When you read news articles about so many people being laid off by well known organizations, our thoughts go to the company: is the company really in this kind of financial crisis that it is having to let go these many people & the employees: how will they survive, now that they have lost their job. What if they are the only breadwinners of the family? We sympathize with these people for just about one moment and be done with it.
What if you are one of those people who got laid off? Our perspective changes totally when we are there along with the people who got laid off. It is one thing to be a full time employee with the organization and they are letting you go due to performance issues or disciplinary issues. You will see it coming, and maybe prepare for it too.
To be a third party employee is completely different. When you receive the offer of appointment from your parent organization, it is quite clearly mentioned in the letter, when the project is completed before the stipulated time or if the company does not have any other opportunities matching your skills, they will close your contract before the period. When you take a job on contract basis, you jump in a sinking ship with both your eyes open. Because you will be in the first line of defence when the company is not having enough projects and you knew it before you took up this job! No matter how well the company is doing, how big of an organization it is, this is bound to happen. And it is the logical thing to do too, if you think from the organization perspective, why would they continue to pay a third party employee when there is not enough work for the full time employees to begin with. If you want to cry foul, you have no one but yourself to blame for taking up a contract job.
One thing the company can do to make it a little easy on their employees, is give them enough time to prepare mentally. So they can accept the new developments, how it is going to affect them and plan for next course of action, rather than dropping the bomb overnight! Not everybody reacts to things like we expect them to. Some might be emotionally affected by this and can take extreme measures!
While working for an organization, in a particular team, your colleagues might not find the right time to appreciate you. But when you are leaving the organization, that’s when the appreciation starts to pours in, from different team. It’s when you feel, I must have done something right. It can most definitely be overwhelming. All the long hours, burning the midnight oil, finally being paid off!
I have seen one article in LinkedIn today. The article says: “Don’t post here that you have lost your job. Nobody is going to help you. Not your friends or Colleagues. There are few exceptions to this”. First thing I noticed looking at the post was: She. Is. One. Very. Negative. Person! And she is blaming her circle for not helping her in time of need.
To all the people who were laid off during this pandemic, don’t just blindly rely on people to help you, be it your close family, friends, colleagues, etc. They need to also know of job openings that could work for you, so they can communicate the same with you. First and foremost learn to rely on yourself. Stay positive, be confident, believe you can beat the odds and get a job by your efforts!
