Layoffs cuts and survival at the office

The day has when you enter the office and there’s a buzz in the air that there are going to be some cuts today (in reces­sion times as today this might come in some waves). The moment you enter into your room your super­vi­sor sends a mes­sage he wants to have a pri­vate talk with you later that day. When work­ing enough time in the office you know the pol­i­tics and the tone of voice and you can con­nect it to the sit­u­a­tion, you have a feel­ing this isn’t going to be a pro­mo­tion kind of talk.

Try to post­pone the talk with the boss as far as you can in that day, or even bet­ter to the next day — now your time starts to run and you have to be pre­pare as much as you can for this talk.

In order to get ready for this talk there are few steps that you need to do:

1. Write down points of your achieve­ments and progress over the last year.
2. Walk around the office and try to snooze if any other depart­ments look for other posi­tions – remem­ber, it doesn’t have to be the exact posi­tion you are doing, but an open alter­na­tive position.
3.  Enter the HR web site of the office and browse it to see any other open posi­tions – don’t look at sim­i­lar posi­tions as yours, look for any position.

Now you are ready, at the con­ver­sa­tion you’ll be told it’s not your fault and that you are doing a good job, now it’s your turn to act lit­tle bit sur­prise and play inno­cent, how can it be after all I did for the office – at this time count all the achieve­ments and progress you did (as you pre­pare it earlier).

This act is needed to empower you in the eyes of your boss and let him re-think and try to offer another solu­tion by that he is doing the work for you. If this isn’t the case you already did a lit­tle research ear­lier today regard­ing open posi­tions, try to ask about that, as throw­ing alter­na­tives shows your boss you love com­ing to work in the office and wants to stay, if you didn’t find any open posi­tion don’t be shy and ask him if he knows about any.

Your work wasn’t fin­ished here, never let your super­vi­sor one option only, and always let him have mul­ti­ple choices – ask him if there is an option to work less than 100% of your position.

Mul­ti­ple options gives you more time to stay at work and even­tu­ally this trans­late into being paid for those few more days, also it will let the direc­tors to think more deeply how they can help you.

After the con­ver­sa­tion has fin­ished go to the HR and asks about other open posi­tions you have seen at the web site or ask if there are any other open posi­tions at the office.

Being cut is hurt, and reces­sion time is a dif­fi­cult time to every­one even to the mas­ter of office pol­i­tics. The describe steps don’t mean you’ll 100% stay at your office but it will sure give you a small chance to stay there (in sim­i­lar or other posi­tion) or at least being paid for extra more days until the final answer regard­ing your alter­na­tive offers will come.

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