Work – Page 22 – mardihumphreys.com

Gratitude Works

Thanksgiving is the time of year we discuss gratitude, but 90% of Americans started talking about it a few weeks into the quarantine as a way to fight stress. COVID-19 has given us plenty of time to think. If we dwell on what we’ve lost instead of what we’re grateful for, we’ll get depressed. Research indicates practicing gratitude has physical health benefits like better sleep, a stronger immune system, and lower blood pressure. It also benefits the health of your business.

With a Bit of a Mind Flip

Pre-COVID-19, gratitude in your workplace may have looked like Free Doughnut Fridays, employee of the month awards, or celebratory team lunches at the country club. Those are nice, but they don’t inspire company loyalty. Historically, work is a place for competition. Everyone battling for the same promotion or the biggest percentage of the limited raise pool. Would it surprise you to learn the key to retaining talented people is expressing gratitude, exhibiting patience, and excusing mistakes? When these habits are ingrained in a company’s culture and practiced by everyone from the C-Suite on down, they create a place where employees want to work. Why should you thank someone for what they’re paid to do? Studies indicate employees who feel valued are not only more productive, but also support the company’s goals. Gratitude reinforces trust. It bonds teams and reduces employee burnout which are especially important right now during the pandemic. Expressing gratitude is not only good for the person receiving appreciation, but also for the person giving it. Using positive words, recognizing a coworker for their contribution, or thanking a direct report’s effort, alters the mindset of the praise giver. You feel good when you see you’ve made someone else feel good.

I Have to Praise You Like I Should

The holiday season is a logical time to begin the habit of a company-wide gratitude practice, but don’t stop January 2. Put triggers in place to keep it going throughout the new year. Gratitude isn’t a feeling, it’s an action, so you must choose to express it and can give it anytime. The key is consistency. Think about putting someone in charge of identifying employees who deserve recognition and determining how they should receive it. For example, if an individual contributor is shy, putting him on speaker view at the company-wide teleconference to thank him may backfire. Being the center of attention may embarrass instead of appreciate him. Something else to consider: it’s logical to praise success, but you can be grateful for failure too. Every failed iteration of your process brings you closer to the solution. This allows you to thank team members for their soft skills (e.g., patience, perseverance), as well as their job performance. It’s work to give sincere thanks and make sure everyone is included, but the ROI can be huge. An employee who feels appreciated does more than the bare minimum her job requires.

COVID-19 Era Gratitude Suggestions:

Thank you emails – to individual contributors from their managers
Thankful Thursdays – managers send reminders to individual contributors to thank a team mate for something they helped with this week
Begin 1:1s with something you appreciate (e.g., unique insights, positive attitude, critical thinking, sense of humor) this can come from either the manager or the individual contributor
Create a page on the company’s website devoted to staff thanking each other

How does your company thank its employees? Please tell us about it in the comments section.

Thank You, Future Self

As the global pandemic drags on and reshapes our economy, I’ve learned a few things. Spending our money on local small businesses is more important than ever, I can make really good coffee at home, and I should not look at my 401 (k) statement right now. What are some things you can do to financially sustain yourself through this seemingly endless crisis?

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Reduce – It may be difficult to increase your income right now, but you can find ways to save it. You aren’t driving your vehicle as much as you did pre-COVID-19, so you’re saving money on gas, oil changes, and wear and tear. Working (or not) from home eliminates the need for walking around money (e.g., money spent on coffee shops, lunches out, parking fees, etc.). You’re saving money simply by not being able to spend it. This should have added up fairly significantly eight months into the stay-at-home order. Move that money to your long-term savings account where it will earn interest.

Reuse – Stay away from online shopping. Yes, those yoga pants you found on Amazon are cute, but don’t you already have three pair of cute yoga pants? Cancel automatic renewals. Don’t you have enough goodies from Watch Gang, Trendy Butler, or BREO BOX to last a while?

