How to Keep Your Job During Times of Personal Change
by This article takes a look at the difficulty of keeping employed during times of personal crisis. It offers practical advice on how to make the right decisions to deal with the change and keep your job.
Lives change. Sometimes they change for the good and sometimes it goes the other way. It is easy to let personal changes affect our job and job performance. A death of a loved one or an extended illness in the family can impact a life in many ways. A divorce or a marriage whether your or perhaps one of your children can turn your world upside down for weeks or longer.
During these times it is easy to view your job as a second tier responsibility. Your employer will still view it as first tier. People sometimes will take excessive amounts of time off when significant personal changes occur. This can put your boss in a difficult position. If you are a good and valuable employee, your employer will want to work with you to maintain your job. It is important that you work just as hard from your end to help that to happen.
It is possible that you will make an appearance at work everyday, but be unavailable mentally to perform your tasks at an acceptable level. Your mind wanders away from work and onto your personal situation. While this is a normal human response, it makes your value to your job make a sharp decline.
Coworkers might be willing to pick up the slack. Eventually, they will tire of this and begin complaining about your non-performance. You employer will be put in a spot to choose between losing one unproductive employee ro continue dealing with several noisy and unhappy one. Squeaky wheels always get the grease. Your job will be on the line.
Regardless of whether you are physically absent or just not involved with your job when you are there, during times of personal change, you need to do your best to hold onto your job. The disruptions to your personal life caused by a temporary upheaval while you are going through a personal change will subside. At the end of the turmoil, you will need income and a job. Since you already have one, it is best to try to keep it. A few simple steps will go a long way toward making this happen.
- Keep your boss informed from the time that you first notice that your change is affecting other areas of your life. Try to enlist the help of your employer to deal with your situation. By doing this early, you are much more likely get a sympathetic ear and build a case for being retained.
- Involve coworkers only when your situation will affect them. Misery may love company, but most people really do not like a play by play of other people’s trials. By telling them too much too soon, you risk alienating them before you can get their help.
- Do not miss work unless it is absolutely necessary. Keep track of all absences, tardies, and early departures. The company will, and you want to keep these to a minimum. You never know when your circumstances could change causing you miss for reasons that are actually beyond your control.
- Try to do your work in bursts. You may have trouble keeping your focus for a full shift. However, you may find that you can be quite productive for 30 minutes or an hour at a time. If you can do this 4 or 5 times per day, you can stay valuable to your company and stay on the good side of coworkers.
- Work hard to wrap up the loose ends of your personal change as rapidly as possible. It is all of those hanging unknown details and decisions that will drag you down the fastest. Clean them up quickly, and your life will come back into balance.
- Hand off as many personal details to family members or close friends as you can. Let others help shoulder your load. Doing it alone is normally a bad idea.
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