Keep Your Job!

1. Keep Your Job! The Secrets to Being Indispensable X420 Discussion Session # 42

2. Five Key Elements of Keeping Your Job • Analyze Company • Assess Job Risk • 360 Degrees of Evaluation • How to Keep Your Job • Contingency Plans

3. Analyzing Your Company • Know your company • Read annual report • Consult Internet and library • Read newspapers and magazines • Make contacts

4. Key Performance Indicatorsof the Company • Financial statement • Revenue growth • Earnings growth • Profit margins • Research and development spending

5. Early Warning Signals • Lose a major company’s business? • Company getting bad press? • Industry-wide tremors? • Company dependent on one supplier? • Major product losing market share? • Prices dropping? • Inventories building up? • Talk of mergers?

6. Riskiest Industries • Banking • Media/Entertainment • Retailing • Telecommunications • Utilities

7. Assessing Your Vulnerability • View business as investor • Would you hire you? • Keep up skills • How to read your boss • Be a mensch • Do best job you can

8. Are You Next? Take this quiz to size up your chances of being fired. Add up the points for each question, then use the table at the end to see how vulnerable you are. • Are you keeping up your career skills? (+ 10 ) • Are you in the loop? (+10) • How many steps removed are you from the people with power? (+5) • Do you have champions other than your boss? (+15)

9. Has it been more than a year since your last performance review? (-5) • Do you ask anyone other than your boss how you’re doing? (+10 ) • Have you gotten any negative feedback recently? (+5) • Have you made a suggestion recently that saved money or improved a product? (+5)

10. Do you add value? (+10) • Are you listened to? (+5 )If someone else has sought you out as a mentor in the past year, (+5) • Have you had trouble catching anyone’s eye recently? (-10) • Do you earn more money than people who do the same work you do? (-5)

11. Over 40? (-5 ) • Are you busy? (+20

12. Scoring: 20 and below: You’re lucky you have a job 21 – 40: Dust off the resume 41 – 60: Still on the fence 61 – 80: Nice work 81 – 100: Lifetime employment

13. Secrets of Survival • Who’s vulnerable if layoffs hit? • Enough if boss pleads your case? • Pick right people as champions? • Have right skills?

14. Seeing Yourself: How to Get the Full Picture Self-Evaluation Checklist: • Your work in company’s long-range strategy? • Making money for company? • Providing more? • Articulate your value? • Other people know you add value? • Consulting firm been called in? • New management?

15. How Others See You – 360 Degree Feedback • Talk with co-workers • Talk with variety of people • Ask for negative feedback • Ask manager how you can improve • 360-degree feedback

16. How to Keep Your Job – Becoming Indispensable Really Important Things You Need to Know: • Finance • Accounting • Computers • Marketing • Communications • Outsourcing • Team Building • Diversity

17. Nine Steps to Job Security • Be known in positive way • Be vocal about accomplishments • Be linked to fast tracker – “sausage theory” • Be involved in high-growth areas • Be a mentor • Be ahead of learning curve • Be able to articulate your “Value Add” • Be versatile • Be brave

18. How to be Safe Carole Hyatt, author of Lifetime Employability, uses this acronym: S: Safety Net A: Attitude F: Fit E: Entrepreneurial

19. Networking • Inside the company • Outside the company • Mentoring

20. Internal Board of Mentors: The Higher-Up The Peer The Subordinate “Formal mentoring” – pairing younger managers with seasoned mentors. Mentoring

21. Contingency Plans Nine Ways to Make Yourself More Financially Secure: • Pay off credit card • Six months’ income for emergencies • Refinance house • Home-equity line • Flexible spending • Restructure insurance • Automate saving • Tax-deferred savings plans • Invest in education

22. What to Do if You Think You May Get Fired • Employability • Benefits • 401K and Savings

23. Eight Keys to Career Self-Reliance • Overarching principle • Define your product or service • Know target market • Why customer buys from you • Quality and customer satisfaction • Know your profession • Invest in your growth • Change business or start new one

24. Resources • The Internet • The Advantage, Inc. www.inmind.com/advantage • All Business Network www.all-biz.com/job.html • Exec-U-Net www.clickit.com/touch/execunet.mediahi.html • Kennedy Information LLC www.kennedypub.com/kp.html • Stybel, Peabody, Lincolnshire www.careerlinc.com • Directory of Executive Recruiters • Executive Recruiter News • National Ad Search • National Business Employment Weekly

25. Evaluation Questions Use: Strongly agree Agree Disagree Strongly disagree Don’t know I found the presentation of material easy to understand. This discussion session increased my knowledge on the subject presented. I will be able to use some of the information from this discussion session in the future. The presenter was well prepared for this discussion session. This presentation should be repeated in future semesters.