15th January 2009

Shaping up to beat the economic downturn

As the downturn bites harder, Fiona Macaskill, a director at North East training and coaching specialists Macnaughton McGregor, offers advice about how employees can ride out the economic roller coaster - and keep their jobs.

Recessions will always be compared with what went before, so the current downturn is no different as pundits look for similarities with the bad old days of the 1970s, 1980s and the early 1990s, when the housing market went into meltdown and it felt like the end of the world was approaching as financial markets collapsed around the world.

Fast forward to 2009…and global front page headlines forecasting economic doom and gloom.

However, the effect on employees is probably going to be different this time around. Back in the early 1980s the talk was not only about individual businesses downsizing but whole swathes of the economy. And, as we know, many of our traditional industries, which had been the back bone of the nation’s industrial success and strength for decades, went to the wall with wholesale redundancies commonplace.

Since then people have come to accept that there’s no such thing as ‘a job for life’ anymore. This was first suggested in William Bridges’ 1994 book ‘Jobshift: How To Survive A Workplace Without Jobs’. He identified that the real result of all this change was the emergence of a business environment and culture in which individuals would have to take much more responsibility for learning and maintaining new skills in order to retain employability.

Many companies have embraced this and developed new approaches to training their staff, promoting a workplace culture in which employees take responsibility for identifying and committing to their own training and skills development needs. 
Likewise, the onus is now on employees to seek out the experiences and education he or she feels are needed to achieve their goals and help progress up the corporate ladder (if that’s want they want to do) or move into new areas of career opportunity.  

So there’s no doubt it’s going to be the survival of the fittest for both individuals and companies in the months ahead as the credit crunch bites harder. Both need to shape up, and just as maintaining physical health and fitness requires dedication and commitment, the rules no less apply to making sure the workplace is in top shape to see everyone through.

Here are some tips for shaping up to ensure retention of your currency as a valued and productive person:

• Set some goals. Just as in getting physically fitter, it is important to set yourself some realistic goals. These could revolve around changing jobs, setting up on your own, acquiring a new skill or learning the knowledge that will help you prepare for any anticipated changes to your industry, profession or employer.

• Identify the best development methods for you.  As with physical fitness there are a number of ways of achieving your goals and the methods for self development will depend on several factors including budgets, how you would like or need to learn, access to learning opportunities and what you want to learn, how fast and timescales.

• Develop a plan. The plan should contain your goals and objectives including timescales and the actions and activities which you will undertake in order to achieve your goals. This might include attending training courses, individual study, education, computer-based learning, working on project teams, shadowing someone who has the skills and knowledge you require, finding a mentor, attending seminars or conferences, watching videos, reading and practice.

Supporting all of this should be coaching provided by managers or specialist coaches. Coaching is about asking questions, creating challenges, keeping people on track, providing feedback and providing a confidential listening ear. 

Surviving the downturn will be about possessing the requisite skills, flexibility and fitness to adapt to the changes that will inevitably sweep through businesses and even whole sectors over the coming months. To survive and thrive businesses need to get fit, and stay in peak condition, and this will mean investing in people to worker smarter - not just reducing costs but cutting down on staff.

If you are interested in finding out more contact fiona@2macs.com

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