Could the credit crunch affect all our jobs and is that necessarily a bad thing?

Months after the credit crisis reached its peak industries such as banking, finance and accounting are starting to be hit, though the impact may not just be limited to these sectors as expenditure with suppliers or from their staff may affect profits and cashflow of other businesses. Short termism appears to be setting in as companies look to reduce costs, with budgets such as HR and marketing being put under pressure, and an increase in temporary workers seems to be occurring in areas of the business that still need the staff but can’t afford to recruit full-time.

And what follows a downturn in recruitment? Redundancy? Hopefully, this won’t be an issue that impacts any of us but, just in case, is it a bad thing for companies and employees?

Here are our thoughts, but what do you think?

For employers

• For both employers and staff is having the opportunity to re-assess whether the best people are in the right jobs a bad thing, do employers review whether the right people are in the positions on a regular basis? Will the company be better off for doing it?
• Should employers be cutting costs to save cash and reduce any potential long term risk on the business’ cash flows or investing in staff to keep your workforce motivated and energized, which in turn may give your company an advantage over the competition now and in the future?
• According to a recent survey in the Sunday Times those companies that scored highest in staff satisfaction surveys outperformed the stock market – however which came first – motivated staff being a more productive workforce leading to greater profitability or are they just happy because their shares are doing well!
• Is there a benefit in being recognized as investing in staff, will the best in class want to join you over your competition?

For individuals

• We have the opportunity to decide whether or not we want to keep our current job! If we’re not happy in our current role then lets use this as the impetus to start looking elsewhere.
• May not be a popular one but work to keep your job. If we want to stay in our current role then we’d better give our employees a reason to keep us.  Though at the same time we should take advantage of all opportunities to develop ourselves both personally and professionally
• Get involved in a big project. Find out about any important, ongoing projects within the company and think about how we can add value to them. If involved in a project lasting for months then we have another reason to be kept on and trained further.
• Be prepared. It’s obvious advice but definitely worth taking. Start to update CVs and think about where you’d like to move to. Re-assess career goals and make sure they are still moving in the right direction, and take steps if they are not. What resources does your current employer have to help you with this, and what is available outside of work.
• Start looking for new opportunities. None of us want to end up taking any old job just to pay the bills. So lets get ahead of the game and see what other roles are out there.
• Improve that CV. Fancy doing an MBA, learning a language? Now’s the time to do so. Anything like this will sets us apart from others and makes us more of an asset!

So is the credit crunch and the challenges we face at this time a bad thing, or does it mean that we can leverage further opportunities to achieve long term goals and reassess whether we are really in the right position?  Whatever the answer we wish you every success.