Surviving a workplace bankruptcy |
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"Repackage and reinvent your services to be in sync
with what your employer needs," Brown says.
Beth Johnson, senior vice president for human resources
at Delta, urges employees to think about the changes a company intends
to make to stay competitive and to decide whether they fit into
this vision of the future.
Also try to understand where you stand in the company -- a top performer in a critical function is less likely to receive an immediate pink slip.
"Increasing your value to the company is even more
important at this time," Johnson says. "There will be opportunities
to make a positive impact by staying focused on making the company
successful."
If you choose to stay with a company that declares
Chapter 11 bankruptcy, remember that the company may not be stable
for some time. While the law says that companies in Chapter 11 are
supposed to file a plan of reorganization as soon as practicable,
"a complicated reorganization could take several years," Corbit
says.
If your company decides to file Chapter 7 bankruptcy, it is unlikely that you will keep your job for long. A Chapter 7 filing means the company is not planning on staying open for business or restructuring. Instead, it will liquidate all assets.
5. Grieve --
then start again
An employer's bankruptcy can be a wild ride -- you're not sure where
you're going or if there's even a sober driver manning the wheel.
Such feelings are normal.
Employees need to grieve when hearing the bad news, says John duHadway, former chief financial officer at Ownit Mortgage Solutions, which declared bankruptcy in 2006 and laid off 800 employees.
For duHadway, bankruptcy was like mourning the death of a loved one.
"Before you could move on you had to go through, in
essence, a grieving cycle," he says. "You loved your company and
your employees, and you devoted a substantial portion of your life
to it and them."
He says he struggled with depression, overeating, seclusion, anger, helplessness and "at times, a feeling of hopelessness."
Grieving is natural and normal. But Brown urges workers to beware of falling into a vortex of "learned helplessness" that causes you to feel like a passive victim.
"Work daily on reversing any learned helplessness you may be feeling," Brown says.
Start with the basics, such as applying for unemployment
benefits, hitting online career boards and tapping your network
of professional contacts.
Once you've taken care of the basics, find ways to make this unexpected and unwelcome change work for you.
"Take control of your fear by using it to motivate yourself to new levels of career performance, flexibility and financial literacy," Brown says. "Just as periods of prosperity pass, so do recessions. But your newfound skills will be with you always."
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