How To Prepare For A Layoff

MarketWatch's Marshall Loeb Shares 6 Tips To Help Soften The Blow

(MarketWatch)  U.S. employers have cut tens of thousands of jobs in the last few months and layoffs appear to be spreading. If you're worried about your job, now isn't the time to panic. It's time to get prepared.

Here are six ways to prepare for a layoff, from Kate Lorenz, an editor at Career Builder.com, an online job-search site.

Get organized.
Print and take home personal files on your computer and locate copies of your performance appraisals and other personnel records. Review your status reports and project files to help you update your résumé so that it reflects all of your recent accomplishments and newly acquired skills. Think about what you might want to do next and whom you might want to use as a reference.

Get what's coming to you.
Take advantage of any perks and benefits to which you are entitled. Schedule your checkups and tend to any or issues while you're still insured -- especially if you've already met your deductibles. If you've got a flexible spending account, turn in all outstanding claims to avoid forfeiting any balances. In addition, know exactly how much vacation and floating holiday time you've used and make sure you've taken credit for your holidays. (Most companies will not honor unused holidays, but will pay you for any remaining vacation.)

Get connected.
Spend at least one to two hours a day networking. Call your friends, former co-workers and clients. Attend your professional association meetings. This is a good time to help others who may be helpful to you in the future.

Get searching.
Visit the Web sites of any relevant trade and professional associations as well as companies where you'd like to work. Check print and online job postings to see what requirements are being asked for in your desired next job and note any gaps in your experience or skill base.

Get an exit strategy.
The folks will be working from a script when they give you the news. Make sure you know what you should say too. If no information about severance pay has been communicated, check the policy manual to find out what is standard practice. Do not agree to sign anything then and there; say that you need to review the proposed agreement with your legal and financial advisers. The National Employee Rights Institute contends that employees have more bargaining power than they realize -- and not only about the amount of severance pay. Assess your situation, so that you can negotiate aspects of the termination that will have the most value for you.

Get fired up!
When layoffs are looming, stay positive and place yourself in a position of strength. Remember, change is an accelerating mechanism. It can bring about hardship and anxiety if you try to avoid it, but tremendous opportunity if you accept and welcome it.

[rushlimpdrug]

Posted by ramos937 at 05:44 AM

Wake up from your fantasy.

[ramos937]

Before you are laid off, I hope both the company and the employee have done the below:

The company - consider if having employees work less than 40 hours per week would be the better alternative. Full benefits could stay in place but they could be trimed if needed.

The employee - what still employed, start a part time business. If it competes with your employer''s business, get permission to do so. If not, keep quiet about it. If you are laid off, at least you will have some income. If you are laid off, see if you can land your employer as a client while you are still on the payroll but notified about your impending layoff.
There are many cases where someone had a busines of his/her own that wound up paying him/her more money in the end.

Good luck and God Bless

[mcv57]

best way to prepare for it in my experience is to try and get some dirt on your manager and hold it over his head...... lmao then you not only keep ur job u get a raise!!!!!!!

Posted by theantirick

Most times this tactic does not work . . . whisleblower get fired all the time, especially if the manager makes the quota (all the CEO wants is money). Corporate ethics and corruption is running rampant in the U.S. Most corporations wants your souls and bodies.

[theantirick]

best way to prepare for it in my experience is to try and get some dirt on your manager and hold it over his head...... lmao then you not only keep ur job u get a raise!!!!!!!

[mcv57]

Join the military, its always hiring, good pay, travel and meet interesting people. Also, help to fight the war on terrorist....

GOD BLESS AMERICA TODAY !!!

Posted by blackwater66 at 02:01 PM : May 09, 2008

These words sound as if it would come from a mercenary-for-hire. You forgot to mentioned the fringe-benefits:

- mental healthcare
- lim and bio replacements free
- plastic surgury and reconstruction
- postal service job access
- police job opportunity - kill black U.S. citizens (St. Louis, MO.) and women (Petersen) with full immunity. Must have all legs and arms, but no brains required.
- and limited college assistant (due to expire when Congress feels like it).

[rushlimpdrug]

This is absolutely wonderful advice.

The people at Enron
could have really used this advice.

"How To Prepare For Your Lottery Winnings"

Layoffs are so predictable.

Marshall Loeb you are a genius.

Here is a suggestion for your next
article:

[naucoming4u]

This article is just as useful as "preparing for your death"...

...because as we all know, lay-offs are very predictable and can be foreseen many weeks/months in advance!...

... N O T !

[naucoming4u]

How to prepare for a layoff? If it''''s anything to do with an office job, step 1 is to stock up on big magnets. Step 2 is stick them to the back of every office computer hard drive on your last day at work. Step 3 is to say you can''''t remember where you put the backup disks; your mind is so free of office bullsh1t now that you''''re drawing a blank.

Posted by gce65 at 01:53 AM : May 10, 2008
...........

You should have written this article!

That''s great advice for the IT professional about to be laid-off and replaced by outsourced labor!

[bgwinnett]

Join the military, its always hiring, good pay, travel and meet interesting people. Also, help to fight the war on terrorist....

GOD BLESS AMERICA TODAY !!!

Posted by blackwater66 at 02:01 PM : May 09, 2008

Positions are unexpectedly vacant every day too.

[gce65]

How to prepare for a layoff? If it''s anything to do with an office job, step 1 is to stock up on big magnets. Step 2 is stick them to the back of every office computer hard drive on your last day at work. Step 3 is to say you can''t remember where you put the backup disks; your mind is so free of office bullsh1t now that you''re drawing a blank.