all without the harmful, narrowing effect on opportunity. Perhaps more importantly though, the potential for your career and your relationship with work to deliver satisfaction and fulfilment over time is directly increased as a result because the choices you make today are made in context with the preferred direction you are defining for your future.

As always, you comments and questions are welcomed on this subject or anything else career related. Enjoy your weekend wherever you are!

Best Regards

Paul

Tuesday, 11 November 2008

Norris's story: Redundancy/Layoff in a Team

"I was part of a small, close-knit team who faced redundancy together. In my case this didn't mean all of us were made redundant, it meant that the four of us who worked alongside each other every day were put in a room, told that two were being cut and that we should decide between us who stays and who goes. It's hard to describe how that felt at the time. We knew that two of us would be going but worse in a way was knowing that the two who stayed would do so at the expense of their buddies."

Survivor guilt is usually associated with events more traumatic than redundancy but survivor guilt in some form is at work in the above example. Redundancies affect people directly and indirectly and it is not always so easy to decide who comes off worse. Those who remain as employees don't automatically avoid the negative affects of redundancy or layoff.

In Norris's example this redundancy process didn't offer satisfactory support to those on either side. Much worse though was the way those managing the process tried to absolve themselves from the critical decision of who stays and who goes. That decision was left for the subjects to decide between themselves. Norris's story will be continued on this blog because it is an interesting case study of a poorly managed redundancy process and the improvements that interventions offer today can be highlighted as a result.

In the meantime - without giving away the ending - it is enough to say that all four individuals involved in this story can look back on the experience from an improved position today. Underlining the fact that even poorly managed redundancy processes can have little in the way of long-term, negative effects.

Monday, 3 November 2008

More about redundancy and layoff

Redundancies - or layoffs as they are called in the US - are becoming a more popular topic. In the US and the UK, Google searches for "Redundancies" and "Layoffs" have tripled in the last 12 months alone. This recent post on the BBC News website - Employers predict redundancy rise - is another example of what the UK employment market expects.

Redundancies/Layoffs have been the subject of a number of posts on this blog since it began. These posts have focused on individual experiences [Alex's story], personal opinion [Redundancy - A personal view] and traditional versus innovative business responses [Challenging the outplacement response to redundancy].

Posts on this blog have highlighted the positive outcomes of redundancy/layoff and the opportunities individuals have created in such situations. They have also tried to highlight the potential that is still resident for employers when redundancy/layoff situations are managed well and approached from a broader perspective. The aim here was not to ignore the hardship that can surround redundancy/layoff when it happens. Recovering from layoff or redundancy can be difficult and support in one form or another is often required. But, despite the difficulties redundancy has traditionally created, there are still opportunities and the individual stories of career development and job satisfaction that began with a layoff are testimony to that.

In the coming months the aim is to add more redundancy success stories - both individual and organisational - for you to read here. Where possible these stories will be told by people in their own words and there will be the opportunity for Q&A via comment too.

If you have a comment, a story or a question on the subject of redundancies/layoffs, please email it to worklifefusion[at]googlemail[dot]com. No story will be used without prior consent and any published posts guarantee the anonymity of all involved.

Tuesday, 7 October 2008

work/life: A long term relationship

One advantage in working with the same people over time is that you get to know them very well. You learn to appreciate what people/colleagues/friends are good at, where they need help, what situations or tasks they would rather avoid. All the while they are learning the same about you. In the long run, good relationships are lasting while those that challenge without reward tend to fall away.

Relationships that last don't always do so through everyday contact. Sometimes there are prolonged gaps between encounters but you always recognise a good relationship because that call out of the blue or chance meeting can be uplifting for some time afterward. It can lead to more regular contact in the future as well.

There are similarities in the way we as individuals relate to work. Sometimes our relationship with work isn't easy and we don't feel rewarded. Occasionally there can be a separation we would like to avoid -- redundancy is a good example of this.

Through the good times and bad, our relationship with work is one we are tied to for the length of our career. For this reason alone, it helps us to work through the difficulties and learn what we can to make the relationship work.

Just like good relationships created with colleagues and friends over time, a successful relationship with work can be achieved through an appreciation of what is important to you, where your strengths lie and what keeps you going. Values, talents and goals defining personal success.

