Afraid of the Recession? 5 Tips to Succeed
Afraid of the Recession? 5 Tips to Succeed
Are you afraid of the recession impacting you or your company? Economic headwinds impact many of us, from creating more difficult revenue…
Are you afraid of the recession impacting you or your company? Economic headwinds impact many of us, from creating more difficult revenue generation scenarios to budget cuts and sometimes departures. Having survived several recessions in my career including one as a business owner, I see recessions as opportunities to adapt new approaches and strengthen business practices.
In short, recessions can create pivots that drive success.
No individual or company can single-handedly prevent a recession. However, there is still business to be done. The world does not end.
While subject to economic conditions, whether direct or tangential, how one approaches a recession is completely within an individual’s control. Consider these five tips to inspire your personal approach to facing economic headwinds.
1) Optimize Value
While a steady hand helps, one approach I don’t recommend is carrying on as if nothing has changed. This incurs risk, in my opinion. Recessions catalyze change as businesses adapt to survive and grow. Companies look to double down on value creation via their existing business opportunities, projects, and team members. Competitors definitely evolve.
Going about business as usual may cause you to fall behind in such an environment. Instead, look to improve and create more value. Optimize activities based on value to the company and/or your team.
When you consider building strategies or recommending or selecting projects to work on, use the value barometer to make determinations. Do the hard work. Look at the analytics involved. Will the opportunity make money, save time, or generate new leads? Or are the outcomes soft, making the value hard to determine? Choose opportunities that have the most obvious return on investment.
One tip for those looking to optimize their personal time: Keep time sheets. This is not for your boss, but so you can invest your hours creating impact and eliminate activities that are just time devils (hello, email!). A business that fails to take inventory usually fails, and that’s true for individuals, too. Everyone has work habits that can improve, and a time street often illustrates activities that may not be productive.
Also, eliminate distractions. Activities that always seem to go extra long, or that friend who perhaps creates unnecessary drama. Sometimes I’m that person (oh, the shame, hahahahahaha!). A recession is not a great time to participate in huge time eaters and distractions. Put a cap on non-business essential tasks that distract you from your goals.
While a conservative strategy, optimizing value is a good approach for strong economic times, too. It works no matter the economic environment. It’s just good business.
2) Be Useful
Not everyone is able to affect the bottom line. Still, optimizing activities is a good ethos in any position. When delivering immediate value is not possible, try to be useful. How can you be most helpful to your command chain and team?
Usefulness has value. The more helpful you become, the more you become mission entangled. Mission entanglement makes it difficult to cut your budget or position.
Suggestions for being useful include picking up unwanted tasks, such as helping with administrative work your boss doesn’t like to perform. Usefulness extends to the team, too. Be quick to volunteer when you are in a meeting and take on open tasks. Even better, take on hard tasks that no one wants. Be that person.
3) Have a Backup Plan(s)
No one wants to fail or lose their job. Almost no one goes to work thinking they are just going to stink until it’s over (I am debating if Elon Musk is the outlier). But many, many people lose sleep and go to work full of fear, thinking their project will fail or that they may lose their job.
This type of anxiety is not helpful and can lead to poor decision-making. Fight this challenge with actions and a backup plan.
First, can you do more at work? If you engage in value creation and usefulness, then you have probably done all that is within your power to prevent a cut. Everything else is beyond your control. Yes, sometimes projects, initiatives, and even departments get cut in spite of individual performance.
What helps is having a backup plan. I have two plans ready to go, so if I lost my job, I’d probably take a week off to rest and clear my head. Then I would pull the plan I feel most inclined to invest in off the shelf and start the business.
Backup business plans provide me great comfort. Many successful businesses start during recessions, and I personally have started and sold a couple of businesses. I know what it takes to launch a start-up.
Some may have their resume ready, and network activated in case they need to start a search quickly. It is always good to have an updated resume ready for opportunities, recession or not. Knowing what kind of position you want in advance is helpful and preferred over a desperate spray-and-pray job search. Know where you want to go, then make it happen.
Another plan is to go back to school or participate in training so you can perform better or take on new tasks. That’s a great way to spend downtime between gigs. Make sure what you choose is intentional and pre-meditated, something you wanted to do BEFORE you get cut.
Have a plan, and be ready to act.
4) Save Money, Eliminate Debt
Is it the end of the world if you lose a job? No. There will be more opportunities, though you may need to adapt to achieve them. Still, losing work is a financially trying situation for most. And let’s be honest, many companies are not generous about such moments, especially if their business is in poor health. Unemployment offers fractional support.
Savings help in these times. Do you save money? If not, start now. Auto deduct at least 10% from your checking account with every paycheck. This might mean eating out less or purchasing a level down from what you are accustomed to, but the savings are worthwhile. A prudent reserve goes a long way to making revenue loss a survivable moment.
In addition, eliminate debt. Bump up your payments and eliminate as many debts as you can. I lost a job several years ago and had to take forbearance on a college loan to make ends meet. Those missed payments and extra interest payments added up. Gratefully, I have since paid off my college loans.
I start every workday with a meditation about going to work with a maximum fearless effort. If that day is my last, I am comforted that 1) I gave what I could, 2) I have a plan in case things don’t work out, and 3) there is a prudent reserve to rely on.
5) Avoid Idle Time
Finally, a word of caution. Idle time is a red flag for any manager. Idle time makes a tough decision easy. When you have idle time, try to double down on value-creating projects and making yourself useful.
Sometimes, that idle time happens anyway. Being on the bench can be scary.
Find something to do. Take that end-of-year training. Upskill with a certification program. Look for opportunities inside the company. In many federal contractors when a program slows down or ends, staff members need to market themselves internally to find new work.
If lack of or partial work continues for a prolonged period, consider pre-emptively engaging in your backup plan. Better to have your wheels in motion in case of the worst-case scenario. But don’t resign unless you are absolutely ready. Keep trying to build value and be useful whenever possible. Things change, and new projects happen.
Conclusion
Recessions are tough, but hard times often inspire greatness and growth. Rather than letting “fate” and circumstance impact you, do what you can to put yourself in optimal positions to succeed regardless of how your larger company fares.