redundancy.pdf

BBC Learning English

Weekender

Handy hints for redundancy

Jackie:

Hello, you're listening to Weekender, with me, Jackie Dalton. This week,

we're talking about what happens when you're made redundant. To be

'made redundant' means to lose your job because you're no longer needed

– usually not a very happy experience to go through. But, as we're going

to find out, it doesn't always have to be bad news. In this programme, we

hear from a famous business expert and writer, Charles Handy. He has

lots of useful advice about coping with redundancy. What's his first piece

of advice? Listen to find out.

Charles Handy

My advice would be to see it as an opportunity to reinvent your life.

Jackie:

Charles says you should see redundancy as an opportunity to reinvent

your life – a chance to do something completely different with yourself.

Charles says this probably won't be quick and easy. What should you do

if you want to reinvent your life after redundancy? Listen to Charles

again.

Charles Handy

My advice would be to see it as an opportunity to reinvent your life, actually. And if

you reinvent your life, remember that you've got to re-educate yourself and that means

investing in yourself.

Jackie:

Charles says you must 're-educate' yourself – you must learn new things.

And you have to invest in yourself. To 'invest' in something means to put

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time, energy or money into it to make it work. Charles has a good

suggestion for how you can invest in yourself. What is it?

Charles Handy

One of the best ways of re-educating or reinventing yourself is to do a lowly paid or

unpaid internship or apprenticeship. In other words, attach yourself in some way to

people in another kind of trade or occupation or profession and learn their business. I

think that we're gong to have to do that much more often in our lives.

Jackie:

Charles suggests an internship or apprenticeship, which, as he explains,

is when you work for a firm for a while in order to learn how to do a

particular job - a great way to learn a completely new skill. When you're

made redundant, you often get a lump sum of money – a certain amount

of money in one go, a 'lump sum' – to make up for the fact that you are

losing your job. Does Charles think it's a good idea to spend that lump

sum on a holiday? Listen for the answer.

Charles Handy

Lucky you, you are being made redundant, you will get a lump sum of some sort – that's

your investment in yourself. Now don't go and blow it on a cruise or a holiday, put it

into something – and I'm not saying necessarily a course – but some experience that will

help you into a next kind of life.

Jackie:

Did you get the answer? Charles says DON'T blow the lump sum on a

holiday – don't 'blow' it – don't waste it on a holiday. Put it into an

experience or training that will help you.

Charles Handy

I suspect, somewhere at the back of your mind you have a little dream of what you

could have been and this is your time to be what you could have been.

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Jackie:

Do you have a little dream that you never quite made into reality? As

Charles points out, redundancy is often a great chance to reinvent

yourself and do what you always wanted to do.

BBC Learning English

Jackie:

Business expert, Charles Handy says that our attitude towards careers is

changing – in what way? Listen to him explain.

Charles Handy

It used to be that you defined yourself according to the organisation you were in, so if

you asked somebody what they did, they'd say 'I'm with IBM and that was a definition

and then it became 'Well, I'm a marketing man… I'm a marketing woman and I'm with

IBM,' so there's a subtle change to devote the profession or occupation rather than the

organisation.

Jackie:

So, according to Charles, in the past if someone asked you what your job

was, you might have replied by telling them what company you worked

for. For example, 'I work for the BBC'; 'I work for HSBC.' But now,

more and more people reply by saying first what they do, for example,

'I'm a journalist,' or 'I'm an accountant.' Charles says some people work

in lots of different areas.

Charles Handy

And increasingly people are going a little broader than that. Now the interesting people

I meet these days are the kinds of people who produce three business cards.

Jackie:

Charles says some people he meets now produce three business cards. A

'business card' is a small piece of card which you give to people you

meet. It has your contact details and job title on it. What Charles is

saying is that some people he's met have skills in more than one area –

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they are able to do several different kinds of jobs – something he thinks

is really important – why?

Charles Handy

And increasingly people are going a little broader than that. Now the interesting people

I meet these days are the kinds of people who produce three business cards. And so I

want to encourage people, even when they're in the organisation, to experiment with

different identities so that if they lose one, they're not absolutely stuck.

Jackie:

Did you work out why being able to do more than one job is good?

Charles says it's because if you lose one kind of job, you're not stuck;

there are still other things you could do. So, some handy advice from

Charles Handy there. Try and gather as many different skills as you can,

even if it's within one organisation and if you are made redundant, see it

as an opportunity – a chance to reinvent yourself and maybe even turn a

long-lost dream into reality.

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