Recycle – Compare your monthly expenses from February to October. Note any savings and why they happened. Can you sustain any of the circumstances that caused those savings once the world opens up more? For example, you saved money by working from home. Is it possible to make remote work more permanent? You’ve probably already thought about it, so take the next step and make a list of what it would require. Then, you’ll be ready with a plan to present to your manager when the time is right.

Let’s Make a Deal

Credit card companies make money selling debt and counting on you to pay it back with interest. If you have run up over $5000 in charges, (especially if you’ve lost your job) call your lender. Ask them to suspend payments for two months and to permanently lower your interest rate. Do not take them up on their offer to sell you more debt. With so many borrowers unable to repay due to COVID-19, credit card companies are in a bind and willing to work with you now more than ever. Take this opportunity to renegotiate the terms of your credit agreement. A new arrangement will protect your credit score.

You Can’t Touch This

Your assets are low right now, so don’t sell them. If you have a 401(k) and/or an IRA and get scared easily, don’t look at your account statements. If you get another stimulus check, consider putting it in your IRA if you can currently live without it. The people who managed to save money back in the recession of 2008 are still hitting their long-term savings targets. You have more financial support from the government than during the last recession. It’s not a lot, but it’s useful.

It feels like the pandemic will last forever, but nothing does, so resist the urge to live for today and think of your future self and what that person will need: food, clothing, and shelter. Even if you move just $25 a week to your long-term savings account, after one year, that’s $1300 your future self can live on.

How are you resisting the urge to panic over your budget? Please share in the comments section.

Getting to Know You

I’ve disappointed Rick Springfield. He told me not to talk to strangers, but I lean more toward young Forrest Gump’s philosophy of business development. There are plenty of services that allow your sales team to send hundreds of emails extolling the virtues of your products/services to strangers. There are even companies with the technology to make hundreds of cold calls for you and when the prospect answers the phone, transfer the call to a sales rep waiting to pitch. I’m usually a big fan of automation, but why would a company reveal their pain points to you when they don’t know, like, or trust you yet? This is why Relationship Marketing is so important.

What Is It?

Relationship Marketing is simply building long-term, trusting relationships with strangers; essentially, developing clients into friends. When your friends face challenges, you want to be the first person they contact for a solution. You should feel the same way about your clients. People need to know you’re authentic in order to trust you. You must be the same person to your clients as you are to your cousins. Unless you’re Tom Hanks, you can’t act like different people in your relationships. Being inauthentic is exhausting and counterproductive.

How Does It Work?

Mom is right. If you want to make a friend, be a friend. Take the initiative. Network. Communicate. Be curious. Provide value without an agenda. Businesses are run by people. Go where the people are. Get personal. Do your homework. There is so much information at your fingertips (e.g., company websites, LinkedIn, business newspapers/websites), find out what their business does and their role in it. Figure out how you can help. The companies you want to partner with need revenue to survive. How can your company help them either attract customers, or save money on their operations? Do they have a problem your company doesn’t fix? Do you know someone who does? Introduce them. While this doesn’t bring you revenue now, proving you want what’s best for their business demonstrates you can be trusted to put their interests before your own. Have a mindset of their success means your success. We get further together than we do on our own.

Why Does It Work?

Giving your clients great experiences differentiates your company from your competition. You have to go beyond persuading them to believe in your brand. Your clients want to be seen. They want you to help them solve their unique issues. They want to give you permission to be on their team. They do not want content forced on them. They want to learn what your company has to offer and what you can do for them in their own time using the communication channels they favor. I can’t think of one business owner who enjoys having their day interrupted by a cold sales call or sifting through all the cold emails they daily receive. However, I can think of several who appreciated a congratulations-on-your-latest-success LinkedIn message.

How do you make new friends in this COVID-19 enhanced Relationship Marketing era? Please share your story in the comments section.

