One of the things many people fear is losing their employment.

In fact, there is so much fear around this that I wrote an entirely separate post about it where I describe the conditions that people put up with just to avoid losing their job, or the pain of looking for another job (because frankly, it can be painful, especially when you’re coming from a weaker position, like being laid off and then getting a new job, this can be a challenging place to overcome). That is why people fear that place, and rightfully so.

However, sometimes though we can unknowingly be the agent of our professional demise due to our own performance. Burnout, discouragement, or even boredom can unwittingly cause high performers to self-sabotage putting their jobs in jeopardy.

Then again, there things that are outside of own control, things in the broader company, industry, or economic environment that can impact our jobs whether we like it or not.

So what are some of the signs that your job may be on the chopping block?

Environmental Signs

• Company Layoffs – The most obvious is if the company announces that they are doing layoffs or moving jobs overseas. This is usually done after a company realizes that their current strategy and structure is no longer competitive and they need to make significant changes to stay viable in the future.
• Company Merger or Acquisition – If your company was recently purchased or merged with another. This is especially true if you work in a duplicated, overhead function like HR, Finance, or Legal. When a merger happens typically layoffs in these functions are not far behind.
• Company Stock Price – If your company’s stock price has recently tanked. This is a sure sign that the market and investors have lost faith in your long term viability, and your company has to claw their way back to a place where customers buy from them and investors feel good about investing in them. This could mean the company has to innovate, cut costs, and increase sales. Because humans are usually the single biggest line item on any company’s balance sheet, cutting costs will likely impact jobs. The company will likely get “lean and mean” if it intends to survive.
• Cut in Benefits – If you see significant cuts in benefits. Sometimes when a company is in “survival mode” it has to cut employee benefits. This may look like withholding a 401k match, eliminating tuition reimbursement and other training opportunities, or even going with a lesser cost (and quality) health plan.
• The Larger Economy – If the broader economy is having an impact on your industry (e.g. You work in construction, and there was just a recent housing bubble, or Netflix effectively putting video rental stores out of business)

Performance Signs

• Getting less busy – If you are getting less and less busy, or less important projects. If you find yourself with more and more time on your hands. Trending toward lower value tasks and projects than higher value ones among your peers.
• Multiple Performance Talks – You see your boss more often than usual and the discussion is around your performance, or if you have more than one performance improvement talk with your boss and things still aren’t going well. If you’re already at one talk, the boss is already wondering if you can cut it, if it still not going well after the second or third talk, you can bet your lunch bag that your boss is already drafting the job opening for your position.
• Your boss avoids you – If your boss is less honest with you, or they fear confrontation, they may get “squirrely” or weird around you. They may even avoid you. This is because they have great fear about what they know they have to do with you. They are just putting off the inevitable talk with you, and frankly, they feel dreadful and afraid that you will somehow turn into a three-headed devil-hound that guards the gates of Hades itself. Be on the lookout for evasive, indirect conversation, or seemingly irrational or discussions that seem to rush to a third stage disciplinary action, when they haven’t even defined your performance problem yet.

Question: What are some of the foretelling signs that you have seen or experienced that a person might be losing their job? You can leave a comment by clicking here.