Job Security: Whatever Happened to It?

It changed hands. It was handed off by corporate America to you and me! Had you noticed? And that’s both good news and bad news. Good news because it puts us in the driver’s seats of our own job security. It’s bad news, though, if you don’t know how to drive.

Company of One – Create Your Own Job Security

Do you know how to create your own job security and why it is important? The secret to building your own job security starts with getting the job/s that are right for you and then managing yourself as if you were a business. To borrow a phrase from Transitions author William Bridges, think of yourself as a “company of one.”

The Old Contract

Before the 1980s, if you did a good job for a good company your job was pretty safe.  Corporate America traditionally fostered the loyalty of its employees by giving and increasing their benefits: insurance, tuition, child care, retirement plans, fitness centers, subsidized cafeterias, to name a few. Longevity was rewarded with promotions and raises. The tie was so strong, even if a great opportunity came along outside of your company, too many perks made it hard to change companies. The implied contract was simple: stay here, do good work and we’ll take care of you for your career.

Then came that big wave of 1980′s  downsizing with a second phase of “right-sizing” in early 2000 and now we are experiencing a more than 10% unemployment rate in 2009.  Companies laid off employees by the thousands: downsizing, right-sizing, re-organizing and restructuring. The need to be lean, productive and profitable was, and is still, inescapable. But if you were paying attention, what you saw were talented people and tenured employees alike being shown the door. It’s not different today. What gives? Work hard. Stay put. And you still lose your job?

Managing Your Career

The contract was broken. Companies no longer provided job security.  Job security hasn’t gone away, but it did change hands. It is now up to us. We are “companies of one” and we need to manage ourselves that way.

What does a business do to stay viable? It responds to needs in the marketplace (or creates new ones). Like that business, we need to:

(1) know what talents we have (or can develop) and we enjoy using, then

(2) market them where they’re needed.

Talents and Interests

Do you know what your talents are, especially those you enjoy employing? Are there skills you need to strengthen to remain successful? Are you getting regular feedback? Do you ask for it? Do you know other ways to get it?

Successful people are self-aware: they accurately assess their strengths and weaknesses, their impact on others and ways to change what they’re doing if their impact is counterproductive.

Are you ready to move into the driver’s seat?

First, determine what skills are critical to success on your job. Consult performance reviews and job descriptions. Make your own list, then interview your boss and those who depend on the work you do for what they think is important to the success of your position. You can also ask Human Resources for their assistance.  If you are unemployed reach back to your former colleagues and supervisors.  You need this information to help guide your next steps.

Second, evaluate your strengths and weaknesses. Consider asking your boss or HR for a multi-rater or 360 assessment. If your company doesn’t offer them they or you can contract with a coach or consultant who specializes in assessment and development. When done correctly, these assessments collect quantified and anonymous feedback from the people who work “around” (hence, 360) you- your boss, peers, direct reports, and others. The information is for development purposes and should be confidential to you. If that option is not available, start by rating yourself on the list of critical skills you developed. Then ask the others who provided lists of skills they thought were important to rate you on them. Look for similarities and differences. Any blind spots? What do your performance reviews say? Consult any psychological or vocational assessments you’ve taken in the last couple of years.

Continuous Learning

We used to depend on our employers or bosses to give us feedback, tell us what to work on and send us off to some training event. Well, that didn’t happen very reliably before and there’s less reason now to expect or wait for that to happen. Remember, you’re in the driver’s seat now.

Once we’ve targeted what we need to work on, we need a development plan. There are professionals (for example coaches, management consultants, psychologists) who specialize in customizing plans to clients’ needs and helping them achieve the goals of those plans.  If you’re creating your own development plan it should include target behaviors that define improvement for each skill being developed, sources of ideas for new behaviors and/or improved skills, assignments in which new behaviors can be practiced, sources of and methods for ongoing feedback and strategies for maximizing the learning experience.

Who can help you? Coaches with backgrounds in human development use their expertise to help bring about the desired change and growth effectively. Mentors and learning partners are other sources of help.

Do you know how to market yourself?

It’s no news that the marketplace is changing rapidly. In a very short period of time our economy base has shifted from manufacturing to service to knowledge. Outsourcing to off-shore locations and the economic downturn is quickly changing the employment landscape. At a minimum, we will change jobs at lest seven times in our working lives.

Marketing yourself is simply monitoring and adjusting to changes and emerging needs in your company and industry and maintaining your visibility in both places. We accomplish this through the relationships we establish and maintain in both places. It is through these relationships that we learn company and industry news as well as help others learn about us. It positions us should our current employment cease or a better opportunity opens up.

Talent alone does not guarantee a job, as we’ve already seen. There has to be a need for our talent and those who need it have to know we have it. In short, we need visibility.

We’ve learned that those who keep their skill sets current with job demands and stay connected with their networks have little difficulty landing new positions. We’ve talked about the first steps in that process, how to match your skills with those in demand. What happens if you lose your job or become unhappy in the one you have? Do you know how to launch a campaign to get the next “right” job for you?

An earlier version of this article appeared in Strategy published by Winston Salem Journal and the Winston-Salem Chamber of Commerce.

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Pamela Corbett is an executive coach, career and outplacement counselor, organizational consultant and psychotherapist with her own practice, Spectrum Psychological Services based in Winston-Salem, NC. Licensed in North Carolina and trained in clinical psychology (Penn State and Indiana University of Pennsylvania), Pam is a certified Master Practitioner of NLP and is certified in the entire suite of Career, Leadership, and Organizational Architect Tools. Pamela has been providing executive assessment, development planning, coaching, and training through her own business and as adjunct faculty with the Center for Creative Leadership since 1986. Pam’s earlier work experience includes a veterinary hospital start-up, television production, insurance claims negotiation, inpatient and outpatient psychotherapy, and teaching at Wake Forest University. Her coaching profile can be found at TheCoachingAssociation.com.