Vuja de (This is Not a Typo)

As a result of COVID-19, a major employer in my community has decided to have their 1600 employees permanently work from home. This could signal the beginning of a mass transition to permanent remote work for many of us. Obviously, there are some jobs that cannot be done from home (waiter, mail carrier, fire fighter, etc.), but if you used to be in an office under the watchful eye of your supervisor and now she’s not in your residence dictating how you spend 40 hours a week, this is a chance to vuja de your role.

Vuja de means looking at something familiar in an unfamiliar way. Before the pandemic, did you feel limited? Did you have little control over how you did your job or what tasks you had to accomplish? The upheaval of quarantine is a logical time to explore aligning your passions, abilities, and standards with your job. For example: Let’s imagine your job is recruiting college seniors for internships. One of your tasks is to discuss next steps with them and answer their questions. Pre-COVID protocol was to spend hours at the office surprising them all individually with an unscheduled phone call. This is a perfect time to book a teleconference and invite a dozen interns to attend. This saves you time, allows recruits to meet whom they’ll work with, and prompts follow-up questions relevant to the whole group; questions no one thinks to ask when put on the spot during a spontaneous phone call.

We have an unprecedented opportunity to demonstrate we can adjust our positions to better fit both our strengths and our needs and still get our work done; in fact maybe even get more work done. At the beginning of sheltering from home, most employers were skeptical full-time employees would actually work the traditional 40 hours every week. Turns out, they were right. Research indicates employees are working longer to prove we’re actually productive. With a long term crisis on our hands, we’re compelled to view our jobs as flexible because the conditions under which we perform them have to be.

During this time of returning to the office, we can ask ourselves, “What needs to get done?” “When is the best time to do it?” “Where is the best place to do it?” For example, if you’re working on a budget report, and you need to concentrate, the best time and place for you may be 11:00PM in your home office while everyone else is asleep. But if you’re brainstorming ways to automate a client’s requisition process, you may need to be in the office with your team and a wall full of whiteboards. The tasks should dictate the schedule and venue and will likely produce a hybrid model of working from both home and the office.

It would be wise to document your responsibilities since sheltering at home began. What projects have you completed? How much time did you spend? Who worked with you? How did you communicate (e.g., in person or remote)? You can use this data to produce a case study for your manager proving the benefits, both to her and the company, of allowing you the freedom to vuja de your role.

How have you adjusted your job description during the pandemic? Please share in the comments section.

Self-sufficient Social Security

The headline in our wealth manager’s newsletter read: “Almost Nine Out of Ten Women Qualify for Social Security on Their Own.” I wondered, “Why is this newsletter worthy?”

Milestone

More women enter the workforce every year. Since most people have to earn 40 credits to retire, you have to work (and pay into Social Security) for at least 10 years to qualify for retirement benefits. The fact that the percentage of women ages 62 to 64 who meet these requirements based on their own work records has risen 24% since 1980, means women are staying in the workforce long enough to earn their own benefits.

How it Works

There are three types of Social Security benefits: retirement, disability, and survivors. In a nutshell, when you are employed by an organization where the Social Security Administration (SSA) takes a percentage of your paycheck in taxes, it uses those wages to fund a program that distributes payments to retirees, the disabled, and their families who qualify. The assumption is eventually most Americans will qualify for Social Security and draw money from it. We’ll stick to retirement benefits for this conversation. To qualify for SSA retirement funds, you must reach your full retirement age, accumulate enough credits, and apply for it. Here is a good explanation of Social Security benefits.

