Episode 12: When Your Boss Pushes Your Boundaries
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What do you do when your boss pushes on your boundaries? You want to be a team player and go above and beyond, but you have to draw the line somewhere. Holding strong to a boundary does not make you selfish, lazy, or not good at your job.
In today’s episode, you’ll hear from HR Manager, Melanie Adair about her experience with a boss who pushed her boundaries so far that she ended up leaving the company.
Full Transcript:
[00:01:05] Welcome back to the Upgraded Career Podcast. I'm your host Nicole Case, and today we are gonna talk about how to recession. Your career. So it seems like every day for the last, gosh, couple months now, we keep hearing about all these different companies that are laying off, um, you know, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce, particularly these really big software companies that we thought they were, quote unquote too big to fail.
[00:01:33] Right? And of course, nobody's saying that they're failing necessarily, but. Definitely cutting lots of people through these layoffs. My husband's own company went through an 8% layoff this week. Luckily, he was safe and was not impacted, but he lost 33% of the people on his team. So now he's faced with doing more with less, cuz of course they're not, you know, taken away.
[00:02:00] The work that he was, his team is responsible for. In fact, they're continuing to get work right. , it's really, um, nerve-wracking out there right now. And, you know, on top of, you know, all of these people talking about, are we in a recession? We not in a recession, you know, how bad is it going to be? Um, you know, I think we've been talking about that for several months, almost a year now, I'd say, about this idea of another recession coming, coming through.
[00:02:29] And I just remember graduating from college. undergrad in 2009 at the height of the last great recession. I mean, even back then I was, you know, super early in my career, right. I hadn't even, hadn't even gotten my first job yet. And it was really scary and frustrating at that time because even though we might not have owned a house at that point, and we didn't have kids, we still don't have kids, you know, we didn't have a ton of responsibilities at that time.
[00:02:58] We still. A $200,000 student loan debt hanging over our heads. We're from a really small town in Western Pennsylvania and the primary industry there is manufacturing or low wage service and retail jobs. And um, they do have a really large retail, um, regional hospital in the area. But aside from working at the hospital, there weren't many job opportunities that appealed to us in general, especially ones that could pay us enough to make our $2,100 a month student loan payment at that time.
[00:03:29] So we knew we needed to move, we knew we needed to be flexible. The roles we were taking and, and things like that. So we, we knew we needed to move for the possibility of a better, of better paying jobs, but that also meant a higher co cost of living. And back then it took me nine months of applying to jobs daily to finally land something in the HR field, which was the field that I wanted to be in, and in the location that we wanted to be in, which happened to be here in the Raleigh, North Carolina.
[00:04:01] And that first job only paid 16 bucks an hour. Oh. And we had to pay ourselves to move because there was no corporate relocation package. So, you know, those early years of our career were really, really stressful. And even though of course we know over the last, you know, 12. 13 years that we know the market got better and we had really great years of amazing economic growth periods of time where the job market was considered an employees market.
[00:04:30] But even. But even so, being in my HR career, I mostly worked in tech and pharm in the pharmaceutical space. And I think during that 11 year HR career, I did eight layoffs. I did at least one at ever company I ever worked at, and there was. one company I did six layoffs in four years at, and, you know, if you would've looked at the, at the economy and the market at the time, things were doing really good.
[00:04:59] So no matter what is going on in the market, you just never know what could happen in your specific company or in your industry. I mean, again, look at the tech space right now. Look at, you know, the cryptocurrency space, the um, The mortgage industry, right? Like they're specifically getting hit really, really hard right now.
[00:05:24] And I know there's just so much confusion going on right now at the airing of this episode in February, 2023 about, again, whether are we going into a recession, are we not the, the. The January jobs report just came out and we created hundreds of thousands of jobs. So everybody's very confused about what's going on or about how bad it's gonna be.
[00:05:46] Um, but frankly, I think all of this uncertainty is making it worse again, that, you know, companies are. Making some really knee jerk reactions, I think in, in a lot of ways, but it's the worst of, of this is that it's making employees feel even more unstable and unsettled than ever, than ever before. Right, because we've.
