Keep Your Job!

The Secrets to Being Indispensable

X420 Discussion Session # 42

Five Key Elements of Keeping Your Job

• Analyze Company

• Assess Job Risk

• 360 Degrees of Evaluation

• How to Keep Your Job

• Contingency Plans

Analyzing Your Company

• Know your company

• Read annual report

• Consult Internet and library

• Read newspapers and magazines

• Make contacts

Key Performance Indicatorsof the Company

• Financial statement

• Revenue growth

• Earnings growth

• Profit margins

• Research and development spending

Early Warning Signals

• Lose a major company’s business?• Company getting bad press?• Industry-wide tremors?• Company dependent on one supplier?• Major product losing market share?• Prices dropping?• Inventories building up?• Talk of mergers?

Riskiest Industries

• Banking

• Media/Entertainment

• Retailing

• Telecommunications

• Utilities

Assessing Your Vulnerability

• View business as investor

• Would you hire you?

• Keep up skills

• How to read your boss

• Be a mensch

• Do best job you can

Are You Next?

1. Are you keeping up your career skills? (+ 10 )

2. Are you in the loop? (+10)

3. How many steps removed are you from the people with power? (+5)

4. Do you have champions other than your boss? (+15)

Take this quiz to size up your chances of being fired. Add up the points for each question, then use the table at the end to see how vulnerable you are.

5. Has it been more than a year since your last performance review? (-5)

6. Do you ask anyone other than your boss how you’re doing? (+10 )

7. Have you gotten any negative feedback recently? (+5)

8. Have you made a suggestion recently that saved money or improved a product? (+5)

9. Do you add value? (+10)

10.Are you listened to? (+5 )If someone else has sought you out as a mentor in the past year, (+5)

11.Have you had trouble catching anyone’s eye recently? (-10)

12.Do you earn more money than people who do the same work you do? (-5)

13. Over 40? (-5 )

14. Are you busy? (+20

Scoring:

20 and below: You’re lucky you have a job

21 – 40: Dust off the resume

41 – 60: Still on the fence

61 – 80: Nice work

81 – 100: Lifetime employment

Secrets of Survival

• Who’s vulnerable if layoffs hit?

• Enough if boss pleads your case?

• Pick right people as champions?

• Have right skills?

Seeing Yourself: How to Get the Full Picture

Self-Evaluation Checklist:

• Your work in company’s long-range strategy?

• Making money for company?

• Providing more?

• Articulate your value? • Other people know you add value?

• Consulting firm been called in? • New management?

How Others See You – 360 Degree Feedback

• Talk with co-workers• Talk with variety of people• Ask for negative feedback• Ask manager how you can improve • 360-degree feedback

How to Keep Your Job – Becoming Indispensable

Really Important Things You Need to Know:• Finance • Accounting• Computers• Marketing• Communications• Outsourcing• Team Building• Diversity

Nine Steps to Job Security

1. Be known in positive way2. Be vocal about accomplishments3. Be linked to fast tracker – “sausage theory”4. Be involved in high-growth areas5. Be a mentor6. Be ahead of learning curve7. Be able to articulate your “Value Add”8. Be versatile9. Be brave

How to be Safe

Carole Hyatt, author of Lifetime Employability, uses this acronym:

S: Safety Net

A: Attitude

F: Fit

E: Entrepreneurial

Networking

• Inside the company

• Outside the company

• Mentoring

Mentoring

Internal Board of Mentors:

• The Higher-Up• The Peer• The Subordinate “Formal mentoring” –

pairing younger managers with seasoned mentors.

Contingency Plans

Nine Ways to Make Yourself More Financially Secure:1. Pay off credit card 2. Six months’ income for emergencies3. Refinance house4. Home-equity line 5. Flexible spending6. Restructure insurance7. Automate saving8. Tax-deferred savings plans 9. Invest in education

What to Do if You Think

You May Get Fired

• Employability• Benefits• 401K and Savings

Eight Keys to Career Self-Reliance

1. Overarching principle2. Define your product or service3. Know target market4. Why customer buys from you5. Quality and customer satisfaction6. Know your profession 7. Invest in your growth 8. Change business or start new one

Resources

The Internet The Advantage, Inc. www.inmind.com/advantage All Business Network www.all-biz.com/job.html Exec-U-Net www.clickit.com/touch/execunet.mediahi.html Kennedy Information LLC www.kennedypub.com/kp.html Stybel, Peabody, Lincolnshire www.careerlinc.com Directory of Executive Recruiters Executive Recruiter News National Ad Search National Business Employment Weekly

Evaluation Questions

Use:Strongly agreeAgreeDisagreeStrongly disagreeDon’t know

1. I found the presentation of material easy to understand.2. This discussion session increased my knowledge on the subject

presented.3. I will be able to use some of the information from this discussion

session in the future.4. The presenter was well prepared for this discussion session.5. This presentation should be repeated in future semesters.