What Women Should Know

Almost 55% of people receiving Social Security retirement benefits are women. Not only do women earn their own benefits, they can qualify for a spouse’s benefits. This is significant because women tend to live longer and earn less than their spouses. Social Security will not be as much money as your current paycheck. You can expect it to be about 40% of what you’re currently earning. Social Security should only be part of your retirement plan. You can use it as a foundation to build on. If your employer offers a 401(k) (or a 403(b)) plan, you should participate. If your employer contributes to it as well as invests a percentage of your paycheck for you, contribute at least as much as they do and increase your percentage beyond their contribution every year. It would also be wise to open an Individual Retirement Account (IRA). The current rule of thumb is saving 15% of your income for retirement. Three sources of retirement income seems like overkill, but a quick Google search indicates a nest egg of $1,000,000 will only last 19 years in retirement. Social Security benefits last until you die, but you won’t receive the same amount throughout your retirement. Payments are made monthly and usually by direct deposit. Every year, the SSA considers adjusting retirees’ payments for inflation and decides whether or not it will increase them to reflect the cost of living. The SSA has explanations for how changing your name, becoming disabled, or divorced or widowed affects your social security benefits. You can read about it here.

The increase in women who earn their own Social Security benefits means more people are paying into the program. It also means more people intend to be paid from it. Could this be an incentive to prompt thinking on how we can empower more women to stay in the workforce so Social Security can sustain funds?

What do you think? Please share your opinion in the comments section.

I Wish I’d Known

“Mom had made sure we were exposed to ideas and information that were not available to her as a young woman.” Brene Brown, Rising Strong

When I ran across that quote, it reminded me there are umpteen things I want my daughter to know about work because she’s a woman. Here are three.

Assertive and Likable

If you intend to be a leader, that violates current gender stereotypes. Research shows when a woman’s behavior violates gender stereotypes, it’s harder for her to advance in the organization. At my first full-time job, a male coworker chuckled at me, “Stop working so hard. You’re making the rest of us look bad.” The very behavior that could put me on a leadership path, made him uncomfortable. I navigated this by asking for help and including others (particularly male colleagues) when making decisions. To get promoted, I had to be both assertive and likable and that is not easy. Unfortunately, the business world hasn’t changed much.

Work-life Balance

If your job is building dependent (e.g., hospital, school, grocery), you have a better shot at work-life balance because you leave your work at the building. But you may be putting in more hours there keeping up with the demands of COVID-19, particularly if you work a frontline job. The pandemic revealed plenty of jobs aren’t tied to a specific building and can be done any time of day, blurring the line between work and home. As a woman, the work-life balancing act is more difficult thanks to stereotypical gender roles. The term work-life balance has a negative connotation, as if work isn’t part of your life. I suggest you strive for work-life integration. Pre-pandemic, this worked particularly well for those who have control over how and where they spend their workday. COVID-19 forced more employers to not only allow employees to work remotely, but also consider the possibility of making remote work a permanent option. Consequently, you have more opportunity to shape your day now than ever before and for the foreseeable future. It’s easy to go overboard and work too much, and there will be times when work is slow and life demands more of your attention. But if you create a schedule, coordinate with your partner and kids, unplug regularly to intentionally rest, work-life integration is more practical than work-life balance.

Own Your Success

In school, you work hard and get noticed. That doesn’t happen in the workforce. You have to promote yourself. First, internalize the fact you earned the right to recognition. We tend to remember our failures better than our successes, so keep a running list of your wins (e.g., attained goals set in your last performance review, clients you’ve landed, the number of clicks on the page you created for the company’s website). Second, accept compliments. Women are famous for diluting our achievements. We attribute our success to luck or we overshare credit. You work hard; accept recognition for it. This is not bragging. Just say thank you. Express gratitude for the contributions of coworkers who helped you, but don’t exaggerate their efforts and underestimate yours.

What advice do you give your daughters about work? Please share in the comments section.

A Mind at Work

I got offended at work. I sought clarity from a couple outsiders. Both suggested I check my ego. Turns out, ego doesn’t always mean liking ourselves too much. Do you know ego also causes us to stay quiet to protect ourselves from perceived harm?

