Dealing with Redundancy

I know this article is off the usual topic of this blog but with the current economic situation, redundancy is something that is not too far from the minds of those in the architectural professions, construction generally and beyond. It’s certainly been a subject of great interest to me because at the end of October I was in fact made redundant. I’m not a life coach or in the business of redundancy consultancy but this article details how I dealt with the situation. Some of the items here are specific to my situation and profession but I think there are some useful tips here for anyone facing redundancy.

The worst happens

So it happened. At the end of September I was called into the conference room with my fellow Project Manager and told that one of us would have to be made redundant. It wasn’t entirely unexpected. Working in architecture and in a recession, I could see that my company’s business model was unsustainable with too many overheads and no quality clients. In fact, for the previous six months I had been quietly looking around for something new. This development would just serve to hasten my efforts. Looking back, this could have been a scary period of my life but, at the time, I was so focussed on my strategy for dealing with the situation that I didn’t really think of it as such. In fact, I saw the whole thing as an opportunity to make things better in my life. As soon as I knew for certain that there was a problem, I went back to my desk and typed up everything that I needed to. I didn’t do this in any particular order but just brainstormed everything that I thought of. Then I moved everything around into an order that made sense. I heartily recommend doing this plan on a word processor because of the ease with moving, deleting and adding new text as you think. Looking back at my plan now, it roughly comprised of the following seven steps. These were obviously broken down into more detailed items to suit my own circumstances but I think these broad steps would apply to anyone in the same situation.

1. Be prepared before you even know there’s a problem

This means having your finances in order and generally living within your means. Being in debt and having no savings will only add to your worries during the weeks leading up to a potential redundancy so your first concern should be paying off your overdraft(s), credit and store cards and other loans. Make sure your rent or mortgage is affordable and if it isn’t, take steps to ensure that it is. This is something that I have lived by for a long time. I don’t have a credit card and my overdraft was paid off permanently a long time ago. I have a principle to not go into debt for anything other than a home or a car and even then, it has to be affordable and sustainable.

2. Immediately hit your finances to reduce outgoings – decide what’s really important and ditch the rest

Your first official warning of a redundancy situation is likely to be a meeting where you are told of the difficulties faced by the company and that cuts will have to be made unless other changes can be implemented to allay the problems. You are now in what’s called a Consultation Period and this is your chance to put forward any ideas you may have to make savings or make more money. Don’t bother. If the company is in this position, it’s likely that cuts are inevitable. Even if you have an idea for making savings, it’s unlikely to save the equivalent of your salary and if you have an idea for making money then why not use the opportunity to implement it on your own without the baggage of a bloated and failing company weighing you down? In my case, the company was heavily overburdened with four administration and support staff, half of which were promoted to ‘manager’ level with generous car allowances. Meanwhile, there were three directors and three production staff generating the business and carrying it out. So the company was made up of more than fifty percent of support staff when the normal ratio for an architectural practice is something like ten percent. On top of that, there were no major quality clients with the company scratching around for small projects and trying to turn them around in ridiculous and dangerous timescales to make them pay. In my opinion, once you’ve been told of potential redundancies, it’s far more productive to plough your energy into finding something else. There is a real possibility that you’ll be without income for a while, though, and I found it useful to look at my finances first. This helped me to focus on job hunting later on. I would therefore suggest that you need to reduce your outgoings whilst you are still employed in order to save money to put away for the period when you will be without income. At the very least, identify what expenses can be reduced or eliminated altogether should the worst happen. When doing this, decide what’s really important to you and your family. A mobile ‘phone and internet connection will be invaluable in job hunting whilst an expensive television subscription will be a frivolous luxury. In my case, I reduced many of my standing orders the same evening that I had been told of the problem. I also identified that my very nice but relatively expensive car would have to be the first thing to go and took steps to find out how I could get out of the leasing agreement.

3. Work out how long you can last without income

Once you’ve limited your outgoings, now work out what you have in savings and the like to work out how long you can last without work. Divide your total savings by your weekly or monthly outgoings to give the number of weeks or months you can last without income. If you must, take into account any redundancy payouts that you think you are entitled to but these are not money in the bank at this stage so be cautious. The reason for this exercise is the psychological cushion it gives you. If you know you can last three months, you can focus on job hunting without the pressure of impending financial breakdown.

