Getting a job is one thing. Keeping it is another.
Now, with companies winnowing out their staffs, cutting back on projects and closely examining each employee`s productivity, job security is up for grabs.
”When I was growing up, I remember how loyal my mother was to her company, and how loyal it was to her,” says a TempoWoman reader. ”She stayed with that one firm for 30 years. It never occurred to her to leave. She knew the company would take care of her and that she`d never be let go.
”It`s totally different in my job. We had a staff of 200 people, and now we`re down to 100. I`m one of the survivors, but it`s scary. I suppose I should be looking elsewhere and getting ready to find a new job, but I really like the one I now have.
”I wonder what I can do to make it through the next round of cuts, which will be the last. I want to keep this job.”
The days of employer paternalism and lifetime jobs for workers are gone. Women in the paid labor market are aware that an ever-changing economy could cost them their jobs.
FLORINE ROBINSON
Age 49, president, Robinson & Associates Inc.
”You can make your job secure by being the best possible person in it, and by having a high performance level,” says Robinson, a management consultant in employment and affirmative action areas. She specializes in small and midsize businesses that don`t have an in-house training staff. Her firm also does individual career development consulting.
Robinson, a personnel specialist since 1965, began consulting in 1979. She gives talks on career success and was a recent speaker at the Oak Brook chapter of Women in Management.
”I worked for 21 years for Illinois Bell and AT&T, and the way I insured job security was I went in and found out what was expected, and then I did more than that,” says Robinson, who could work two switchboards at the same time.
”I was a telephone operator with a strategy. I wanted to move into management, and I became a supervisor within two years.”
She dressed the way supervisors dressed.
”No clerical skills were required for the job,” she says, ”but I made myself indispensable by providing them when they were needed. I couldn`t type fast, but the others couldn`t type at all.”
Her dedication to work helped her move into human resources and to keep her job when divestiture of the telephone company reduced personnel totals there.
”I went with AT&T specifically to ensure my job because I knew that`s where my skills would be needed,” she said. ”I retired from the phone company in 1984.”
Robinson has employment security advice: ”Be dependable. Extend yourself. Be a team builder and player. Find a mentor, and be one yourself. Find out what part of the job your boss likes least, take it over and learn to like it.”
STACEY KRUGER BIRNDORF
Age 32, corporate leasing specialist, Julien J. Studley Inc.
”I`m extremely sensitive to job security,” says Birndorf, an office leasing broker who since 1986 has negotiated in excess of 230,000 square feet of office space for tenants on a commission basis.
”No one ever mentioned the subject at home or at school,” says the broker, an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley, ”but I`ve thought about it. I`ve seen people in my family lose jobs.”
Birndorf emphasizes career, not job security.
”You have to look beyond the immediate environment, where you work right now, because things happen far beyond your control,” she advises. ”If your firm collapses, what are you to do? Your job is gone. But if you`ve positioned yourself well professionally, you can find another job.”
An advertising account executive for six years before becoming a broker, Birndorf follows her own advice.
”You have to make an honest assessment of your preparation for a career,” she suggests. ”That`s why I got an MBA in finance rather than in advertising. Getting the degree meant I could go anywhere. An MBA is a flexible degree.”
A native of Los Angeles, she was recruited in 1980 by a major advertising agency to work in Chicago.
”Before accepting, I tried to figure out if I could survive if things didn`t work out. I knew I was covered because the agency was stable, there were others in the city and Chicago has many diversified industries.”
Two years ago she left advertising for her present job, in which she quickly became successful. But the influence of her advertising background pops up in her way of looking at job security.
”Remember, we`re products,” Birndorf advises. ”We`re not different from a box of bleach. We have to think what makes us better than the other bleaches.
”You have to be realistic because a job is not forever. The only people who don`t throw you out are your own family.”
CATHERINE CHIN
Age 34, electrical designer, Schmidt, Garden & Erikson
In Taiwan, her homeland, Chin says, ”Job insecurity is not that strong. Taiwan is like Japan. There an Oriental company is like a parent.”
But things are different in the United States, Chin learned when she arrived here in 1983 with a bachelor`s degree in architecture.
”I believe that job security depends on whether your employers want you or not,” says Chin, who does lighting design, wiring and circuiting.
”That`s why I took advanced courses. Higher education increased my value to the company. If you have the ability and training, you don`t have to be afraid that your employers won`t need you anymore.”
After working for an architectural and interior design firm, Chin returned to school.
”I changed from architecture to engineering, because I thought I could be more competitive in engineering in the United States,” she says.
”Engineering has an international language in which you use your drawings, not words.”
Chin earned her master`s degree in engineering at the University of Kansas and has been in her present job since 1986. She is working currently on a design plan for lighting a hospital, figuring out ”all the lighting fixtures and how to supply the power to energize them.”
She does not believe her job is threatened by working in a predominantly male field.
”I think of myself as a professional,” Chin says. ”I depend on the fact of my working ability, and I don`t worry about sex or age or anything. My employers are very fair so I don`t feel insecure about my job, but at other places, I know it`s rough.”
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Send comments and ideas for future questions to Carol Kleiman, The Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill. 60611.