[00:06:13] you know, three years ago we were just starting to hear about this thing called, um, COVID 19. It was in Asia. Asia was shutting down. We're like, oh yeah, that's what's happening over there. I know I myself was planning and prepping to go to sales kickoff in Vegas that, um, that February, so, so much has changed in that last three years, but all of a sudden it, we got thrown into this global pandemic and there was so much uncertainty.
[00:06:42] We're all still reeling from that, honestly. And so we've been trying to find stability and structure and routine in the best way that we can over these last several years, which is so many things changing and let's just toss the threat of a recession and widespread layoffs on top of it, right? So instead of waiting around to see what's gonna happen, You know, let's really just kind of take matters into our own hands and figure out what is it that we can control in a situation and in a market.
[00:07:22] And frankly just. You know, in this, in this idea of working in the us at least if you're in the us, just the employee, the employee laws here just don't protect us as much as say they might in Europe, for example, where there's, um, negotiations that have to happen. There's councils that you have to go in front of if you, if you're gonna lay people off, and there's time that it takes in order to do that.
[00:07:50] So, There's not as much, um, waiting around to see what's gonna happen. There's a little bit more of, um, a little bit, a little bit, you get a little bit more of a heads up, I should say. Instead of here, just tomorrow, your boss could call you and, and let you know that, that you're being let go. . So frankly, no matter what is going on with the market, it's always a good idea to be prepared and be able to pivot if you need to.
[00:08:16] Now again, we're not, we're not talking about doomsday prepping or panicking or anything like that, but I find that when there is ano, when there is un, when there is uncertainty out there, figuring out what you can control and getting into action can really help calm those nerves and focus that. So that you just don't do this, you know, downward spiral that, that we can very easily get into.
[00:08:43] So today we are talking about the seven ways you can recession proof your career right now. So let's dive into that.
[00:08:53] So the first thing that you can do to recession proof your career is first just do a skills. , how are your skills? Are you up to date? You know, are there certifications or trainings you've taken recently that's updated your skills, making sure you're staying fresh are, if you haven't done that in a little while, are there, are there some training trainings or certifications or things you need to be looking at?
[00:09:21] in order to make sure that your skills are staying fresh and staying up to date. Um, a little activity I like to do, especially if you're like, oh, you know, I'm interested in, you know, maybe getting out there on the job market. This is something that I would do all the time. Just even, even if I necessarily wasn't looking in the moment, I was always thinking a couple years ahead in my career to be like, what's the next step?
[00:09:43] Do I wanna take and am I getting the skills and the experience now in this role to make sure that I'm positioned well when I am ready to make that move? So what I would do is I would go out to LinkedIn or go out to Indeed or wherever, and I would look. The roles that I would be interested in next for my next step, even if it was a few years, even if I knew it was a few years in the future, I'd go out and take a, take a look at what those jobs look like, and I would just read their, the job description and, and look at what the requirements were for that job.
[00:10:18] And that would give me a sense of, again, am I getting the. An experience that I need in order to position myself for that role in the future. And so this is a way that you can do a quick skills audit. Just right now, if you're just like, Hey, if I had to make a move tomorrow, if I was forced to make a move tomorrow, where, you know, where are my skills at?
[00:10:38] This can also be a great indicator of how you are positioned in the organization. So go take a look at what your organization is focused on. What are their top priorities? You know, go listen to the LA latest all hands meeting. Go look at the earnings release, things like that. Just understand where is the direction that your company is.
[00:11:04] What's the direction that your company's going in? So that's actually my, um, my tip number two is to stay up to date with what's going on in your company, company, your industry, and your economy, and you know, what's going on industry-wide. Again, we're seeing industry-wide layoffs happening in the tech space.
[00:11:22] We're seeing that a little bit in the, um, in the, in the housing, in mortgage industries, crypto as well. We're seeing that. So make sure that you're just. Tuned into what's going on in your industry, and especially tune into what's going on in your company, what are the initiatives that are the most important, and then go back to that skills audit and that number one tip, and make sure that your skills and your experience are aligning particularly to what's going on in your organization because.
