Do you have Employability Insurance?

Having a variety of insurance programs is part of every successful person's risk management package. Health, life, auto, home replacement, and renter's and disability insurance are common forms of insurance that provide a sense of security about the future. With all the downsizings, mergers, and computerization taking place these past few years, many workers are looking for another type of insurance, employability insurance. Has your path led you to this realization?

What would employability insurance look like if it could be found? It would be a means of insuring that no matter what happened in the workplace there would be another opportunity for a job equal to or better than the one currently held. How much would this cost? Like any insurance policy, that depends.

Realities of Lifetime Employment

There was a time when companies hired people for a lifetime: The Company Man! The shifting tides of the marketplace and technology are making lifetime employment with one company not only unlikely, but unattractive as well. Many people, uncomfortable with change, tend to fall into a sense of complacency and expect company support forever. This is just not realistic. Even animals in the wild have to change their grazing or hunting grounds! Changing careers is a part of our life path, it is important for expressing our potential.

Lifetime employment generally insures a paycheck, but it does not insure the opportunity to challenge yourself mentally, to do the job you enjoy, to exercise your leadership skills, or to be rewarded with a sense of achievement. For many people, collecting a paycheck each month is all that is asked. Many of these people have become slaves to the golden handcuffs. They have lost the will to achieve, to extend themselves, to put their potential into motion and to make a contribution

Six Areas of Employability-Insurance

So what is the alternative? If we were to design a self-insured program of employability insurance it would require a regular expenditure of energy. This energy would include some tough critical thinking, diligent planning, and some calculated risk taking. There are several areas that need to be addressed to insure employability: expertise, professional contribution, organization perception, leadership, networking, and strategic planning.

1. Expertise

Everybody has an expertise in something. Identifying what you do well takes a little digging. Generally those things that we do without effort are perceived as an expertise by others, but to ourselves, they are no big deal. Identifying accomplishments is a good place to begin. Make a list of those things that were done both on and off the job that made you really feel good about yourself. It doesn't matter that no one else was aware of the accomplishment.

It is important to remember that an expertise is not the topic of the work being done. A person may be an engineer, but her expertise could be design, or failure analysis, or even development of promotional ideas for marketing a product.

2. Professional Contribution

Professional contribution has two parts. First, there is the matter of contributing professionally to the company. It can be a great challenge to find out just how your skills might best be used in the environment as it exists, this will be related to the company’s strategic objectives. It might also be necessary to do some research to determine how those skills could be beneficial to the company in a time of economic crisis, or market shifts. In other words, think beyond yourself. How can you find a need and fill it within your current environment, or the industry as a whole.

3. Organization Perception

It is seldom that we take the time to really evaluate the company's needs, goals, problems, and potentials. In fact, most of us probably know more about our stock market investments than we do about the company in which we are investing our lives and futures.

We should spend a lot of time on that subject. After all, each person who works for a company is a major investor in that company. They may not be investing capital resources, but each worker from the receptionist to the CEO invests time, energy, emotions, and creativity. As a major investor, we owe it to ourselves to understand how that company operates and to understand how best to make our concerns heard and understood. This is the third area of employment insurance: organization perception.

Each company works by different rules. Some are healthy and productive; some are petty and dysfunctional. As part of the research, each person needs to clearly identify where the opportunities are to make a difference. It is also important to recognize when some problems are part of the culture and will never change. Organization perception requires a strong understanding and utilization of the internal political procedures for getting things done. Few people know enough about their company's culture, politics and processes for getting things done.

4. Leadership

A fourth area, leadership, is tied in with another aspect of professional contribution. Leadership is not confined to the task of management within a particular organization. It cuts across company boundaries and looks at what needs doing within the profession. Making a leadership contribution to the profession as a whole can include anything from designing a new invention to volunteering for the local and national professional organization. Or simply, taking initiative in your own team.

5. Networking

Professional organizations are an important means of identifying marketplace trends that could directly affect your future. Working through professional organizations can provide a great source of understanding, support and ideas for solving work related issues, getting a sense of the greater industry needs and for developing management and communication skills that would probably be ignored in the workplace. Also, professional organizations provide the contacts to let us know who needs help, what projects are going on, how the work is being done, what technology is being tested, and developed; , and most importantly, who is hiring. And the newest iterations of technology might introduce you to what technology could provide a fit for you.

The skill that is developed through associations in professional organizations is networking. Exercising this skill should not be limited to conferences, luncheons or committee work in the professional organization. Practice these skills with people in other departments, at other sites, with vendors, with customers and with people in other companies. Use your e-mail to make connections, solve problems, find resources, and most importantly, to build a support network for yourself.

6. Strategic Planning

Developing each of these areas requires diligent application of the sixth category of employability insurance: strategic planning. It is easy to get caught up in the day-to-day activities and chores of the workplace. Just as we have insurance premiums taken out of our paychecks, we need to take time off the top of our work week to plan, organize, analyze, and develop strategies that will insure that continuous employment will be in the future.