4. Don’t compete – get out

This was an important one for me and was inspired by author Paul Kyriazi. As I said above, the choice for redundancy was between my fellow Project Manager and me. My colleague took the news of potential redundancy really badly and did the only thing he knew how to do – he just worked harder. He started to put more hours in, even though we were short of work and he had a newborn son at home, and he generally tried to make himself useful. Not in a slimy sort of way but this is the only reaction he could muster. I on the other hand had foreseen this train of events and had been searching for a new job for some time. I also knew that it would more than likely be me who would be going as the company wouldn’t have to pay any redundancy money to get rid of me as I’d been there for less than two years whereas my colleague would be due a more substantial sum. By law the choice for redundancy has to be a fair process but that process can certainly be swung when that kind of economy is involved. Once again, see the situation as an opportunity to start afresh without the baggage of a bloated and failing company weighing you down.

5. Get your CV and, if applicable, portfolio sorted

Now that you’ve got your finances and mindset sorted out, you’ll be in a better mental position to get down to the actual business of finding a new job. You’ll be able to focus on this better now that you’ve decided to get out and knowing that you won’t be in financial ruin immediately after being made redundant. I’m not going to go into the topic of how to write a good CV as there are thousands of web sites out there that do so and, frankly, my CV complies with none of that advice but still works well for me. Working in architecture as I do, I also needed to update my portfolio of which I have a hard copy for interviews and an online version. I also took the opportunity to develop this web site as a form of self-promotion.

6. Apply for stop gaps as well as jobs in your own profession

Obviously you’ll be scouring the newspapers, the internet and whatever trade and industry magazines you read for jobs in your chosen field. You may also be talking to people in your network about potential opportunities. Another thing that I found useful, again more psychologically than anything else, was to apply for what I called stop gaps. With the construction industry the way it is at the moment, there was a very real possibility that I would be a long time between jobs so I applied for positions in shops and restaurants as well as any that came up in architecture. In this way, I was training myself that I was doing everything I could to sustain myself and my family. As it turned out, I didn’t need the stop gap but, if I did, the income from such a job would have slowed down the use of my savings giving me more time to find something more suitable. Who knows, it may have even led to a change of career altogether…

7. Think laterally

My last tip is to think laterally when looking for jobs. There will be many jobs that you can use your skills for that won’t necessarily be listed where you expect to find them so don’t just look in the section of the newspaper pertaining to your trade or profession, read the whole newspaper. I applied for all sorts of positions including construction trainer, fitted furniture designer and even a housing repairs administrator within a lettings agency.

This leads me nicely to the conclusion of my story. One of my lateral thinking exploits had led me to apply for the position of contracts officer within the planned maintenance department of a housing association. It was the first interview I was invited to and I was offered the position two days before I got made redundant. Yes, as I suspected, I was the one to go but being able to sit calmly in the meeting knowing that I had a new job lined up was wonderful! I walked out of the office for the last time with dignity and enjoyed two pleasant weeks off with my family before starting anew. As I write this, I’ve been in my new job for about a month and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. My salary has gone down so my beautiful car had to go but we’re managing just fine with one car in the family and we’re otherwise enjoying the same lifestyle. On the plus side, the work is far more interesting and the holiday entitlement is more generous with a flexi-time scheme so, in the long run, I will be far more time-wealthy which is worth a lot to me.

In conclusion, I know I was fortunate to be able to jump from redundancy right into another job. However, I do believe that my seven step plan had a great deal to do with this fortune.

Footnotes:

1. One of the things that helped with my outlook during this time was to choose carefully what to do with my spare time. When I wasn’t working on my plan, I found that the right movies, books and, perhaps more importantly, podcasts were invaluable in keeping my attitude positive. I remember one evening sitting down to watch the James Bond movie Die Another Day. I’m a big Bond fan and, although Die Another Day is not one of the better ones, it’s the one where he gets abandoned by his own service and literally has to restart from having nothing but the pyjamas he’s wearing. I found it inspiring given my position. I also got a lot from Heidi Miller’s podcast Diary of a Shameless Self Promoter. In fact, I listened to her entire back catalogue whilst doing my chores during this time and her upbeat, positive attitude combined with some really good ideas on marketing and promotion inspired me to create this web site and get my promotional material polished. Heidi’s web site can be found at http://www.heidi-miller.com.

2. As you may be able to deduce, my greatest sadness in all of this has been the loss of my beloved Audi. Yes, everything has worked out but there’s something about the way a nice car ingratiates itself into your life that makes it difficult to lose it. However, when I took the car back to Halesowen Audi, they made what could have been a very unpleasant experience a lot more bearable by making me feel welcome, sitting me down with a cup of coffee whilst we did the paperwork and generally being very friendly. I would wholeheartedly recommend them and will certainly go back when I next get the opportunity.