The success of a business completely depends on its employees. They are the people who organize a business to provide numerous services to consumers. Even so, when a business runs into a financial turmoil, it is at times inevitable that a few employees will face a layoff to save costs. It’s quite common and nowadays it can be quite tough to remember a single week where there was not any news of jobs being lost.
They have become somewhat a norm in the global economy. Not to mention, they lead to the creation of two different groups of victims: those spared and those axed. Therefore, this changes the corporate environment and the skills required to survive in it. My story is somewhat similar: I worked at a large organization called ‘Cardinal Health’ for three years.
It started off incredibly promising and there was some room to grow. I was also provided good benefits and a good amount of PTO as well. However, soon enough, the environment became incredibly challenging. Cardinal Health began planning layoffs and the stress levels of employees spiked. If I were to recall, during my last few months it became like a Survival of the Fittest Tournament.
If a person was unable to perform, he would also be included on the list of employees being laid off by the company. I was kicked out along with 170 employees on May 8th, 2013, to cut company’s costs. It didn't matter how I hard I worked. They just gave me a severance package based on my years of service to the company and said goodbye.
So, now I think to myself: what’s the purpose of working in a large organization, if all you get in the end is kicked out? Believe me when I say, it is incredibly difficult to cope with unemployment, especially if you have kids to look after. Even though it’s been two full years since the layoff, it still seems like something that I can’t forget.
And I know there are many people out there, who might have experienced the same thing. So, my advice would be to always create a backup plan before joining a large organization with a layoff history. This way, you can avoid stressing out and being depressed about the layoff.