[00:11:56] If push comes to shove and your leaders are saying, Hey, listen, we do need to do a restructure, we do need to do a layoff. The conversations that they're gonna have are who has the knowledge, skills, and abilities to work on our most important initiatives? So, , if you are concerned that maybe you're not working on the right things, or maybe your team's not working on the right things, if you can at least, um, take a look at your individual skills and say, okay, let me align these and make sure that I've got, I've got the experience necessary that if I needed to shift internally, I could do that.
[00:12:33] If I ha if I'm forced to go externally or if I just wanna go externally, that's okay too. Again, you are positioned well to do that. . That brings me to step number three, which is learn how to articulate your value and make yourself visible. Visible. So you've done a skills audit, you're clear about what your company and your industry is focused on.
[00:12:58] Now, if you've got those skills, you've got that knowledge, you've got those abilities. , now you have to learn how to actually articulate that value and make sure the right decision makers know that about you. So like I mentioned earlier, unfortunately my husband's company just went through, um, a round of layoffs and we were, you know, kind of having some discussions and, you know, he said that there were.
[00:13:20] Certain people that he heard that were let go and he was really, really surprised that those particular people were let go. And you remember having some conversations with leaders saying, you know, my gosh, I can't believe that was the, that was the decision that was made. I can't believe they let go of that person and saying just how.
[00:13:40] How that person was working on some really important initiatives. They were, you know, really great worker. They had really great skills. Um, and the leader that he was talking to was like, oh, I didn't realize that person was working on all of that stuff, or that they were in charge of all that stuff. And it's like, oh, shoot, you know, one, the leader should have known that.
[00:13:59] So that's a whole other podcast episode. But the le, as a leader, you need to know what. what your team's working on, what your employees are doing. You need to understand what everybody is focused on so that when you are unfortunately forced with making these decisions, you're able to make the best decision.
[00:14:18] You're able to with the information that you have, right? But if you are, you know, as an employee on that, on the employee side, you need to make sure that you are. Having regular conversations with your manager about the work that you're doing, you're having conversations or you're making yourself visible to the next people.
[00:14:37] In line in your chain because you know, again, sometimes your boss is in on those discussions and making those decisions. And sometimes those decisions are made at much higher levels in the organization cuz they just wanna try to keep things as confidential as possible. You know, they're trying to make sure that they're not involving.
[00:14:58] Too many people that it gets leaked out. Also, what I've seen is just the leaders are like, listen, I recognize that, you know, we're the leaders of this organization. We're the ones that may be overhired or messed up or made certain decisions that are, aren't panning out, which is why we're in this position we are right now.
[00:15:14] And so sometimes they wanna take ownership of, of these decisions and they don't want. Put that burden on, you know, some of the lower level leader managers because they recognize it's not their fault at all, and they don't wanna put them in that position to have to make decisions. But at the same time, they need to be well informed about who these people are and what they're doing.
[00:15:36] So, What you can control as an employee. Again, you can't control all the decisions these leaders are making, but what you might be able to control is what are the skills that you have? How can you position yourself to make sure that you're making an a big impact at your company? , but you also have to articulate the value that you're bringing to the table and make sure other people see it.
[00:16:00] Not just you, not just your peers, not just your boss, that other people see it as well. And this is the same conversation we would have if we were talking about, um, you wanting to get a promotion or again, you want trying to get a new job or trying to get a raise or something like that. You have to make yourself visible.
[00:16:19] And help people understand that you're making a really big impact in your organization. Otherwise, you'll get passed over time and time again. So this is kind of the same, the same idea as if you were trying to get a promotion or something. If you're trying to demonstrate to your company that you know, if resources are short, I'm a resource that is going to make, make the biggest impact here and make sure that we're moving the organization.
[00:16:47] So, so far in order to recession proof our careers, we've done a skills audit. We are staying up to date with what's going on in our companies, in our industry, in our economy, and understanding. The, the skills that are valuable there, the initiatives that that people are working on, so we can make sure that we are positioning ourselves to make sure that we are working on those really important initiatives, or at least we've got the skills in order to pivot into those places.