This strategic planning includes a variety of thinking and goal setting tasks. In particular, it requires the design of personal and professional objectives and how they will be achieved. Any growth requires the expression of energy and the stretching of new skills. Strategic planning requires the analysis of who you are, why you are, where you are going, and a review of your capabilities and challenges.

An effective strategic plan requires that you look ahead, planning the choices you will make and evaluating the outcomes of possible opportunities before committing to them. It identifies areas where development is needed and it designs a strategy for accomplishing that growth. Strategic planning may require negotiation with management to incorporate new challenges. The key is that with effective strategic planning you become the designer of your career and the manager of your fate in the employment world.

Addressing each of these six areas of employability insurance requires discipline and effort. Some of it means a sacrifice of free time and a sacrifice of energy. However, doesn't any insurance policy have a cost? Doesn’t it require the sacrifice of immediate gratification for long range security?

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Decisions Many times along our pathway in life we come to a point of decision making. Some of these decisions are ordinary, like whether to make a casserole or soup. Some are more serious, like when to take the family on a trip to visit Grandma. And some are really challenging, like changing jobs or dealing with relationship issues (at work or at home). Making good decisions takes discipline and the willingness to engage your thinking by using a few cues. Some of these cues you can arrange before you have to make the decision. Dreams, Goals, and Expectations Effective decisions enhance your personal dreams, goals and expectations. These change at different stages of your life. What was important in one stage of life has either been met or left behind. Now you need to rethink what is it that you are trying to accomplish. Consider the casserole versus soup decision. At 20 you are very busy and running around needing lots of carbs, at 45 you are spending time at the gym trying to keep your body trim and healthy, and looking for ways to cut carbs. Then, at 80, you might be trying just to stay healthy, so you might make a soup with some of the casserole ingredients. Different goals require different decisions. Decisions Impact Others Consider the impact that your decision will have on: long term goals, relationships with family members, expression of the talents loaned by your Creator. For instance, if you want to consider a job in a different location, what will you get out of that? What sacrifices will it require for you and your individual family members (spouse, children)? Will you be leaving behind a support network? Would this change represent a running towards or a running from something? Controlling Anxiety “Do not be anxious in anything.” (Phil 4:6). This is a good reminder, and it comes with an admonition that we present our concerns to our Creator with a thankful heart and expect to see a resolution or a suggestion. Anxiety diminishes creativity. And creativity is just what is needed to solve a sticky wicket decision. For instance, maybe moving the family may not be essential. Consider that this job could be accomplished remotely, with Zoom and some travel. Keep your heart open, and resolve to use your gifts for the work of your Creator. God’s creativity is greater than ours will ever be. If what is presented to you is part of His need for your talents, then you will be amazed at what you will see! Think of your Creator as saying, “Look, I’ve got this. You just be ready to do the work!” There are stories both from family members and people we read about in books, who had a dream that included God as the Director of their Dream Team. Here is an example from my world. An engineer with 8 children became frustrated because his bosses would keep his inventions as their own and without credit to him. He made the incredible decision build his own company; he implemented his dream. He also designated God as his primary Director, with whom he conferred daily. He enlisted all of his family members to help with this effort in some way; they became part of his Dream Team. Fifty years later, his company was nationally known, his inventions were prominent technology and his faith was still strong. All 8 of the children had fine educations, strong marriages and children of their own, and he helped to build a church in his community. When he passed away at 100, he was able to support many causes that represented his values and interests. He is one of my great heroes. Values My Hero assessed his values, which became the standards used for decision making. Here is a question he used. What is important to you emotionally, intellectually, physically, and spiritually? What is important to you represents the values that you hold dear. These may also be linked to your strengths, and your dreams. Write them down—or draw pictures that represent what is important to you. Then consider how your decision will impact the values that you have. Will the decision enhance or compromise your values? Policies Create a set of policies that align with your goals and support your values. These policies are statements that you make to remind you to protect your values and your goals. Here are some examples: I organize my day to enhance my talents and skills. I read about and watch videos about people who used their creativity solve problems. I review my values and goals before I make decisions. I include my Creator in order to address the anxieties of decision making. Your policies can also acknowledge your own weaknesses and allow you to fend off demands on your time, energy, and income that do not support your dream. I make choices based upon how they support my dream. I put away a certain percentage of earnings to support my dream. I donate a certain percentage of my earnings to benefit others. I focus my energy only on the activities to support my dream and my values. Decisions? So, now that you have the cues, it is time to think about those decisions that you think you want to make, and the dreams you want to implement. It might take some time to put together your decision chart. You will need to identify goals, values, and commitments (to your Dream Team). This exercise will provide you with a set of standards you can use when you have to make “sticky-wicket” decisions, and make your dreams a reality.