By Samuel Rosenberg
JOBS for life, even working for your government, are no longer as guaranteed as they were 10 or 20 years ago. Today’s safe employment could end tomorrow. How do you plan to overcome your principal fear which may place your home and family in financial jeopardy?
The most stable of employee positions, especially when you are happy with your job, could close at short notice, potentially due to unpredictable factors beyond your control. Your company may decide to relocate, downsize or close down because it is making insufficient profits.
The most common reaction is to allow fear to overtake you in a doomsday scenario because your source of income will end this week or by the end of the month. This can almost paralyse normal sensible thinking and stop you taking the initiative. You need to remain in control, by planning ahead, so that losing your job doesn’t mean the collapse of your financial empire.
The majority of people that carefully plan for this scenario put money aside from every payday and create an emergency fund which will never be touched unless of course, there is an emergency.
When a refrigerator breaks down and cannot be repaired, you will be pleased to have an emergency fund to purchase a new refrigerator without putting it onto a credit card and paying interest on the white goods for the next seven years. The same circumstances apply when you lose your job.
Instead of worrying about how you are going to pay your mortgage, your vehicle loan and your credit card without defaulting on some or all of them, your emergency fund is available to replace your salary until you find new employment.
You may need to adjust your spending when you become unemployed, but you will still need to meet your usual basic expenses for rent or mortgage, food and transportation as you seek new employment. You will probably be able to cut a few expenses like speciality coffees and shop purchased sandwiches for lunch, but some expenses must be met if your family are to eat.
By focusing on the matters that you can control, such as your attitude, you will continue to strive for the best and give you and your family peace of mind.
Some self-employed individuals will mistakenly offer a high percentage of their services to one company. Should that company fail, the self-employed business will have to seek work elsewhere while suffering a great shortfall in their cash flow.
By consistently understanding what is happening in your marketplace, you can quickly move to vacancies that you know exist with a CV that you have kept 100% up-to-date in case of these circumstances. However safe your current job is, it pays to be prepared for all possibilities.
When you consistently network among the right people and businesses, you may already have a foot in the door should you need to seek employment at short notice.
You may feel embarrassed about losing your income, but where you have planned ahead and removed the fear of losing that job, you will remain in control both financially and mentally, which will help you considerably to find new successful employment efficiently and effectively.
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Samuel Rosenberg is the founder and CEO of Axcel Finance Ltd., the leading regional microfinance institution. Share your thoughts and email your questions to [email protected]