Monday, 6 October 2008

Redundancy: Is there a positive future?

Some employers are quick to turn to redundancies when times get tough. The business case often used is: 1. We need to cut costs. 2. People are a big cost. 3. Let's get rid of some people.

Making people redundant is viewed as a risk but that risk is believed to be overshadowed by the need for business survival. In other words, without the cost saving of redundancies the business will fail.

There are undoubtedly circumstances where this is true but also true is the underestimation of the risk that redundancies pose to the business. Alongside this underestimation of risk on the part of the employer is an over-experiencing of difficulty by the individuals being made redundant.

Today's Times Online article - The day I was made redundant - is a good example. It describes the difficulties of the redundancy experience from an individual's point of view as well as the hit-and-miss nature of the organisational support on offer. So how could the experience be different on both sides?

Employers can identify the faults in their traditional responses and act with targeted solutions in mind. Employees can be offered support that helps them embrace and manage the opportunities that changing circumstances create for them. Risk and opportunity on both sides can be managed more effectively. Agreements can be made that address priorities within the context of success as seen from all sides.

For sure, redundancy will never be a perfect experience but it could be given a future more positive than its negative history might suggest.

Wednesday, 17 September 2008

What outplacement did next

The next few years present outplacement consultancies with a once in a generation opportunity to respond to what some commentators have called once in a generation economic conditions.

Outplacement has an opportunity to deliver greater value to individual careers and contribute more positively to the health and success of their clients' organisations.

Working with individuals who have experienced outplacement at various levels illustrates the need for a new process that delivers career long benefits. Academic and customer satisfaction studies over the last few decades highlight this. For example, outplacement is challenged for focusing only on re-employment [Davenport, D. W. (1984). Outplacement counseling: Whither the counselor? Vocational Guidance Quarterly, 32, 185-190] and for having little or no interest in studying the results from the perspective of individual clients [Wooten, K. C. (1996). Predictors of client satisfaction in executive outplacement: Implications for service delivery. Journal of Employment Counseling, 33, 106-116].

More recent studies offer new insights but the example of the challenges above best illustrate the need for innovation in the aims, delivery, results and measurement of quality outplacement services. Why? Because the need for change highlighted in 1984 and 1996 has had enough time to sink in.

__________________________________________________

Have you gone through an outplacement process as an individual? Has your company engaged an outplacement consultancy? What were your experiences? What were the results? What were the longer-term outcomes? If you have an opinion please comment here or email me at worklifefusion(at)googlemail(dot)com

Tuesday, 16 September 2008

Celebrating the decline of the job for life

New US Department of Labor statistics quoted in the previous post continue to reveal more about employee/employer relationships and the career long relationship between individuals and their work. Despite the job and direction changes they expose, it wasn’t too long ago that the phrase ‘a job for life’ was associated with many careers.

Employers and employees took a longer term view of their commitment and it was not uncommon for a 25 or 30 year career to be spent within the same organisation. So why is it now time to celebrate these statistics and welcome the decline of the job for life?

Employers have benefited for some time from more fluidity in the labour market but the advantages to employees are only just beginning to be fully understood. With the ability to exercise choice throughout their career, the average worker has the chance to apply the lessons learned through direct, practical experience in their career decision making.

This degree of insight into any individual relationship with work is invaluable. For example, a career decision made at 18 years of age might still be relevant at age 35 but if it is not, a more informed choice can be based on the understanding created through 20 years in work.

Interpreting an individual’s values, talents and goals enables such informed choices to be made. Decisions are based on what an individual has learned through their full range of experiences at work, what this qualifies them to do and what they are motivated to do in the future.

The decline of the job for life has created the opportunity for more individuals to pursue personal success. This in turn can create a greater number of successful and meaningful relationships with work. A reason to celebrate indeed.

Monday, 8 September 2008

Challenging the outplacement response to redundancy

How could outplacement services deliver more value to both employers & employees?

Outplacement success is traditionally measured by how quickly an individual gets back to work. While this is not an unreasonable aim, it often doesn't take into account the longer-term impact on the individual's career. Evidence also exists to show that long-term commercial & organisational opportunities from the employer's perspective are also being missed.