Fight or Flight

The fight or flight response kicks in whenever our sense of self is challenged. If we find our identity in our job and we’re asked to do something that’s not our job, (e.g., a CEO asked to serve coffee at a board meeting) our boundary is crossed and fight or flight activates. This could look like getting defensive, “I’m the CEO, not the barista.” Or, allowing the breach, “Do you want cream and sugar?” Ego can convince us to do things that undermine our success. For example: If I binge watch Hulu the night before a webinar instead of rehearsing, when I deliver a lousy presentation, I can blame Hulu instead of acknowledging my failure. If I give a lousy presentation, it’s unlikely I’ll be asked to give another one, thus preventing the possibility of future failure. Ego mitigates risk for us to protect our self-esteem, but that protection may deny us opportunity for future success.

Ego or Calling

Both feed ambition, produce comparable results, and spur us to work hard. Is calling healthy and ego not? Actually, they need to work together. Ego is our mind’s bodyguard. It protects us from worrying so much about what others think that we’re too paralyzed to make decisions. It’s the version of ourselves everyone sees. But its operating system is based on fear. Its tone is urgent, implying something bad will happen if we stop hammering away at the project. Ego needs to be balanced by calling. Calling is our authentic self. It whispers reminders of what we care about and encourages us to see our work through its filter.

Asset or Liability

The boss wants employees who get things done. She’s likely too busy with her own responsibilities to monitor ours. How will she know we do good work unless we tell her? Ego can help us track when we go above and beyond our job descriptions, especially when those efforts pay off big time for the company. This is not bragging. This is owning the fruits of our labor. If we have regular 1:1s with our managers, that is the time to shine, but if not, we can draw on ego to prepare a list for the next performance review. This is also a good time to use ego to inform our supervisors of our career development intentions. Going for a promotion? Use ego to voice that desire. It can help us illustrate how we already fulfill the responsibilities of the next title on the company’s career path.

Ego is a powerful tool and we need to wield it for good. If we can recognize when we’re in a situation that triggers ego, we can stop and question why. Then use it to navigate the situation. Do we need ego to cheerlead? (“I can do this hard thing.”) Or do we need it to go back in the tool box? (“I can let my team help me do this hard thing, and share the credit.”)

How have you focused your ego lately? Please share you story in the comments section.

Thanks Mom!

My mom once said to me, “I feel like I taught you how to be a good mother, but not a good wife.” I hope my husband disagrees with her on that point, but what I know for sure is she taught me how to be a good human. I apply her lessons to my roles as mother, wife, daughter, friend, employee, etc., everyday. I’m surprised how often Mom’s wisdom pops into my head at work. As Mother’s Day approaches, here is some of that wisdom:

People Come First – Mom was 18 years old when I was born. I was an unplanned pregnancy. She could have chosen not to have me. Instead, she raised me while going to college, getting her degree, then working as a nurse. Watching her journey, I decided to wait until I was 30 years old to become a mom. Yes, I watched her life and judged her choices. Your life and choices are being judged too; at your job. Do you put the interests of the company ahead of your own, or do you do as little as possible because that’s all you think it deserves? Do you enable the team’s success, or do you look for ways to take credit for the team’s work? Your manager will make decisions regarding your job performance based both on what you do and what you don’t do. The best practice is to both make sure your manager knows you “took one for the team,” and share credit for the success of the project with the team. Mom put my life ahead of hers. She teaches me that people come first.

Pick Your Battles – My Grandmother turns 90 years old this month and her health is fading. She lives on her own and Mom and my uncle share the responsibility of helping her stay in her house. They sometimes disagree on the best way to handle situations. Sometimes my mother chooses not to fight a battle that, in her place, I would choose to fight. Sometimes she lets my uncle take the lead and handle the task. I was reminded of this recently at the office. I kept getting frustrated with a colleague’s work. I thought, “Why does he do that? “Why doesn’t he do this?” Then I realized my circumstance was very similar to Mom and my uncle taking care of my grandmother. I chose to follow Mom’s lead and not only let the coworker do his job, but also offered to help. He took me up on the offer, which was a lesson in humility, but that is another blog for another time. Anyway, does this sound familiar? Do you have associates that can use your help instead of your criticism? Mom trains me to pick my battles.

