How to keep your job

By ESTHER HARWARD - Sunday Star Times, 12/04/2009

Worried about losing your job? It might be time to set your alarm clock earlier, take more showers and check your smile in the mirror before heading off to work.

As the recession bites and unemployment forecasts become gloomier, workers who've never given redundancy a second thought are starting to get alarmed. And insiders say that even though employers must stick to the rules when deciding who will go first, it can be the little things staff do that make all the difference. And for those who are suddenly hunting for a new job, the importance of selling yourself effectively is even greater.

An estimated 10,500 people have been made redundant since October, and last week Treasury predicted another 60,000 people would be jobless by next year. The first big cuts came in forestry and manufacturing, but now the axe is swinging wider 90 broadcasting jobs are going at TVNZ, 250 at Telecom and 500 at the Ministry of Social Development.

So if economic times are forcing your boss to cut staff, who will go first? We asked experts what makes someone top of the queue for redundancies. And in case you're one of the unlucky ones, we sought tips on how to improve your chances of landing a new job.

Legally, when making redundancies employers need to show that a role is no longer needed. But there's no question that personal preferences have an impact.

Northern Employers and Manufacturers CEO Alasdair Thompson says of course bosses aren't allowed to simply hand out redundancies on the basis that they like certain individuals over others. "Mostly the employer will go through the process using objective analysis of whether this person is a good person to employ or not."

But some other things do come into it, he says. "A person can do all that's expected from them, but if they're difficult about things, they're sour, negative, then the moment they walk into your office to discuss something with you your heart just drops: `Oh God, I'm going to have to listen to this again'."

Trivial as it sounds, says Thompson, even smelling and looking bad could make you unpopular with the boss.

Thompson, who lobbies for 7200 businesses in the upper North Island, says good-looking people who also have a good personality do better with their employer, customers and their workmates.

"It's just what society is like. If you feel you're attracted to the person, I think there's an assumption that's made that you'll get on well with them."

Thompson adds, however, that if an employer finds a staff member so irritating that they start to look for an excuse to make them redundant, there is something seriously wrong with their management style. The irritation should have been dealt with long before, he says. Susan Hornsby-Geluk, an employment law partner for Kensington Swan, says an employer has a broad prerogative to decide how it wants to run its business. "If it thinks it can get rid of somebody in the team and share the jobs around the rest of the employees, then it's perfectly entitled to make that decision."

She says she sees a lot of cases where workers try to challenge redundancies because they feel personally hurt and affronted by it, but who fail because the employer can justify it on business grounds.

Her advice? Be indispensable in the first place.

Workers can take some comfort, too, from the fact that bosses are meant to take steps to avoid compulsory redundancies such as laying off casual or contract staff, reducing or banning overtime, and retraining employees so they can be moved to other parts of the business. Under the Human Rights Act employers can never choose one worker over another on gender, race, age or religious grounds