Help for Laid Off Employees - 4 Steps to go From a Layoff to an Amazing Job.

It usually starts with one or two bad quarterly reports. Your company is experiencing slower sales and higher costs. Next come the rumors. You here whispering around the watercooler that management is planning staff reductions (sometimes euphemistically referred to as “career transition plans”). This is usually followed by weeks or even months of uncertainty and speculation about who the laid off employees will be. People appear on the outside to be going about their jobs as usual but inside they are constantly wondering if they will be among those selected for “transitioning’”. In some cases, so much time will pass that you begin to think that perhaps the threat of becoming one of the laid off employees has passed. Then you come in to work one morning and find an email inviting you to attend a meeting with a corporate manager or perhaps an HR representative. At this point you pretty much know what happens next but you attend the meeting anyway. Sure enough, you are told that the cutbacks have begun and your job is being eliminated.

At least that is the way it happened at the firm where I was working during the economic slowdown in the months following 9/11. In a single day, my income went from solid six figures all the way down to one figure. Zero to be precise.

Being laid off was a difficult experience but I did learn a few things during that time that I know first hand can help anyone else who might be in the same predicament. I came to realize that there is a definite set of strategies and mental attitudes that can pull you through a major career setback and bring you out of the problem in much better shape than you were when you went in. In the end, God blessed me with job that had a great salary, a generous bonus plan, more vacation time, much more security and a better working environment. I would like to use this series of posts to condense the lessons I learned during that time into a set of must-have attitudes and a simple, actionable plan to get you from unemployed to happily employed in the shortest amount of time possible.

I’ll start by listing the steps you should take after being laid off, then I’ll follow up with a detailed explanation of each one and lastly I’ll share more of the details of my own layoff experience so you can see a real life example of how these steps can work.

Step 1 - Move from panic mode to surveillance mode by getting the right perspective.

Step 2 - Move from surveillance mode to survival mode by building a temporary support system

Step 3 - Move from survival mode to attack mode by opening up opportunities on dozens of fronts

Step 4 - Move from attack mode to conquest mode by persevering until the job you have is so great that you become happy you lost the old one.

Now let’s drill down into the details and see just how to recover from being laid off.

Moving from panic mode to surveillance mode

Your first order of business after being laid off is to get the correct perspective of the situation. It is quite natural to feel rejected and stressed out about the future after a layoff. The problem is that these feeling do absolutely nothing to fix the problem at hand. Unless you can find someone who is willing to pay you for sitting around feeling upset and depressed you are wasting valuable time and energy indulging those feelings. I know this because I wasted a lot of valuable time and energy that way.

For a Christian, the key is to remember Paul’s words “My God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory through Christ Jesus”. This is really great news. Paul did not say God would supply your needs according to your company’s profits but once they dry up you are out of luck. God has dozens of ways available to Him to get your financial needs met.

The first must-have mindset is that your job is not your source, God is. Your job is only a channel that God uses to supply your needs. Losing your job simply means that God is getting ready to switch to a new channel.

That is exciting because the Bible also says that God works all things together for good for those that love him. Sounds to me like once you see how good the new channel is you will agree that being laid off was not so bad after all. This is exactly what happened to me.

The next must-have mindset for laid off employees is that there IS a date certain in your future when you will be hired to an awesome new job. You must believe this. If you do not your stress level will go up tenfold.

Just imagine for a moment if someone guaranteed you that six months after being laid off they would hire you. Think how much less stressed out you would feel if you knew that. It might still be a struggle to hold out for six months without a steady income but at least you would know for sure that in six months the struggle will end.

Now, the truth is that your situation right now is actually closer to what I just described than you might think. There really is a start date out in your future. The only real problem is that you do not yet know what that date is.

However, God does know the date. He also knows where the job is, who needs to cross your path to connect you to it, exactly how much money it will take to carry you through in the interim and where that money will come from. Your being laid off might have come as a surprise to you but God knew it was coming since before you even took that job and He has a plan to move you to the next job and to sustain you until it happens.

All you have to do is be diligent in doing those things which are in your control such as answering ads, polishing your resume, going on interviews etc. Then let God worry about the parts that are not in your control.

If you work hard at burning this positive mindset into your brain you will find that the stress form being laid off which is rooted in uncertainty about the future will greatly diminish and you will be able to concentrate on fixing the problem instead of worrying about it.

This is where you can get into what I call surveillance mode. It is a mental state where instead of looking at the mess you are currently in you are scanning the landscape looking for the way out. You are taking inventory of the assets that laid off employees have at their disposal. You might have severance pay, savings, connections at other companies, marketable skills beyond those you used at your last job etc. You need to carefully list every tool at your disposal for attacking the problem and you need to think of creative ways to deploy these tools and improve your situation.