Always Choose Generosity – Mom has a friend who is fighting cancer. She spends almost five hours every other week with this friend as she undergoes immunotherapy. Every Easter, Mom and her Sunday school class make “Widow Baskets.” These are filled with goodies they purchase like candy, lotions, and gift cards, then deliver to widowed ladies from her class. Mom volunteers tutoring students ages elementary through High School who need one-on-one attention in a quiet area in order to learn. I could go on, but I’m running out of space here. Does she reap any rewards from this generosity? Yes. People, particularly her Sunday school class, show their appreciation. But that’s not why she does all the things she does. Because she is a Christian, Mom always chooses generosity. At work, look for ways to be generous. Stop typing and listen when your cubicle mate is upset. Help colleagues with projects that are in your wheelhouse. Encourage your coworkers when they are struggling. Is someone’s mom sick? Set a task on your calendar to ask him about her once a week. Compliment your boss on a job well done. Use your company’s employee incentive program to reward team members for helping you. Generosity actually benefits you. People are more likely to help you when, in the past, you’ve helped them. Mom’s example inspires me to always choose generosity.

Be So Good At What You Do That You Are Impossible To Ignore – Mom is a life long learner. I vividly remember as a kid sitting at a desk in our kitchen with a blue colored pencil in my hand tracing veins in a picture of a human skull in Mom’s Grey’s Anatomy Coloring Book. She studied it for one of her nursing classes. Mom loves The Bible and has spent the years since her retirement from nursing studying it. She is also a natural leader. She is a wise communicator with both listening and speaking skills. This combination made her the obvious choice to permanently teach her Sunday school class when the need arose. Also, because of her years of training, Mom has a steady stream of women 40 – 50 years younger than she is asking her to disciple them. Her example taught me to hone my skills, work hard, and produce results. It’s difficult to be a woman in the workplace, but results are genderless. If sales are up 12% because of your efforts, the boss isn’t thinking about whether you are male or female. Be the Subject Matter Expert at something at your job: PowerPoint, customer service, patient follow up, whatever your passion is. If you to study it, practice it, and be the best you can be at it, others (your current employer or your next one) will pursue you. Mom proves you should be so good at what you do that you are impossible to ignore.

It’s Good To Have Hope – Mom has fibromyalgia. This makes every day unpredictable. Stuff gets on her nerves. Literally. She finds ways to cope like art journaling which has garnered her some attention and fans. What began as a coping mechanism has given her opportunity to show others how to use it as a creative outlet. When she faces a difficult day, she moves through it trusting God and hoping tomorrow will be better. She relies on one of my grandmother’s sayings: This too shall pass (again, another blog for another time). Mom’s approach teaches me to keep going and not give up. Don’t you throw in the towel either. Keep going to work. Keep looking for ways to improve process, to please the client, to give value to the customer. Whatever you do for a living, put in the effort and know it will eventually pay off and probably not in the way you expect. Mom shows me that none of us know what the day ahead will bring, but it is definitely more pleasant if you face it with a positive attitude. Mom knows it’s good to have hope.

What about you? What lessons did your mom teach you? Please share them with me here:

What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting

Awkward: The word that best describes the time period between a coworker’s dismissal and his departure. Even if it’s someone you don’t like, you wouldn’t wish job loss on anyone. Restructuring happens. Downsizing happens. Finding out someone’s role is eliminated makes you realize it can happen to you. It’s scary. It makes it hard to concentrate and do your job well. Not doing your job well puts you in danger of losing it, creating a vicious circle. You can’t control the corporate machine, but here are some things you can control:

