The president or owner or the principals of the small company, who often risk everything they have to establish it, may not have many of the things that you may feel you’re entitled to, like security, benefits packages, and so on, so it’s unrealistic for you to expect to have them.
You’ll probably wear more hats in your job than you have in the past, and you could be much more involved in the important decision-making processes affecting where the company is going. You may have an opportunity to pick up some stock options if the company is planning to go public. You may become a telecommuter and perform most of your work from home, and be expected to supply or help to purchase the PC that you need to do this. You may be a contract worker with no benefits included in your compensation and no buy-out or golden handshake at the end of your employment, even if you’ve worked with the company for years.
You may also have opportunities to advance your career — a thing that may never have happened with a large company. Your contributions could have much more influence over the success or failure of the company. You may be expected to provide leadership in guiding the company in new directions, and that could be a new role for you.
No more entitlements
If you’re over 40 or have been strongly influenced by your parents’ experience in the workplace, you may need to make some significant and fundamental changes in your thinking about your career and what to expect in your working life. In yesterday’s workplace, the relationship between the worker and the employer was much more paternalistic than it is today.
The reason why so many people are devastated by the loss of a full-time job often has more to do with other aspects than the financial one. What the individual also loses is a sense of belonging to a community, some dignity and self respect, pride in what he or she does, and he or she often feels betrayed if he or she gave the company all that he or she had to offer. These non-tangible things that come with a job in a large company may not necessarily come with a job in a small company.
How people react to the changes that arise from going from a large to a small company will vary according to how secure they are with themselves, how well they adapt to change, how informed they are about the workplace, and their ability to rise above the day-to-day challenges and view the transition that the workplace is going through from a broader, more philosophical point of view.
A need to take the broader view
As the workplace goes through its current transition, those who have lost their jobs are having a tough time dealing with the realities of the new workplace. In many cases their kids are also looking at them and wondering what they should do to position themselves to earn a decent living. The range of emotions goes from those who feel liberated by the changes going on in the workplace — “good riddance to the traditional job” is their attitude — to those at the other end of the scale, who may be devastated by the loss of their jobs. There’s no quick fix to any of this. We’ll just have to adjust to these changes, as our ancestors had to adjust to the changes that took place in their lifetimes.
There is work available, but if you’re looking for it to come in the shape of a traditional job with all of the benefits and security to which we’ve become accustomed, you’re probably going to be disappointed. Finding the work that’s available is also going to be a lot more challenging. For most of us it will require developing new skills, being much more informed about what is going on in society and the workplace, and finally shedding some long-held attitudes about work, jobs, and expectations.
You’re going to have to become more adept at selling yourself and anticipating and understanding the needs of the employer with which you want to work. That’s a new role for most of us and it won’t come naturally. You’ll have to learn how to do it in a way that is effective for you.
Facing reality
When the realities of the new workplace are laid out for us, most of us, at a rational level, can relate to them. It’s common sense. The big challenge is to psychologically accept that reality and adjust our lives and attitudes towards earning a living. That challenge will continue for the foreseeable future, because many people around us will continue to have traditional jobs. One of the biggest problems facing people who have lost their jobs is looking around and seeing many of the people they know still working in traditional jobs. This leaves them feeling victimized and lost.
Even though the majority of people are well aware that significant changes are going on in the workplace, they can’t really relate to the challenges that people who have lost their jobs are facing. They only get it when it happens to them or someone in their family.
There’s denial going on here, of course. Sure, we know about the turmoil in the workplace, but if we still have a job, we don’t want to think too much about the challenges we would face if we lost that job. It’s an attitude that many of us have towards major diseases as well, and it explains why so many people are shattered when they lose their jobs. It’s the “it’ll never happen to me” syndrome. Our first reaction is to replace the job we lost with another job, and if the prospects for that are bleak, we panic and look at our situation from the worst possible point of view.
At some point, however, we have to face the realities of the new workplace, and one of the fundamental changes that we have to make is to recognize the fact that there is work out there, just not necessarily jobs. We have to learn to cope with the new realities and adjust our approach to looking for work accordingly. That doesn’t mean giving up looking for a job, if that’s what is important to you. It means that you have to accept the fact that the route to finding that job will be different from what it has been in the past.
It’s not all bad
We should also try to be as objective as possible about the changes going on in the workplace. Some people have actually benefited from losing their jobs in that it has forced them to go through some soul-searching about what is important to them in their careers and they have come out of the process happier for the experience. They find out that the job they were so attached to was a bad fit for them and that there are other, more attractive options and ways to make a living that make sense for them.
Some people who get involved as contractors, initially with skepticism and trepidation, find that as they gain confidence and realize that they can earn a living this way, they wouldn’t go back to a traditional job if it was offered to them. People who have just lost their job may have difficulty believing that, but if they take the time to talk to people who have made the transition to contracting — and they should make a point of doing that — they will find that there is a world beyond that of the traditional job.
An example of the struggle people continue to have in accepting contract work was given in an October 24, 2006, article on Workopolis, Canada’s biggest job site. A worker in the auto sector who had lost his job and was having no success in finding another one after months of searching was seeking advice. He had just been offered a four-month contract by a company he respected in the auto sector, and his question was whether he should accept it or continue to seek “real” employment.
It’s possible that once we work our way through the transition that is currently going on in the workplace, we will pass on to our children a workplace that is healthier and more fulfilling for them.
Most Employment Opportunities Are Hidden
Where are the opportunities?
Looking for employment opportunities in yesterday’s workplace was a fairly straightforward procedure. You looked in the newspaper, called some friends and associates, maybe called a few employment