Getting an individual back into work is a necessary objective but the longer-term after-effects of redundancy - as well as the number of individuals who go through outplacement repeatedly -presents a challenge that providers of outplacement services have yet to respond to meaningfully.

So, is it reasonable to ask outplacement providers for something more strategic than short-term re-employment? In my view the answer is yes, and there are now practical as well as statistical means to support this.

Employees, employers and outplacement providers could all benefit from a revision of their aims and expectations. Providing individuals with a service that achieves short-term re-employment but also considers broader career factors - e.g. personal success, managing opportunity situations, decision making in context, etc. - can deliver value to the former employee well into the future and well beyond the initial redundancy event.

A service that considers the long-term aims of the former employee also creates advantages for the employer as well (employers are the fee-paying client after all!). As discussed in a previous post, investment in an individual's future is one that repays both parties over time. As well as more meaningful management data from every intervention, employers can positively impact their organisational culture and employer brand. In-turn helping them to attract, motivate and retain the people they need in order to be successful.

Delivering value in outplacement situations is a challenge to employers and outplacement providers alike. Both sides should be looking to take their partnerships and the opportunities they create, to the next level. In the economic climate many commentators are now predicting, benefits to employers and employees facing redundancy situations play a pivotal role in business and career success for a growing number of people on both sides.

If you have an opinion or a personal experience relevant to this subject or any of the other subjects discussed on this blog, please comment or email me directly!

Tuesday, 29 July 2008

Umbrellas go up when it rains

Managing your career in a negative growth market is not an easy task. Difficult career situations like unemployment and redundancy aren't subjects that this blog takes lightly but it is worth noting that even in tougher economic times, new jobs are started, promotions are won and work has the same potential to satisfy.

Whatever the economic outlook, managing your career should never be an exclusively inward-looking exercise carried out alone. Pursuing personal success through a clearer understanding of your values, talents and goals ensures that you gather external perspectives and evidence [from friends, trusted advisors, employers and so on].

In order to be valid, a career direction needs to be tested and ultimately supported by what you can achieve in the open job market. The way others interpret your values, talents and goals is a critical factor in your personal success. In a negative growth market it is even more significant that career planning does not place isolated, long-term objectives ahead of everyday opportunities to succeed.

What has this got to do with rain and umbrellas? Not everyone is waiting for the sun to shine in order to make progress.

Wednesday, 2 July 2008

Redundancy - A personal view

The need for redundancies can be a time when corporate values hide at the back of the room. I worked at a company that liked to describe itself as a family to its people. During a previous economic downturn almost half of this family were made redundant. As you can imagine there was little mention of family during this time.

Thankfully, corporate values have come a long way. As exemplified by Alex in yesterday's blog post, although it is undeniably difficult, redundancy can be a time for professional and personal growth. It can also be a time for organisations to evolve in a similar way. During difficult times companies can learn more about their values and face searching questions about past conduct and behaviour. The way a company treats its people defines it as much as any values statement. Possibly more!

As individuals and companies face new redundancy situations it is wrong to say that the news is all good but it is encouraging to think that it is not all bleak either. When difficult situations such as redundancy are brokered honestly and with the interests of all parties receiving fair consideration, opportunities for future growth can be present also.

Tuesday, 1 July 2008

Update on Alex - Outplacement Success

I checked in today with a good friend and old friend of this blog whose past experiences can be found in the post Alex's story.

The good news is that Alex is still enjoying the same role. His experience and expertise are moving the business forward in its aims. He is enjoying making new contacts as well as renewing older ones. There is no more security than he had previously but Alex is far more secure in the progress that he has made since redundancy last year.

It didn't take too long in our conversation to realise that Alex is valuing the things that are important to him. He is utilising talents and making progress towards goals that mean something to him also. If you were to ask, Alex would tell you that none of this has been easy and a lot of hard work has helped. However, if you also asked him whether what he is doing now feels more rewarding? Well, I can't speak for Alex but the smile on his face rather speaks for itself.

Tuesday, 13 May 2008

Alex's story - Redundancy/Layoff with a Positive Outcome

One of the most common career pressure points is redundancy. Difficult for those directly affected, redundancy is also hard on the individuals who remain and the fall-out can take a long time for companies to overcome. Every redundancy story is different but a case study is a good way to illustrate how a career event that would traditionally be seen as a setback can be turned into a moment of opportunity with lasting, positive effects.

