If your company is in trouble and management is trying to maintain reasonable control, this is a question they may not want you to be considering. Regardless of the company's concerns, however, you need to consider your own future and your family's well-being. There are many factors that enter into your decision about whether or not to leave your current employer. A few important ones to consider are:
Do you have a reasonable alternative? If you have other employment possibilities, you need to weigh a number of factors about those possibilities. How much will you earn? Will it advance your career or stall it? Will a new job require some sacrifice from you or your family?
How does your company handle layoffs? If your company doesn't have a history of laying people off, you may not be able to answer this question. However, if your company generally provides generous severance packages, you may feel that it's worth the financial risk to stay with them and ride out the storm. If the company is notoriously cheap, however, you may not want to wait.
What are the prospects for recovery? Is the company's current situation temporary? The company may have some positive steps in the works to quickly turn around its fortunes. On the other hand, the company may be trying to sell buggy whips, all the while not realizing that the market for buggy whips died long ago.
Although it sounds callous, as you make your decision to leave you must absolutely disregard any feelings of loyalty to the company. Almost to a person, individuals who are laid off will tell you that they couldn't believe they'd been let go, considering how loyal they'd been to the company. The overwhelming response of people who have been laid off is that they regret having put their loyalty to the company ahead of their concern for the financial security of their own family. When you consider the question in that light, you may reach a conclusion very quickly.
Making Your Case
You may decide not to leave the company or you may not have an appropriate alternative position when you need one. At this point, if you believe the company is in trouble and have reason to believe layoffs are imminent, don't assume that your years of service, exceptional performance, or loyalty to the company will be enough to save your job. The committee currently evaluating who stays and who goes may be looking at bottom-line criteria that may have little to do with your intrinsic value to the company.
Most companies will try to keep employees they don't believe can be easily replaced. However, if your salary is significantly higher than those of your peers or you are more talented and capable than your boss, your name may be on the list. You need to develop a case highlighting your value to the company and present the case, reasonably and calmly, to the highest-level decision maker you can approach.
Your case should present immediate, bottom-line benefits to the company if they choose to keep you. For example, you can present a plan to ensure completion of a key project while eliminating contract or temporary employees currently assigned to the project. You may be able to show that you can cut your travel budget by one-half or two-thirds and still promise to meet sales quotas. In short, the more financially attractive you can make your case, the more impact it will have.
Presenting your case can be a delicate issue, especially if no official announcements about layoffs have yet been released. You can choose the upfront approach and tell company management that you understand the company is having financial difficulties and that, in the interest of staying with the company and helping it become more successful, you'd like to present your capabilities and a plan to help ease the company's financial burden. This direct approach shows inventiveness on your part and provides a positive message, quite possibly the only good news your management hears during a difficult time.
As mentioned earlier, if your company has already had one or more "everything s okay" meetings, the door is open for you to discuss the situation more directly with your manager. In some cases, by showing concern for the company's financial situation, you may make it easier for your manager to give you information that can help you. If you are currently considered too valuable to lose, your showing of concern may allow your manager to relieve your fears and tell you that your job is not on the line.
A less direct approach may be necessary if you think overtly mentioning the company's financial problems is not a good idea. Simply providing an innovative, unsolicited way to cut costs or increase revenues to your department or company will increase your value to the company and possibly keep your name off the list.
One note of caution; No matter how much you need your current job, asking to be spared a layoff or downright pleading to be saved are bad ideas. Not only do they not show your managers any reason to save your position, they also create an extremely difficult working environment for you and your manager. Pleading for a co-worker's position will have similar effects.