[00:17:15] And then we are learning how to articulate our value and make ourselves visible to the right decision makers. . The next part of this is to take all that information and update your LinkedIn and your resume. Again, we're not doomsday prepping here or anything like that. It's always a good idea to make sure that your LinkedIn and your resume is accurate and up to date cuz you just never know when you're gonna need it.
[00:17:42] Once again, you know, you might have put your head completely in the sand about what's been going on out there in, in the economy and in the market. You know, you might be caught off guard by a, by a layoff or something like that, and you're gonna wanna make sure that, that you have your LinkedIn, your resume ready to go if you need to, but also, You on the positive side, you wanna make sure those things are updated and ready to go.
[00:18:09] If a recruiter reaches out to you and has an amazing opportunity that they want you to apply for and you're like, shoot, let me just scramble really fast to to, to pull this together, I can't tell you how often that happens either with clients or with just close friends of mine or people in my network.
[00:18:26] They're like, Hey, somebody reached out to me about this. I need to pull together my resume really, really quick. Or they pause or they hesitate. because they don't wanna put themselves out there because everything is, you know, old and dated. They're assets, their marketing assets, which that's what your LinkedIn profile and your resume, resume are, is, is, um, is marketing assets.
[00:18:46] They're just, they pause and they don't want to jump on an opportunity because these things are out of date. And in a lot of cases, when we're talking about. You know, jobs that get posted or opportunities that are, are kind of coming to you. A lot of times, time is of the essence and if you hesitate, if you pause, if you mess around for two weeks trying to get things updated and you kind of ghost that recruiter or that hiring manager or that person in your network, you know, they might be like, oh, well they weren't as excited about it as I thought, so let me move on to the next person.
[00:19:18] Right? So make sure that your LinkedIn and your resume is, is up to. . And you can, again, by looking at that skills audit, by figuring out how to take your, articulate your value, you'll be able to very quickly, you know, make those refreshes and make those updates to those, to those two items. A lot of times people come to me and think that's where they need to start, is to update their LinkedIn in their resume.
[00:19:43] But as you've noticed, um, that's actually the third, the third tip here today. Is updating your LinkedIn and your resume because you can't possibly do that until you, you stop and pause for a moment and you do a little bit of a reflection and you do a little bit of an audit. So this is an important part of this process.
[00:20:02] If you are, um, if you haven't done this in a while, it might take you a little bit longer to get these things updated, but then if maybe you take a look at this every quarter or so and just double check to say, Hey, are there any other accomplishments or any other skills or anything that I need to add that's new in the last quarter?
[00:20:22] Then you'd be able to make sure that you're, you'll be able to make these updates a lot faster. If you get into a rhythm of making these updates regularly, so the fourth thing you can do in order to recession proof your career is to tap into your network. So everybody right now, again, is on kind of on pins and needles.
[00:20:46] They're kind of stressed out about what's going on and. The worst thing you can do for yourself is keep yourself isolated and spinning in the spiral of fear, because I promise you a lot of other people are feeling this way too. So tap into your network. Check up on people that maybe you haven't talked to in a little while.
[00:21:08] Um, you know, maybe there are some in-person or virtual. association events you can get yourself back out to. If you haven't done that in a little while or some meetups, maybe you are, um, somebody that likes to do meetups, you haven't done that in a while, now's the time to, to get back out there and do that.
[00:21:27] I was at, um, an HR leadership, um, networking group, uh, about two weeks ago, and there was a woman there that I met who was very experienced in her career and she said, The reason why she was there, which was to expand her network. She said for the first, you know, for my, almost my whole career, for the last 20 years, I've just kinda done my thing and put my head down and just done my work.
[00:21:53] And she said she realized that she had neglected. Her network and she needs to get out there and start building that because we all just, I think, fare better when we are in communities. We as humans are wired to be in communities and even if it. Not to, um, say, Hey, I'm in the job market, or, Hey, I just got laid off and I need some help.
