Minority Career News
January - March 2002

What a Difference "Zero" Makes
By MCN Staff

• Layoffs ----- Many companies are trimming payrolls because it is an employer's market and the opportune time to do so is now. An employee may view a layoff as an opportunity for career transitioning. Use this as a time for updating and polishing skills, researching and exploring other professions based on one's transferable skills, and one's personal values and beliefs.
• Workplace Security ----- Corporate security has taken on high priority. Concerns about safety of people as well as product provide monumental challenges for risk- management. Corporate security efforts may also present potential challenges for employees. For example, will your E-mail be relatively private, or will it be subject to snooping? Is your intellectual capital personal or corporate property? Is your background-check information safeguarded, and who has access to it, and under what circumstances?
• Delayed Retirement ----- Everyone who wants to or needs to continue working past the company retirement age may not have this option. Middle-age managers must face the reality that they command higher salaries as opposed to a younger person willing to do the same job for less money. The arithmetic is simple, and your company knows this, but certainly would not go on record as using this approach. Therefore, it is helpful to have broad work experiences and intergenerational professional relationships and contacts. If you plan to stay, and everyone you have developed a professional relationship with leaves, where does that leave you?
• Mergers and Acquisitions ----- Companies make strategic decisions based on forecasts regarding business trends affecting the company. A parallel outlook is helpful to the employee. Look around you to see how your department or division is performing in comparison to your counterparts. If things do not look favorable, use your foresight to hedge against a possible squeeze-out. Consider volunteering for an assignment that will move you out or over to a strategically better position. It would also be wise to prepare financially by implementing a "life-style scale down."
• Stagnant Salaries ----- Corporate purse strings are tight and are getting tighter. The days of large sign-on bonuses and grandiose titles are gone. Attempts by potential employees to negotiate under this outdated paradigm may prove futile. Consider negotiating things like office space location, flex hours, or occasionally working from home or an alternate location.

Now that you are aware of some of the current workplace trends, it is time to gather your fortitude and put on your unconventional-thinking cap so you can establish your personal zero. Measure for measure, you set the scale.

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