The Obvious – Google what current resumes look like. If you haven’t had to search for a job for a few years, you may be in for a rude awakening. Employers want the story of your career in numbers, so you need to quantify yourself: How much revenue do you generate for your company? How much time have you saved your company through process improvement? Quantifying your job performance in percentages can be tricky if you are in an administrative role. You may have to get a bit creative. Can you quantify how much time you saved your supervisor? Can you quantify how much money you saved the company through frugal purchasing? You no longer have to put every job you ever held on your resume. Hiring managers only want to see your experience relevant to the job they need to fill. So, first create a master resume with every job you’ve ever had including dates, supervisors’ names and titles, the previously mentioned quantified percentages, referrals and contact information. Then, revisit it every six months to update any outdated information. If it becomes necessary for you to apply for a job, you can easily cherry pick the relevant experience from this document and create a fresh resume tailored specifically to the job for which you are applying.
Don’t forget the cover letter. Plenty of job coaches are on the fence about whether or not the cover letter is dead, but most agree it doesn’t hurt your chances if you send one. Polish yours, then save it as a template. Make it a marketing piece that tempts a hiring manager to read your resume. Hopefully, you won’t need it for a while, so leave notes for yourself in it. For example: include several ways to contact you; at least your email address and phone number in the signature block. Leave a note to yourself in the greeting to go to LinkedIn and find out the hiring manager’s name. In the body, leave a note to yourself to choose three key phrases from the job description then give examples of how your experience fills those needs using the quantifying percentages from your master resume. If you unexpectedly lose your job, just having a foundation to build on can calm your panic.

The Not so Obvious – Get on a job posting website and check out positions that interest you and companies at which you’d like to work. Check out the job descriptions. Do you have the skills to do the jobs that interest you ? If you don’t, go get them. With Massive Online Open Courses (MOOL), there’s no excuse not to have up to date skills. And yes, I’m putting my money where my mouth is (or where my fingers are, in this case). I took an online Introduction to Financial Accounting class from The Wharton School of Business through a MOOL. It’s not only on my resume, but also on my performance review.
Join LinkedIn. Do more than fill out your profile and upload a picture. If you need advice on how to use LinkedIn, search your public library’s database for a how-to book and check it out. While you wait for the book, read this article: https://www.themuse.com/advice/9-surefire-ways-to-boost-your-linkedin-profile-when-you-only-have-10-minutes
Network. This can solidify your current position as well as help you make connections in case you need to quickly find out who is hiring. Does your employer participate in networking groups? Wrangle an invitation or offer to manage your company’s table at the next event. You can pass out business cards and collect them for your own future use while simultaneously promoting your company. And don’t forget to follow up with new contacts on LinkedIn.
Do you know someone who has suffered job loss and bounced back into a new position? Buy her a cup of coffee and ask how she did it. Most people like telling their stories and smart people listen. Ask if in hindsight she knew the elimination was coming, what would she have done to prepare? When she gives you suggestions, do them.

Get a Side Gig – Take on an additional (part time) job, or a find a side hustle. At the very least, you’ll feel like you have some control over your destiny, and you’ll have a bit of income to fall back on if the worst happens. If the worst doesn’t happen, you’ll have a little extra cash; which leads me to my next point…

Save Your Money – This is not the time to purchase luxuries. Take this opportunity to pay down debt. Every month make an extra payment on your: car, credit card, student loan, mortgage (Get the idea?). Being debt free gives you so many options and peace of mind. No debt? Congratulations! Put the earnings from your side gig in your IRA. You DO have an Individual Retirement Account, right?

Keep Calm and… During uncertain times, you need to keep your wits about you. You can’t do that in panic mode. Need help getting down off the ledge? Grab your notebook (paper or computer) and start writing. Here are some prompts: What exactly are you afraid of? What is the worst that could happen? Seeing the words in front of you not only gives the feelings less power, it helps you form a plan. Then go for a walk, run, swim, yoga class, spin class or whatever. Do something to get your body and endorphins moving. Wear your body out to lower your stress so you can think more clearly.

