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It's the holidays and many people are feeling cheerful, but if you're feeling Grinch-like instead this one's for you:
If you've been around for a while, the time will eventually come when a company you work for is in unfortunate shape and will need to "downsize." Having witnessed this at a client of mine this week, I've noticed a pattern and a few warning signs you may find useful...
Here are several warning signs you're about to be laid-off. If you've noticed more than perhaps one of these, your Spidey-Sense should be tingling—it's time to start polishing that resume/CV!
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I. Backups
"Have you backed-up all your work to XYZ?"
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II. Training
"Please train your co-worker on X, we need everyone up to speed on these components."
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III. Important Project or Person MIA
Just like the old Christmas movie, It's a Wonderful Life, where the very existence of the main character is erased from history, a similar fate will happen to $BIG_PROJECT or important people.
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IV. Mandatory Meeting
Subject: Moving Forward in $YEAR+1Content-free meeting invitations or email focused on date periods, especially late-in the year (a nod to tax purposes). "Let's discuss our plan for 2016." **gulp**
That's my list for now, please chime in with any others you can think of.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday December 23 2015, @09:44AM
I've been laid off many times, fired a few times, and quit jobs a few other times.
Of course, in construction, especially industrial construction, you expect to be laid off frequently. The biggest job I ever worked on lasted 2 1/2 years, but Subcontractor A finished it's part of the job, and I transferred to Subcontractor B, then to Subcontractor C. Oddly, the wages increased with each transfer.
As for non-construction layoffs - take it as a warning when the personnel manager or HR starts talking nice. There have been a couple personnel managers who really were nice people, and were pleasant to be around, but in general, personnel managers aren't motivated to be nice people. If they suddenly start acting like nice people, take warning. As for HR, I'm suspicious of them no matter how they talk. They don't even speak a language that I understand. I do understand that when HR says something nice, they are trying to manipulate you.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 23 2015, @09:58AM
It always pays to remember that HR is paid to talk nice but act evil. Their reason for existence is to make firing people easier (and to hire people, and maybe they interact with payroll, but that is so much easier).
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday December 23 2015, @06:57PM
What is ignored here that any sort of organization, not just businesses, needs to be able to fire people for legitimate reasons. And in the developed world, firing people is legally the most dangerous thing you can do organizationally short of maiming or killing people.