Introducing the Employment Security Hierarchy
You don't want job security, you want Employment Security
Do you have what it takes to be a Cubicle Warrior – a knowledge worker who survives and thrives in a cubicle? Can you continually work in an age of competition with everyone on the planet, or network your way to the next right position for you?
If you were a Corporate Executive, you’d know you have resources that support your employability. You’d know because many books and hundreds of articles describe what an Executive should do to be effective and negotiate Employment Contracts that provide substantial compensation even if you are no longer working for the company.
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This newsletter focuses on helping knowledge workers navigate corporate America, from searching for jobs to working in the role, having employment security, and helping you become a Cubicle Warrior.
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But the rest of us, including managers, work in cubicles. We don’t have the built-in advantages of a Corporate Executive with employment contracts and programs oriented to support our careers. Instead, the cube is where we work with others through phone, Teams, or Zoom video calls, e-mail, instant messaging, and face-to-face drop-in talks. We walk the paths of the corporate maze to see and work with others. We attend meetings with others who are doing the same.
If you work in a cubicle and your company is not forward-thinking, you will be fortunate to receive direction from your cube-mates on how to do your job and get their opinions on managing your career. If your company is more forward-thinking, you might receive skills training to help you do your job better, for what the company needs, not necessarily what you need for your career.
When hard times come, and they will
But the truth about working in a cubicle is that if hard times come, none of your skills, talent, or training will give you job security. No, you’ll be out looking for a job in a heartbeat after suffering from a layoff. Perhaps the company will be fine, but you’ll be on the street.
Traditional media touts the stories of lucky or completely defeated job seekers who are all looking for the holy grail of job security.
Here is the truth: There is no job security. All of us are temps. All those job skills you have and your significant accomplishments for the company don’t mean much when a company’s management decides the next best way to increase earnings and decrease costs is to eliminate your earnings to reduce their costs.
What is needed today is not job security -- job security is as fleeting as what your next manager thinks about the job you do. What we need today is Employment Security: the ability and skills to find rewarding work for you consistently. It doesn’t matter whether it is the company or the specific job. Instead, it is a set of skills that allows you to stay employed. Employment Security is the holistic view of your talent, ambitions, and circumstances that define your work and the skills to remain employed.
Working in a cubicle needs to be a meaningful choice
Whether for perceived security (even though there is none), the unwillingness to take the financial and social risks to strike out on their own, or the very real circumstance of making the mortgage payment, people rightfully choose to work in a cube. Nothing is wrong with that, but we must make working in a cube a meaningful choice instead of groveling to the latest corporate speak.
Yet the employment needs of these career cube dwellers are ignored; we are faceless minions who work at the whim of corporate management. We are the first to go to save money from management’s mismanagement, or constantly reorganized into evolving groups as part of consistent corporate churn.
Building Employment Security in the face of a global corporation’s sophisticated reach or the single incompetent, ineffective, or incapable reporting manager is a challenge because all of the power is on the other side of the desk.
To thrive in this challenging environment requires specific skills, preparation, and the ability to rise above the mundane about where our career is heading. It requires us to become Cubical Warriors, who flow with the work while looking for new career opportunities.
The following few articles of this newsletter will define the skills needed as a Cubicle Warrior. It is the hierarchy of skills required for Employment Security in an age of constant, chaotic churn in the job market. The following articles will help you define, plan, and execute the work necessary to thrive in a cube.
In the next newsletter, I’ll provide an overview of the hierarchy and then discuss each of its five levels in depth.
Here’s a sneak peek at what the Employment Security Hierarchy looks like:
Be a Cubicle Warrior,
Scot