Most jobs in HVAC are at a higher level of risk of redundancy than they were a couple of years ago despite the companies that buck the trend and continue to grow. And talking to employers and employees in the industry most seem to agree that a serious upturn is quite a way off still.
As a consequence, the priority for many candidates is keeping their existing job rather than checking out pastures new.The latest Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development survey gives an interesting perspective on this. It’s employees survey found that less than a third of employees trusted their senior managers and that trust in their leaders had reached an all time low.
So what can you do to help keep your job in a recession? When your senior managers sit down with your boss to decide who is to go in the latest head count reduction, how do you influence his decision away from recommending you.
I would suggest looking at three areas:
Communication
We are a male dominated profession and I think it would be fair to say that communication is not our strongest point. Find out what the company’s business plan is and how it is doing against that plan. You may be employed within an enlightened organisation that shares this information with its employees but many don’t.
Try to find out also how it is meeting its cash projections and if it is managing to collect its debts. Most companies that go bust, do so because of lack of cash rather than lack of orders.
Do you have a set of objectives agreed with your boss and if so how are they measured? If you know these two things then it is easier to communicate your value to your boss and the company if and when it comes to head count reduction. You can ask for a regular review if you don’t already receive one and ask, ‘How am I doing?’
Empathy with and loyalty to your boss
Do you know what your boss’s objectives are and how he or she is measured? How could you help your boss achieve his or her objectives? To a large extent we develop loyalty within our network by doing favours for each other. Little things that don’t cost money like passing over an interesting article on a subject the boss is interested in or working on.
Contingency planning
What would you do if your boss put you onto the redundancy process today? How prepared are you? Who is recruiting in your sector? Could you go self-employed and if so what would be your competitive advantage? I hope redundancy doesn’t happen to you but is it worth doing some contingency planning in the event that it does?