Dealing with job insecurity in uncertain times: tips for business managers and employees.

While the days of the “job for life” may be pretty much numbered, job insecurity remains an important factor that can impair employees’ psychological health and motivation. This is arguably worse in developing countries like Nigeria, with little or no structured social support system for the unemployed.

Job security is the assurance employees have/receive that they will be able to continue working at their current job for the immediate foreseeable future. When employees feel secure at their workplace, they are better focused, more creative, less prone to conflict, more effective and tend to produce better-quality results. The reverse is also true, with job insecurity proven to be a significant cause of poor employee engagement, which can consequently impact productivity and an organisation’s overall well-being.

Providing some degree of job security is equally important to both employees and companies. But the brutal truth is that only profitable organisations can truly provide job security, and both employers and their employees must work together to make this happen. Showing employees that the organisation values them improves their collective desire to work together to continue to make the company thrive in the future. Setting this motivational tone for the organisation empowers employees with a sense of well-being that will benefit the organisation.

For employers, job security can help them:

• Attract and retain top talent
• Maintain a productive workforce
• Encourage loyalty among employees
• Maintain a positive employee morale
• Improved service delivery, customer retention and growth

Here are a few tips for HR and business leaders to manage workplace insecurity:

• Present a compelling vision with future timelines of goals for the company and employees. Providing a corporate vision and concrete projects and goals gives a clearer view of the company’s plans and that employees will still be needed in the immediate, foreseeable future.
• Encourage open, honest, candid and frequent two-way communications between management and employees. This will reduce the need to rely on water cooler conversations (gossip) for information about the organisation.
• Offer meaningful employee recognition and make them feel valued.
• Increase training and team bonding opportunities
• Should the organisation be forced to lay off employees, adopt open, fair and objective criteria to decide who leaves or stays. The process should be managed in a humane and professional manner, with the organisation doing everything within its means to ease the trauma of the event on the excited and retained employees.

While corporate downsizing will remain a reality as businesses continue to navigate the unpredictable and turbulent economic landscape which often requires that they become lean and nimble (doing more with less), employees will need to be mindful about taking control of their destinies to avoid landing at the top of the exit list should downsizing be unavoidable.

Here are eight strategies you can deploy to make yourself difficult to fire (invaluable) and significantly increase your job security within your organisation:

1. Know your worth, stay positive and increase your productivity.
2. Minimise distractions and be mentally present during meetings.
3. Volunteer to do more.
4. Build relationships with key decision-makers and clients.
5. Be reliable and focus on finding solutions to your unit or organisation’s biggest problems.
6. Keep learning and stay current.
7. Mentor and support co-workers.
8. Market yourself, keep your profile up to date and be open to new opportunities within or outside your organisation

I also put out another poll last week where I asked for your opinion on the most desirable attribute or quality you want in your line manager. Kindly share your response to this survey if you haven’t done so, you can find it on my feed.

Thank you, and have a great week ahead.