When the redundancy whispers begin
Redundancy triggers panic. It puts you in survival mode (if on the off chance you weren't there already.)
“What next?” becomes “anything, please - just something.”
I’ve seen it a whole heap of times. I would have been in the 'anything please camp' but when I was made redundant, I also was six months pregnant and so no-one was offering me anything (apart from the job centre in Eccles that suggested I went on job seekers allowance and/or disability benefits).
We accept what’s handed to us, because our nervous system is in free fall.
We're reeling with no time to pause and so the first job offer, the exit deal, the silence all create reactions. We don't give ourselves time to think about the possible responses.
That shock puts us in freeze, fawn and a whole heap of panic ranging from the obvious financial challenges to the worry for your team to the hard realisation that you're not part of the future you probably wrote the strategy for. As one of my fabulous friends said: "No matter how many times you are told "it's not personal" you take it as just that. It's to do with "me" or even "them."
So here’s a couple of the top tips that beautiful humans are gifting me to gift to you and what they wish they had done or did do in their moments of "what the actual fck."
🔸 You don’t have to accept the first offer
🔸 You’re allowed to ask for more (time, coaching, career support, transition time)
🔸 You’re allowed to wait and want
🔸 It's not one conversation; you can ask for a pause to gather your thoughts
🔸 You are not your job, as L said "I didn't know that I was living my life AS my job and not as me"
I'm looking for blinking brilliant women who are happy to share one or two lines of their real life, lived experience. I'm creating a checklist, considerations and I would love if it it would include not just my lived experience (because it was also 23 years ago).
Maybe also the stories that this particular plot twist; being made redundant was the best thing that ever happened to you because, as we all know, when you're going through it, it doesn't feel like the best thing that's ever happened to you. It feels like a nightmare and you're living it and you're having to go through it. And you're having to show up for your team and you're having to be strong. And at the same time you're crumbling.
If you’ve been through this: what helped you get clear before making your next move? What are the nuggets you wish you'd known. Your hindsight could be someone else’s turning point.
And here's mine....if you are going through redundancy conversations at the moment, give yourself a little bit time to recover before you supercharge on the reset. Press pause; one of my current clients has done just this "naming these two weeks as downtime has really really helped" before she upcycled a cupboard to bring her a bit of joy and order in the chaos.