Do Your Best Work – The company is going to do what the company needs to do. You cannot control that. The only insurance you can give yourself is to be the best at your job. Don’t give up. You’ll either keep your job or you won’t. And if you don’t, you’ll want to use your manager and coworkers as references. Let them be able to honestly tell your next hiring manager that you have enough emotional intelligence to show grace under pressure.

Please share your stories of living with job insecurity here:

Be a Great CSR – Even if You’re Not

One afternoon last week at work, my manager was distressed as she hung up the phone. She’d received a call from a customer with whom she’d been playing phone tag. He’d contacted our call center the week prior and the CSR (Customer Service Representative) could not help him so she notified several Program Managers (PM) detailing this customer’s issue. After several days with no resolution, my manager contacted the customer to determine whom was the correct person to help him. She did this knowing full well she was not that person. She was distressed because now the customer was needlessly frustrated. My manager determined which PM could help the customer and got the ball rolling in the right direction for him. My manager is a PM, but she demonstrated for everyone in our office how important customer service is. If customer service is not officially in your job description, here is why you should learn to do it anyway:

It May Not Be Your Job, But It IS Your Business – Even if you do not deal directly with customers you have a supervisor (even C-Suite employees have a board to whom they are accountable). This supervisor is actually your customer because your job is “At-Will” (Google “At-Will employment). Start thinking of your supervisor as a customer. I’ve worked at a television station, retail stores, schools, churches, and corporate offices. In all these jobs, I had managers. When I started treating them like they were a customer paying me for the skills I brought to my position, it changed the game. My attitude changed which made them react differently to me. You can use customer service skills in just about every job you’ll ever have. It adds value to whatever position you hold in a company.

What? Like It’s Hard? – Whether you sell a product or a service, people are what keep you in a job. It’s in your best interest to help them. With companies using fewer people to do more work, it behooves you to learn how to be nice. Most people think of complainers when they think of customer service and you definitely get those. First just stay quiet and let him talk. Soon, like a crying baby, he will wear himself out and you can get a word in. At that point, offer sympathy and tell him what action you intend to take on his behalf even if it’s just, “Let me talk to my manager and see what I can find out for you.”. A gentle answer turns away wrath most of the time. People usually just want to be heard. Then, they want to know someone is doing something about their problem. I was in a situation where I needed a prescription filled and had no clue there were restrictions on it. Luckily, the Pharmacy tech was fabulous at customer service. She told me if I could wait a day and come back, she would contact both my insurance company and my doctor’s office and figure out how to work within the restrictions. She even called me less than 24 hours after my first visit to update me on her progress. That made my second trip to the pharmacy in as many days much more pleasant. (Thank you, Michelle!)

Life Is All About Relationships – Customer service is simply getting along. The same skills you learned to get along with your college roommate, or church baseball teammates, or the people you volunteer with at your local Metropark, are the same skills you use in customer service. Let the customer know you are on his side. Your attitude should be: We are in this situation together. How can we get a win for everyone involved? It’s also about communication. Even if nothing can be done to fully satisfy the customer, an explanation and an empathetic apology is an acceptable answer.

It Benefits You – Customer service is a valuable transferable “soft” skill. When you help people, you gain a reputation as a problem solver. And problem solvers are indispensable in any organization. If someone you’ve helped is really grateful and says something like, “It’s been great working with you” or “You’ve been so helpful” and you feel it’s appropriate, let him know that a couple of sentences sent to your supervisor (and copied to you) in an email would be greatly appreciated. That way both you and your supervisor know how much you bring to the table. Put these emails in a folder and bring them out at performance review time. Remember: The more people you help, the larger your network gets. You never know what connections you can make or from where your next job will come. You may help the husband of a manager of the company for whom you want to work, and when she’s looking for someone special and talking to him about it on a dinner date, he might remember you and jump start your next opportunity.

How does customer service come into play in your job? Share your story here: