Recession-Proof Your Job

chillibreeze writer — Lakshmi Ratan

With the recession showing no signs to recede, more job losses are staring at IT professionals. The media is being flooded with soothsayers; actually more doomsayers than ‘boom’sayers. You keep hearing statements pregnant with wisdom like ‘work for passion and not paycheck’, ‘pay cut is any day better than a job cut’, ‘by keeping happy your boss, you may not face a loss’ etc.

According to the Dice 2008-09 tech salary survey results based on the responses of more than 19,000 technology workers between August and November 2008, the top five worries for technology professionals in 2009 are keeping skills up to date, job elimination, lower salary increases, cancelled projects and increased workload due to staff cuts. Today we are witnessing all these five factors impacting the IT job scene across companies, big and small, in varying degrees.

So, how do you prepare yourself for facing the worst? You need to have a strategy. Let us assume that the five worries listed above are the 5 challenges that we need to overcome.

What steps does one need to take so that while saving the blushes, one could also help his or her organization to tide over these tough times?

Skills update: If you are on the bench, utilize your time to acquire knowledge on the existing projects in your company, learn new technology and understand the processes in place. If you are busy and engaged actively in a project, be on the lookout for upgrading yourself in the project hierarchy and assess the skill gaps that you may have to bridge to go up the ladder or to become an important cog in the wheel. Remember to keep your immediate boss informed that you are engaging yourself and seek help as required to facilitate your ‘learning’ experience.

Job elimination: Back up your willingness-to-learn attitude with a serious self-review of your job responsibility and role. You need to be concerned if the responsibility is either not clear or constantly being changed and you fear that the role can become redundant for being non-critical and lacking visibility in the future. You should look for opportunities within the organization where your strengths and skills could be utilized and where you can ‘contribute’ to the organization. You have to take the lead in this matter since your HR or the manager may not be aware of your ‘other’ skills, experience and interests apart from what you are presently working on or for what they have hired you. Many organizations first try to redeploy, rather than reduce headcount.

Wage freeze or lower salary increases: There is a mental and a monetary aspect to this never-before-experienced trend, at least in the IT segment. So, first get prepared mentally to face this prospect which will help you to view the situation in better light. During a recession all companies will look to cutting overheads and ‘stretch’ their budgets. Typically, wages account for about 40% to 45% of overheads or cost of running the IT business. Next, do a thorough personal finance planning and trimming to meet the shortfall in income.

Cancelled projects: It is not just the management or client who should be bothered about ‘cancellation’ of projects. The management can lay you off to cover the loss and the client can get the service through another provider. But what happens to you? So, it is in your interest to see that you keep the project ‘alive’ and ‘kicking’ or else you will be dead and kicked out. Look for ways to add value, maintain good rapport with the client, be prompt in reporting and keep ‘marketing’ your company’s worth for new opportunities.

Increased workload due to staff cuts: In tough times while management like to ‘get more for less ‘; it is vice versa for employees as they ‘get less for more’. Be prepared for this eventuality. Utilize your weekends to refresh and recharge your batteries. As you cannot ‘log’ out early, mind your eating and sleeping habits so that you get the energy and rest to ‘slog’ out gracefully.

The golden rule is ‘be visible and pro-active’ in whatever position you are occupying in your organization. “If you’re flying under the radar, you’re going to be the first to be eliminated,” says Kirsten Dixson, author of Career Distinction: Stand Out by Building Your Brand.

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—About our writer:

Lakshmi Ratan,

A freelance writer with a few decades of working experience in banking technology and IT management. Has lived in Germany and Dubai for brief periods. Interests are writing and cricket.

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