CAREER PROS: Protect Your New Job

For those who have been skillful enough to secure new employment, now is the time to build on the foothold you’ve established in the organization and begin reinforcing your position.

That is the best way to protect job security, regardless of the economic conditions, and it may be particularly appropriate at this time, as companies streamline from top to bottom.

You want to demonstrate to your new employer that you are indispensable by virtue of being able to do many things during a period when companies are trying to reduce operating costs. You need to do the job that you were hired to do and augment it with additional work. It may require more hours on the job and some advance planning on your part during non-work hours, but the dividends can be significant.

What’s Best for Your Employer?

You should approach each job or assignment with the attitude, "How can we do this better?" That type of mindset will help ensure that you keep your focus on the well being of the company, which is where it should be concentrated.

Adopt the attitude of a community volunteer. When workers are asked to volunteer for an assignment, yours should be the first hand raised. Better yet, evaluate the work situation to determine how you can volunteer for assignments that have not yet been made. By suggesting and volunteering for new work, you will be demonstrating the type of aggressiveness that employers appreciate, and you will increase your visibility before top-level management.

Here are some other ways to increase job security at your new position:

Find ways to save money that require your doing. For example, if you can figure out a way or ways of accomplishing work in less time while maintaining output of the same or better quality, you will be making a significant contribution to profitability. Time is an important factor to consider because time means money at any company. When the savings occur in your own department, or from work you do or personally supervise, you are elevating your stature and strengthening your own case.

Be adaptable to changing requirements. Your company’s priorities and ways of doing business can change very quickly, depending on the competitive demands it faces, coupled with fluctuations in the economy and specific industries. A premium is put on the individual’s ability to adapt and successfully meet new requirements. The people who are likely to be the most successful are those who possess the experience needed to become rapidly functional in a changing atmosphere and make contributions to profitability.

Keep your boss informed. It is not enough in many companies just to do a good job and hope that someone notices or appreciates it. Particularly in larger firms, higher-ups may not know what you have done for them lately. Make it a point to schedule regular meetings with your supervisor to provide updates on your activities and accomplishments. If that isn’t possible, look for opportunities to fit your achievements into any conversations that take place. You tell them! Do not brag. Sell factual accomplishments. By marshaling demonstrative evidence of your accomplishments, you will solidify your job security.

Define your objectives. You can clarify your own thinking about the job by writing down a list of goals and how you expect to achieve them. This list should be reviewed and updated at least once a week.

Strive to be well liked. People who are disliked by someone in authority are always the first to go when business conditions become unfavorable. Find ways to increase your likability in the eyes of the employer. You were liked when you were hired, and you want to maintain that same acceptance now. Continuing effort is required to meet your employer’s expectations and establish good interpersonal relationships in the workplace. Avoid any tendency to become nonchalant and take things for granted.

Do not criticize the company or anyone in it. Even in the best of times, employers do not like complainers or those who appear to have dissident views or difficulties getting along on the job, especially new hires. With the stresses and tensions of the work atmosphere, there may be a natural tendency to "let off steam" or indulge yourself in expressing some frustrations, or attempt to prove your own worth by finding fault in others.

However, this is a very unwise course of action during the early stages of a new job. It is best to adopt the attitude that the employer is always right, and keep your opinions to yourself. Agreeable employees stay. You can always express opinions privately outside the company, but even then caution needs to be exercised. Negative comments often have a way of getting back to quarters where you would rather not have them repeated.

Be there when you are needed. You may not consider attendance as an important factor, but it is one of the best ways to increase security at a new job. Frequent absences for personal reasons or minor illnesses are not going to sit well with senior management, who are routinely accustomed to putting in long hours. If your attendance record is poor, you are sending a message that you are not concerned about the company. Many firms are requiring their managers to work one-and-a-half or even two jobs, and you do not establish a good reputation with anyone by being a clock puncher or a time watcher. Be available early and late.