How to Avoid a Layoff: The Inside Stuff

The anticipatory layoff — one executed by a profitable company that isn't yet in trouble — is an important difference between the current economic crisis and past slowdowns. That's why, as an employee, preparing for layoffs is smart strategy now, even if your own company is doing well so far.

If you don't want to be among those designated for layoff, there are things you can start doing now to enhance your chances of continued employment. I've organized them into three categories. The inside stuff includes actions you can take to strengthen your frame of mind and help you maintain a positive attitude. Relationship-oriented actions include things to do that involve your relationships with colleagues, co-workers and others. And situational actions include things to do and decisions to make that pertain to your general situation at work.

Here are some tips for strengthening yourself emotionally to make your attitude more positive and appealing to those around you.

Attend to your health

If you're healthy, you feel better emotionally. Exploit your health insurance, if you have it, to get minor things taken care of. Smoking cessation is especially useful, because it helps your health, and makes you more attractive as an employee, and saves lots of cash. But don't do anything elective that will keep you out of work for extended periods, because despite any legal protections, being out on sick leave can make you more vulnerable to layoff.

Attend to your finances

Whatever might happen, you'll deal with it better if your finances are in good shape. Some signs of trouble: carrying balances on credit cards, bills in arrears, and phone calls from creditors. If you have chronic financial problems, recognize that you need advice and counseling — and get help from a reputable noncommercial agency. If part of the problem is marital, seek counseling for that, too.

Work-life balance might now mean longer hours

In good times, working long hours threatens happiness at home. But in troubled times, losing your job altogether is a greater threat to home life. If you think that working longer hours will help make you more valuable than your co-workers, get the support of your family and go for it.

Keep your personal troubles private

Foreclosure, divorce, illness, family problems — keep all of it private. When managers select people to terminate, they sometimes consider personal stability. Telling people about your personal problems probably won't help you keep your job. If you need to talk to someone, and family isn't enough, seek a counselor or a therapist.

Telling people about
your personal problems
probably won't help
you keep your job

Most important, be the most positive person you know. This is more than just acting as if you have a positive attitude. You must be positive. Do whatever you can do to make your job, your finances, your family and your social situation as secure as they can be.

We'll address tips for relationships next time.   Next issue in this series   Top    Next Issue

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More about layoffs

Celebrate!  [February 21, 2001]

When you celebrate — even minor successes — you change your outlook, you energize yourself, and you create new ways to achieve more successes. Too often we let others define what we will celebrate. Actually, we're in complete command of what we celebrate. When we take charge of our celebrations, we make life a lot more fun.

Doorknob Disclosures and Bye-Bye Bombshells  [July 10, 2002]

A doorknob disclosure is an uncomfortable, painful, or embarrassing revelation offered at the end of a meeting or conversation, usually by someone who's about to exit. When we learn about bad news in this way, we can feel frustrated and trapped. How can we respond effectively?

Double Your Downsizing Damage  [July 17, 2002]

Some people believe that senior management is actually trying to hurt their company by downsizing. If they are they're doing a pretty bad job of it. Here's a handy checklist for evaluating the performance of your company's downsizers.

What's So Good About Being Laid Off?  [December 25, 2002]

Layoffs during the holiday period of November 15 through January 15 are far more common than you might think. Losing your job, or fearing that you might, is always difficult, but at this time of year it's especially helpful to keep in mind that the experience does have a bright side.

Beyond WIIFM  [August 13, 2003]

Probably the most widely used tactic of persuasion, "What's In It For Me," or WIIFM, can be toxic to an organization. There's a much healthier approach that provides a competitive advantage to organizations that use it.

Encourage Truth Telling  [November 19, 2003]

Getting to the truth can be a difficult task for managers. People sometimes withhold, spin, or slant reports, especially when the implications are uncomfortable or threatening. A culture that supports truth telling can be an organization's most valuable asset.

Those Across-the-Board Cuts That Aren't  [July 14, 2004]

One widespread feature of organizational life is the announcement of across-the-board cuts. Although they're announced, they're rarely "across-the-board." What's behind this pattern? How can we change it to a more effective, truthful pattern?

Organizational Loss: Searching Behavior  [April 16, 2008]

When organizations suffer painful losses, their responses can sometimes be destructive, further harming the organization and its people. Here are some typical patterns of destructive responses to organizational loss.

How to Avoid a Layoff: Your Relationships  [February 4, 2009]

In troubled economic times, layoffs loom almost everywhere. Here are some tips for reconfiguring your relationships with others at work and at home to reduce the chances that you will be laid off.

How to Avoid a Layoff: Your Situation  [February 11, 2009]

These are troubled economic times. Layoffs are becoming increasingly common. Here are some tips for positioning yourself in the organization to reduce the chances that you will be laid off.

Four Popular Ways to Mismanage Layoffs: I  [February 18, 2009]

When layoffs are necessary, the problems they are meant to address are sometimes exacerbated by mismanagement of the layoff itself. Here is Part I of a discussion of four common patterns of mismanagement, and some suggestions for those managers and other employees who recognize the patterns in their own companies.

Four Popular Ways to Mismanage Layoffs: II  [February 25, 2009]

Staff reduction is needed when expenses overtake revenue. But when layoffs are misused, or used too late, they can harm the organization more than they help. Here's Part II of an exploration of four common patterns of mismanagement, and some suggestions for those managers and other employees who recognize the patterns in their own companies.

Coping with Layoff Survival  [March 25, 2009]

Your company has just done another round of layoffs, and you survived yet again. This time was the most difficult, because your best pal was laid off, and you're even more fearful for your own job security. How can you cope with survival?