Then you have to expand your surveillance to include a careful analysis of the economic environment around you. Are you being laid off because your particular company was in trouble or is your whole industry in trouble? Are your job skills specialized to one industry or are they transferable to other industries? Are there many laid off employees in your city or state or is it national? The answers to these questions can help you determine where to focus your efforts.

For example, as of this writing the real estate industry in general and mortgage industry in particular are in a significant downturn. Many realtors and mortgage brokers are really hurting and there are many laid off employees in this area. However, there is still opportunity for these folks if they know where to look.

Realtors are usually very good at sales and lots of companies need great sales people. Many realtors are finding that they can return to prosperity by applying their sales skills to another industry. You might also find that being laid off from one industry will create an opportunity for you to work in another industry.

Mortgage brokers are hurting since the number of qualified mortgage applicants is down sharply. However, the number of problem loans and foreclosures is going way up. This spells opportunity for former mortgage brokers who are being laid off to apply their expertise to consulting with would-be home owners who want to qualify for a new mortgage or consulting with banks about how to better screen future applicants or assist families who are currently in hot water with a refinancing package.

Move from surveillance mode to survival mode

This step is all about building a temporary support system to give you some staying power as you weather the current storm. The key word here is temporary. Too many laid off employees think that after being laid off they must find their next job right away. Because they are desperate, they jump at any job they can find and adopt it as their next permanent position whether it is a good fit for them or not. This can be a big mistake.

A better approach to initiate stabilize yourself after being laid off is to do whatever it takes to get some income coming in quickly and reduce your living expenses as much as possible with the full knowledge that the situation is not permanent. You can put up with almost anything when you know it is temporary so be open to doing things in the short term that you would not necessarily be willing to do for the long term.

Let’s consider the income side of the equation first. The goal after being laid off is to get as much coming in as possible while still keeping yourself available to search for a permanent job. Consider as many of the following as possible:

Severance pay - If none is offered request it. If a package is offered request that it be increased
Unemployment insurance - Do not be embarrassed to sign up right away. You had money taken out of your paycheck all these years to fund it. Now it’s time to collect.
Transfers - As crazy as this sounds, I have literally seen companies conduct a large round of layoffs and a new hire orientation…….on the same day! That’s right, one guy who is among the laid off employees would be going out the revolving door with a box of his stuff tucked under one arm at the same time as a new guy was showing up for his first day. Some layoffs are not about saving money, they are about reallocating it. See if your old boss might be able to pull some strings and get you into another department….any department.
Consulting - other times companies do need to reduce headcount. However, even though you are being laid off they still need the skills you have. Ask if a short term consulting arrangement is possible.
A part time job - the pay might be low but remember it is temporary and it is better than nothing
A home-based business - Nothing fancy here. Consider cleaning houses, mowing lawns or offering a skill or talent you have to local customers or small businesses.
A big garage sale or Ebay auction - you must have some junk accumulated in a basement or attic. Now is the time to turn it into cash.
Sale of non-essential assets -if you own old jewelry, real estate or a car that you do not really need you might want to consider cashing in.

Now let’s check the expense side of things. Your company found it necessary to do some painful cost cutting. That is probably the reason they laid off employees. Now you may have to do the same. You must ruthlessly cut every expense you can. The objective is to get your expenses to be less than the amount of money coming in from the sources listed above. It might be uncomfortable but if you can do it you will be in a position to ride out the tough times until you get set up in a proper job again.

Consider canceling all non-essential services and subscriptions you might have. Freeze all spending on entertainment, travel, clothes and luxury items. Buy store brand grocery items rather than brand names. Lower your heat and turn off your air conditioning whenever possible. Ask for lower interest rates and monthly payments on any credit cards you have.

There is only one item I advise against cutting even after being laid off and that is your tithe. Any non-Christians reading this will probably consider this crazy but I believe that God will honor you and reward you if you continue to give a portion of whatever income you might still have. The Bible promises “Give and it will be given unto you pressed down, shaken together and running over”. This is easy to do when the money is rolling in but if you give when money is tight it proves to yourself and to God that you still trust Him and put Him first and I believe He will reward that. I did this during my time “between jobs” and I believe it is the reason I am so blessed now. Besides, if you do not have enough coming in to begin with and you give 10% of it away all it means is that you still do not have enough so it really does not make that big of difference when you give it. However, it will make a HUGE difference when God returns it back to you as his Word promises.

In the next post in the Help for Laid Off Employees - 4 Steps to go From a Layoff to an Amazing Job series we will pick up with the next two steps in the recovery plan.

Stumble it!

Tags: career, Christian, job, lay off