One thing that has been more apparent this year is the harsh reality one may have to face, which is going through and surviving redundancy. Unfortunately, redundancy is one of those experience that may occur in your career and it’s important at an early stage in your career to understand how to deal with it if it ever happens to you.
Since the pandemic, so many young marketers have been made redundant and it is scary and can seem like the end of the world, but it is not! And at Life Of A Marketing Girl, we truly wanted to raise awareness on this and share tips to help you understand how to deal and go through this process and come out on the better side.
Here are the 5 steps you will face and understand to survive a redundancy:
Do not take it personally
Anyone can be made redundant from an entry-level professional assistant to the marketing director. No one is exempt from this harsh reality. What’s important to understand is that this is not a personal attack on you, unfortunately, decisions like this business have to make, however, this is not a reflection of your talent, skills and time to what you have done. To be honest this is truly an opportunity for you to pivot or move on.
2. Know Your Rights!!!
We cannot stress this enough, it is SO important as an employee of any business to know your rights. It is extremely underrated and not spoken on when you enter a job. Whilst HR teams are a useful source of information in regards to the processes of that business. You should still understand legal, discrimination, pay and many other rights that you are entitled to, so you are never taken advantage of or being mistreated within your work environment.
When going through redundancy or any unfair dismal situations. There are support groups that can help you through the process, such as Citizens Advice and The Money Advice Service. More specific professional help is available from HR and Employment Law specialists.
A few rights employee you must know – which you can find on https://www.acas.org.uk/
- written terms outlining your job rights and responsibilities (read all the small print!)
- National Minimum Wage
- paid holiday
- payslips
- protection against unlawful discrimination – (Understand the various acts and what is not lawful if you are experiencing anything)
- protection for ‘whistleblowing’
- not being treated unfairly if you work part-time
3. Take Time For Yourself
Losing your job can take its toll on your mental health, emotional and physiological wellbeing. It is important that you take the time to deal with your emotions so that you are fit to move forward positively.
There will be so many questions and scenarios that will play in your mind, for example:
‘Why me’ or What did I do wrong?’ or ‘If I did this, then maybe this wouldn’t have happened’
The truth is this is 98.9% of the time out of your control and it is important you focus on what you can control at the present time. Remember it’s not where you work that matters, but it’s the work you do that truly matters.
4. Start To Put Together A Plan
This is the best part about this point in your healing and moving forward. Set up a plan. To be honest, your plan does not have to be 100% defined with a harsh deadline. What’s important is that you have your focus back and ready to conquer new ventures whether that is looking for a new job, considering starting your own business or gain experience as a freelancer and see how that goes. What’s important at this time is to be fearless with your decisions take a calculated risk and do not be afraid to ask for help and support.
5. Stay Networking and Active
Once you are clear on your next steps, get active update your CV look for resources that can review and give feedback if needed such as Top CV.
Begin networking, Utilise LinkedIn and professional profiles such as The Dots and network groups. If there are jobs you are interested in begging connecting with the relevant bodies within the businesses to understand more about the job.
This is a new opportunity to market yourself again, refresh yourself about your CV and what you want to do. Stay up to date with industry insights and what is trending!
Remember….
Tough times doesn’t last, tough people, do. Remember you can always get another JOB. At this point in your life, you are trying to solidify your career and once you have that you will ALWAYS find another job
