The word lay-off or termination will probably always be the scourge of the professional workers who depend their lives on a company. Perhaps we still remember a short while ago when Yahoo! laid off 2000 employees worldwide, and Sony followed – but has nothing to do with what happened at Yahoo! – by laying off 10.000 of its own employees.
We can imagine how the employees affected by the layoffs suddenly have no income and at a crisis in their lives, especially those who have families. Yes, it’s terrible if all of the sudden, we are in that position without having any lifeboat.
Many tend to believe that layoffs occur due to reasons caused by the employees themselves but this is clearly not true because there are plenty of reasons for layoffs to occur. Don’t be surprised when you see a top employee getting laid off seemingly without any clear reason.
When the financial crisis hit the United States a few years ago, we saw how the wave of layoffs happened, with a rapid domino effect and within a few weeks, reached my workplace at that time (at Yahoo! Southeast Asia) and for the first time in my life, I saw how a company lays off employees in the interest of the company itself on a large scale.
Layoffs at Yahoo! a month ago was done because of the positioning and policy changes of the company that has just picked up a new leader, Scott Thompson, who previously served as Senior Vice President and CTO of a leading online payment gateway company, PayPal, owned by the world’s number one e-commerce service, eBay. The company’s positioning that was established well before Thompson was hired by Yahoo! was refocused again by removing the parts that didn’t support Yahoo!’s claim as “The Premiere Digital Media Company”, resulting in massive cuts that made Yahoo! slimmer, focused and able to save a lot. Similarly, the same thing happened in Sony Corp. which decided to layoff 10.000 employees after Sony bore the losses in its business for 4 years in a row.
Sony and Yahoo! are examples of massive companies struggling to survive and to grow at the expense of their employees, and in business, there’s nothing wrong about it.
Then what will happen to those employees affected by the layoffs? Yes, I can say as long as they’re thinking to depend their lives on others, so their fate will depend on the ‘movement’ and decisions of the party which they work for, but it would be different if an employee also pay attention to their positioning in the companies they work for and also in a broader scope, in the professional world in general.
In his book, Linchpin – Are you indispensable, Seth Godin explains how important it is for companies to obtain and “keep” what he described as Linchpin, the figure in the organization that cannot be replaced by anyone because it is so unique and valuable. And for that, in your position as an employee, you should be able to see if you are quite valuable and unique to the company enough that they want you to stay and keep you no matter what. From the employee’s perspective, the question that arises is how to make ourselves “indispensable” for the company in particular and for the professional world which you work, so you can become a credible personal brand.
This is why I always say that our position will truly be tested when the company where we work at layoffs its employees. If we are fortunate to be employees who are indispensable for the company, then are we lucky enough in the professional world to become a widely sought with all the information known by the general public about ourselves? Do we stand out enough in the eyes of the people?
How about you? Do you stand out? Are you ready to cause the company to regret losing you? If not, then it’s time you start to stand out and be a linchpin.
Abang Edwin is a practitioner of online community management since 1998 long before the term of social media / social networks appear in the internet world. He began his journey by experimentation with several online communities which eventually successful at that, to this day he still gives consultations about knowing character and foster online communities for brands / agencies and individuals.
He was at Yahoo! for over 4 years as a community manager. Currently he is Country Manager – Indonesia for Thoughtbuzz.net, a social media monitoring company.
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