Measuring Your Job Security
Provided someone has not already handed you a pink slip, now is your opportunity to assess your job's stability and determine how much time you have to plan and execute your next career move. To do this, you need to know how secure your current job is.
Defining the Elements That Affect Your Job Security
Following is an explanation of the five primary factors, including their elements and sub elements. Pay close attention to these items and their definitions. Each item is directed at a specific job-security issue. Don't try to read more into the definition than is intended.
1. Industry
Within the category of industry, three elements are cited: manufacturing, service, and retail.
Service businesses are the fastest growing sector in the American business economy. Yet some areas are having problems. Retail, like travel and entertainment, depends to a large degree upon discretionary income. If people feel insecure about their jobs, they spend less and save more. Though an increased savings rate can have a positive long-term effect on the economy, it tends to create short-term turmoil for retailers.
The retail grocery business is basic, and yet when times are tough, consolidation can take place, threatening job security somewhat. If you work for a food retailer, you can get a feeling for the health of the store by looking at the floor traffic. Is it busy?
Also check to see whether the shelves are well stocked. If you see "back-filling"-placing the product on the outside edge of the shelf and leaving the back of the shelf empty-this could be a sign that the company is having cash flow problems or operating losses.
Specialty stores for such things as sporting goods, gifts, and crafts can do well during challenging economic times if they address essential needs. If not, you will see specialty stores open and close continually, creating a difficult employment picture within that area.
2. Region
As we have heard before, the region in which you live greatly affects your potential job security. There are quantifiable economic elements that cause regions to prosper or pause. The three primary influences are: diversification, growth trends, and government stability.
Diversification refers to the assortment of businesses in your immediate area. Employment security is enhanced within a region if it has multiple business segments such as electronics, durable goods, and soft goods. Multiple business segments cushion the fluctuation caused by the changing prosperity of each segment. Domination of an area by coal, oil, or lumber production, for example, can adversely affect job security.
Are the majority of companies within your region affected by cycles and seasons? If so, employment will fluctuate unless the companies have counter cycles. When a region has companies that counterbalance one another's cycles, job security is enhanced.
Is your city dominated by one large employer, making it dependent upon the health of that company? Seattle spent many years watching its employment level ebb and flow with the health of The Boeing Company. Finally, during the 1980s, the region was able to diversify. It now has many companies representing a number of business segments, and the business cycles counterbalance one another.
Growth Trends' importance should be obvious. Today's business must be global in its view. Foreign competition affects every aspect of business. Even service businesses, which are people dependent, face competition from abroad. Domestic banking has encountered significant competition from foreign banks. Bank of America, for example, once the largest bank in the world, is now ranked fifteenth behind several European and Japanese banks.
Look around. Count the number of companies that open and close in a year. Add to that the number of companies that relocate outside of your city. You'll see that big (meaning "big city") helps with job security in terms of getting a job, but not necessarily in keeping the job.
3. Profession
The level of management at which you work greatly affects your job security. Remember, greater job security is based upon the lowest score. If none of the sub elements listed fits your job title or description, don't worry about it, be happy. It means your security as it relates to this factor is good. If several sub elements apply to your position, find the one that describes the dominant aspect of your job. For example, you may do a small amount of customer service, such as answering the telephone, but your job is defined as accounting.
Executive managers, corporate vice presidents, and above are more vulnerable to layoffs than middle or frontline managers. They comprise a small percentage of the total number of unemployed, but that is because top management is such a small percentage of the total employment base. Corporations are trying to cut costs and improve their responsiveness to changing markets. One way to accomplish this is to reduce layers of management. Many companies have as many as twelve levels of management between frontline supervisors and the president of the company. New management philosophy says that a company cannot respond to market changes if there are more than six management layers. Most middle managers filter and analyze information; they do not sell, build, wrap, or ship the product. Reducing the number of middle managers means fewer people debating a decision, so decisions can be made more rapidly.
It is frontline supervision that is most productive within the ranks of management. Frontline managers are often called supervisors. They are the first level of management within an organization. Very often frontline managers have productive tasks to perform in addition to supervisory issues and problems to resolve. Your security as a frontline manager should be adversely affected only if you supervise fewer than three people (the typical span of control is considered seven people), in which case someone may determine that your crew can be supervised by another manager, reducing overhead by one person.
Staff positions are always looked at first when a company is considering cost reductions. To determine the vulnerability of your job if you are staff, ask yourself how important you are to the overall functioning of the company, and whether your tasks can be done by a computer. If your importance is negligible or if a computer could do your job, you may not be as secure in your job as you might think otherwise.
4. Company Size
The three most important sub elements affecting your company are expansion, profits, and diversification (participation in diverse markets and multiple product areas). Their impact depends upon the size of the company. A small company usually cannot sustain itself very long if it fails to grow or expand. It will have to cut costs, and people are the first to go. A medium or large company will cut staff if there is no growth, but will not cut as fast as a small company.
5. Education
A college degree is always an asset. However, a degree that is not in demand, such as home economics, English literature, or social studies, won't compete with an M.B.A. in most businesses. There are more people with advanced degrees in the job market than ever before. This makes a low-demand degree a somewhat negative asset. Add to that the lack of an advanced degree and your job security can be hurt. Chances are, if your company has a cutback you will compete with another person who has a high-demand degree-business, accounting, economics-and/or an advanced degree. To determine if your degree is low-demand in your industry, ask a human resources counselor to list the three most sought-after degrees when hiring. If your major is on that list, you have a high-demand degree for your industry.
The prestige of your school means little in keeping your job. It adds greatest value at the time of hiring, not firing. But if you had to compete with a graduate of a highly prestigious school during a layoff, it might make a difference if your school wasn't prestigious.
Trade or technical schooling costs you points if the field in which you trained is not in demand. Of course, if trade school has nothing to do with your training or education, ignore this category. Time within a field is important; trade school training is usually short, and employers expect your actual on-the-job experience to make you a better employee. Ten years is generally considered the time required to become "senior" in one's skills and experience. As with college, a high-prestige trade school has little effect upon your job retention; its value is greatest at the time of hiring.
On-the-job training has value if the training is in demand and relevant to your actual job. Length of time is important because greater experience indicates greater capability. A successful track record within your field (e.g., letters of commendation, excellent performance appraisals) is very important. Too often in a layoff situation a person who learned on the job will be competing with someone who has either a college education or technical training. Without a strong track record he will lose.
