Have You Minimized Your Axability?

I am sure many of you are asking yourself "is my job safe; am I going to lose my job; or am I next in line to be laid off". Well in today's world if you are a realist you would be asking yourself these questions. If you can believe this, I did every day for 20 years at my last company. Don't call me paranoid, call me a realist. You can be a star one day and a goat the next. Anyone who thinks otherwise should have their head examined. Today business is business and not a welfare home.

So to minimize your axability (or RIFability to some) you should think about the following things to protect your job in a recessional economy:

• Act like a manager/survivor/partner/leader. You should act confident, always add value each day to the area you work in and always be available. Provide advice and ideas that will strengthen the business environment in a confident manner.
• Provide your leaders with positive hope. Give them the sense that they are moving in the right direction. As always make sure it is in the right direction and you agree with the approach. I don't mean brown nosing here.
• Get to work early. Don't be the straggler, the one who always comes in just after work starts or calls in repeatedly with some lame excuse.
• Look busy. That means not busy work but good solid work that you can see the product as well as others.
• Be part of the organization. Your success will be monitored by your participation in the organization. Be visible, be noticed, be out there with the troops. Don't be an outsider. That old saying the train is leaving the station and you better be on it or get run over. When I mean run over I mean "see ya, your fired".
• Plan B-D. If you can not follow these very simple guidelines you will be another plan which may mean looking for another job. The thought here is do it while you are still employed.

To further this thought you should read the September issue of Harvard Business Review (http://www.hbr.org/) . It articulates the thoughts here in more detail from 2 very credible sources besides myself, Janet Banks formerly of FleetBoston and Diane Coutu from McKinsey & Company.