Alex, a senior client director at an advertising agency, was made redundant due to a change in client strategy that meant his industry experience was no longer required. He was offered outplacement but wanted to understand what was driving his career at a more fundamental level rather than just focus on being re-employed.

Instead of starting with a known objective, Alex allowed the answers to his career questions to suggest possible routes forward. As he learned more, his preferred direction became more defined. Alex found that his conversations with a growing network of contacts, recruiters and potential employers, became more interesting and that the elements he now understood as important to his new career direction, became easier to identify also.

After an intense period of discovery, networking and interviewing, Alex was successfully hired into a company and a role that he feels far better suited to than his previous situation. He is now with a company that values his expertise and joined the team with the exciting brief to lead and grow the business internationally.

Looking back at his experiences, Alex is still surprised by how hard redundancy hit him but, with the opportunity that now lies in front of him, along with a level of satisfaction that he describes as the best his career has offered to date, they are experiences that he finds it hard to imagine himself without.

Although there are moments that are difficult to live through for all concerned, the story above demonstrates that there are successes that begin with redundancy. In such stories, it is hard to find an application for traditional work/life balance or the 'destination first' methods of career planning. The typical redundancy situation offers most individuals the opportunity to focus on what is important to them (values), what they are qualified to do (talents) and what they are motivated to achieve (goals). There are no easy answers and the detail of Alex's hard work, commitment and bravery could fill an entire post. The clear message from Alex and those like him who have moved their careers on from redundancy is that, with the right approach, lasting and meaningful progress can be made.

Let me know your thoughts on this post and if you have any stories or situations that relate in any way!

Tuesday, 22 April 2008

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to the first post on this new blog! I am completely new to posting (and hosting for that matter!) but have enjoyed reading blogs so much that I felt compelled to join in and start writing.

There is plenty to be found on the web already under the headings of work, career and job satisfaction but the writing and opinion pieces I find most interesting are something of a minority view at this time. The title of this blog reflects just one of the differences that is part of a new discussion and approach in this area. To start, I'll offer up a couple of definitions:

work/life fusion: understanding an individual's values, talents and goals and applying them to the pursuit of personal success.

and for all of us who aren't nuclear physicists

fusion: when two or more things join or combine.

The work/life fusion concept grew from a closer study of the work/life balance principle. In my current and previous professions, work/life balance has been a very useful, often laudable principle but, on closer examination, there may be a fundamental flaw in its reasoning.

Work/life balance separates 'work' and, for want of a better phrase, 'non-work'. Having made this separation work/life balance then sets us forward in a continual struggle to equalise the two. The fusion hypothesis argues that, in doing this, work/life balance essentially creates opposition. It goes on to suggest that where such an opposition is used to support reasoning, it can lead to one side feeling compromised or suppressed, especially at moments of critical decision (e.g. promotion, relocation, career change and so on).

Regardless of how much we would like it to happen, we can't send someone else to work in our place and, because you are the same person who leaves the house in the morning and returns home later that day, work/life fusion looks at the individual in the singular, the individual as a whole.

In taking this approach, work/life fusion suggests that all of our individual priorities (decisions, behaviours, motivations, rewards and actions) can be interpreted using the same set of values. It also argues that when this set of values is trained and tested (i.e. underpinned by a greater degree of outward and inward knowledge, reliance and direction) the resulting change in our relationship with work can edge us all closer to a vocation and/or closer to our individual definitions of work/life success.

With the voices of those who comment playing a central role, this blog is intended to apply, explore, test, gather feedback, perspective and opinion on this subject and find out if work/life balance deserves further criticism and if work/life fusion can evolve into something that has genuine relevance to job seekers, employees and employers, today and into the future.

It is up to us, and by 'us' I mean anyone with an opinion (contrary or otherwise), to ask questions and to get the ball rolling. Please feel free to submit general comments or any specific work/career/balance related questions or issues. I will post more on the subject as regularly as possible and look forward to the conversations unfolding.

Here's to success in all our endeavours!

Paul