Teamwork Myths: Conflict  [June 17, 2009]

For many teams, conflict is uncomfortable or threatening. It's so unpleasant so often that many believe that all conflict is bad — that it must be avoided, stifled, or at least managed. This is a myth. Conflict, in its constructive forms, is essential to high performance.

Teamwork Myths: I vs. We  [July 1, 2009]

In high performance teams, cooperative behavior is a given. But in the experience of many, truly cooperative behavior is so rare that they believe that something fundamental is at work — that cooperative behavior requires surrendering the self, which most people are unwilling to do. It's another teamwork myth.

Hyper-Super-Overwork  [August 5, 2009]

The prevalence of overwork has increased with the depth of the global recession, in part because employers are demanding more, and in part because many must now work longer hours to make ends a little closer to meeting. Overwork is dangerous. Here are some suggestions for dealing with it.

What Is Workplace Bullying?  [March 3, 2010]

We're gradually becoming aware that workplace bullying is a significant deviant pattern in workplace relationships. To deal effectively with it, we must know how to recognize it. Here's a start.

Sixteen Overload Haiku  [October 27, 2010]

Most of us have some experience of being overloaded and overworked. Many of us have forgotten what it is not to be overloaded. Here's a contemplation of the state of overload.

Self-Serving Bias in Organizations  [July 20, 2011]

We all want to believe that we can rely on the good judgment of decision makers when they make decisions that affect organizational performance. But they're human, and they are therefore subject to a cognitive bias known as ``Em''self-serving bias``/Em''. Here's a look at what can happen.

Pariah Professions: I  [June 5, 2013]

In some organizations entire professions are held in low regard. Their members become pariahs to some people in the rest of the organization. When these conditions prevail, organizational performance suffers.

Changing Blaming Cultures  [March 5, 2014]

Culture change in organizations is always challenging, but changing a blaming culture presents special difficulties. Here are three reasons why.

Constancy Assumptions  [July 16, 2014]

We necessarily make assumptions about our lives, including our work, because assumptions simplify things. And usually, our assumptions are valid. But not always.

Rationalizing Creativity at Work: II  [November 5, 2014]

Creative thinking at work can be nurtured or encouraged, but not forced or compelled. Leaders who try to compel creativity because of very real financial and schedule pressures rarely get the results they seek. Here are examples of tactics people use in mostly-futile attempts to compel creativity.

Why We Don't Care Anymore  [April 8, 2015]

As a consultant and coach I hear about what people hate about their jobs. Here's some of it. It might help you appreciate your job.

Managing Wishful Thinking Risk  [October 21, 2015]

When things go wrong, and we look back at how we got there, we must sometimes admit to wishful thinking. Here's a framework for managing the risk of wishful thinking.

Wishful Significance: I  [December 16, 2015]

When things don't work out, and we investigate why, we sometimes attribute our misfortune to "wishful thinking." In this part of our exploration of wishful thinking we examine how we arrive at mistaken assessments of the significance of what we see, hear, or learn.

Nine Brainstorming Demotivators: I  [January 31, 2018]

The quality of the output of brainstorming sessions is notoriously variable. One source of variation is the enthusiasm of contributors. Here's Part I of a set of nine phenomena that can limit contributions to brainstorm sessions.

Conway's Law and Technical Debt  [January 30, 2019]

Conway's Law is an observation that the structures of systems we design tend to replicate our communication patterns. This tendency might also contribute to their tendency to accumulate what we now call technical debt.

Layoff Warning Signs: I  [August 21, 2024]

One of the better career moves you can make is leaving your current position before your employer conducts layoffs. When you choose the time, you aren't under pressure and you make better decisions. Here are eight warning signs of coming layoffs.

Layoff Warning Signs: II  [August 28, 2024]

Layoffs often signal their arrival well in advance, if you know what to watch for. Some of the indicators are subtle and easily confused with normal operations. Here are three more indicators that layoffs might be secretly underway.

Beating the Layoffs: I  [September 4, 2024]

If you work in an organization likely to conduct layoffs soon, keep in mind that exiting voluntarily before the layoffs can carry significant advantages. Here are some that relate to self-esteem, financial anxiety, and future employment.

Mitigating the Trauma of Being Laid Off  [April 2, 2025]

Trauma is an emotional response to horrible events — accidents, crimes, disasters, physical abuse, emotional abuse, gross injustices — and layoffs. Layoff trauma is real. Employers know how to execute layoffs with compassion, but some act out of cruelty. Know how to defend yourself.

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Related articles

More articles on Emotions at Work:

Never, Ever, Kill the Messenger

If you're a manager in a project-oriented organization, you need to know the full, unvarnished Truth. When you kill a messenger, you deliver a message of your own: Tell me the Truth at your peril. Killing messengers has such predictable results that you have to question any report you receive — good news or bad.

Are You Taking on the Full Load?

Taking on the full load is what we do when we feel fully responsible for either the success or the failure of some organizational activity. Instead of asking for help, we take extreme measures to execute responsibilities that might not even be ours.

Demanding Forgiveness

Working together under stress, we do sometimes hurt each other. Delivering apologies is a skill critical to repairing those hurts and maintaining our relationships.

What We Don't Know About Each Other

We know a lot about our co-workers, but we don't know everything. And since we don't know what we don't know, we sometimes forget that we don't know it. And then the trouble begins.

Be With the Real

When the stream of unimportant events and concerns reaches a high enough tempo, we can become so transfixed that we lose awareness of the real and the important. Here are some suggestions for being with the Real.

See also Emotions at Work and Emotions at Work for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

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Modern firms in competitive, dynamic markets draw on many types of employer/employee relationships, including contractors. By providing privileges and perks preferentially among these different types, they risk creating a caldron of resentments that can reduce organizational effectiveness. Available here and by RSS on June 4.

And on June 11: More Things I've Learned Along the Way: VI

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