One day, you’re working the same deck you’ve swept for however many years, thankful to have a job in a time when unemployment numbers look like sharks. And then comes new management.
When fresh higher-ups take over a company, quite often many a lower-down is fired, and even more smoked out, slowly nudged down the office plank.
Being pushed out — fired in agonizingly slow motion, really — may be the most dreadful way to get let go, career counsellors say, and the way you conquer the terror can determine how fast you rally back.
“The first thing you need to do is step back and see if you’re really being pushed out,” Careerbuilder.com advisor Micheal Erwin advises to those who could be on the way out.
“When there’s change in an organization, a lot of times your mind will run amuck and you can feel like you’re being pushed out when management is actually just trying to get a hold on everything that’s going on in the company.”
Stay cool, open-minded, and ready to subtly prove your worth, he recommends.
You may, he notes, be only suffering from a bout of pushed-out paranoia.
“But if they stop giving you projects, if they stop asking you to come to meetings, if they stop asking you for input, those are all signs that your position may be eliminated,” he warns.
HAVE NO FEAR
A company can always toss your job up on the chopping block – but it’s up to you whether your pluck gets stuck in the same guillotine.
“Rediscover your confidence. Find out what you’re really afraid of,” author Danna Beal of The Extraordinary Workplace guides. “If you’re operating from fear you’ll make the situation worse.”
WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR…
Being pushed out? Find someone to lean on.
“You need to assemble a board of advisors around you,” executive coach Barbara Frankel says.
Ask them for recommendations. Focus on your career goal. Ask, ‘what would be the best path going forward.’”
The way out may be so obvious, she adds: “If it’s a large enough company, you may be able to just transfer to another department.”