[00:22:18] Even. It's just, Hey, I have a question about how you do stuff over there. Or, Hey, I have a really sticky issue over here and I'd love just to get a third party perspective or somebody that's not in my company to give a perspective. I, I still have lots of friends and former co. in HR who will reach out to me to say, Hey, this weird thing happened today.
[00:22:40] You know, can I get your perspective on it? Or, Hey, I just need to bounce something off of someone, you know, do you have 15 minutes to chat? And, and I feel so good being able to help support them when those things are happening. And it's such a relief for them to know that they've got, you know, a, you know, dial a friend or phone a friend.
[00:23:01] in the professional world in order just to, to, to help them out if they just need, again, like a quick sanity check or, or just a different perspective. But the worst thing that you could do is to wait until you need something. in order to utilize your network. So I see this with clients a lot where they come to me, they're fed up, they are, they've gotten passed up for promotions or they're just like, Hey, I'm ready to, to make a move.
[00:23:28] And you know, I ask them, one of that first questions I'll ask them is about their network. How strong is their network? What's their reputation, what's their personal brand out there? And they say either I don't know, or, you know, I haven't been doing a lot of networking, or I haven't. Building relationships and nurturing the relationships that I already have.
[00:23:46] And then they definitely are, they definitely can find themselves on the back foot because it's, you know, networking is not cold. Reaching out to someone and saying, hi, my name is Nicole. I'd love a job. I'd love the job you just posted. Here's my resume. Or, Hey, we worked together 10 years ago, haven't talked to you since.
[00:24:08] Um, here's my resume. Could you pass it on to. , you think that might be, might be hiring, you know, that's, I mean, just think about if that has ever happened to you, if you've ever been on the receiving end of that, that it feels, it doesn't feel great, right? It's like, oh, great, you only, you're only using me because you want a job now, versus this person has checked in on me, you know, every couple of months or every year or so, just to kind of check in to see how I'm doing, to see what you're working on.
[00:24:38] And then it, and, and that's, and that's what networking is about, is nurturing and developing those relationships over the long term. So networking is a, is a long term strategy and now would be the time to start tapping into them. This is a, you know, this is a great time to start reaching out and especially like if, if, if other people in your network that you know have been unfortunately impacted.
[00:25:05] By a layoff recently, or at least the company they were at. You know, you can just reach out and just say, Hey, I here. It was a rough, it's been a rough week over there over the last week. You know, just wanna let you know. I'm thinking of you, you know, is a really, you know, nice and almost safe. Way to, to reach out to people in your network, especially if you're not sure if they've been laid off or not, you're not really wanting to come right out and ask right?
[00:25:34] If they haven't, um, if they haven't already shared publicly. If, if that's what has happened with them, but also just to say, Hey, things are crazy out there. Just wanted to, wanted to check in to see how you're doing, how you're far. What are you working on right now? How can I help? You know, let's grab some coffee, or let's do a 15 minute, you know, zoom chat, something like that.
[00:25:57] You know, just start reaching out to the people that are, first of all, already in your network, right? You have. Alumni from maybe the college you went to, you have former colleagues that you used to work with. You know, now is the time to reach out to them. Maybe you listened to this podcast and you said, Hey, I listened to this podcast and they reminded me that I need to reach out.
[00:26:20] I need to start, um, I need to be reaching out to my, my former colleagues. And so that just triggered, it, triggered in me that I needed to, that I needed to reach out and say, Hey, we haven't, we haven't spoken in a little while. Or you know, maybe you read an article or something like that and you can say, Hey, I read this article or listened to this podcast and I thought of you and you share it with them.
[00:26:40] Right? You know, they can be something just as simple as that. I cannot stress enough that. in this market, in this day and age, it is going to be that your network that helps you land that next job. So make sure you are not neglecting that part of, of this plan to recession proof your career. In fact, I think it's probably one of the most important parts of this whole thing.
[00:27:09] So the sixth way you can recession proof your career right now is frankly just to take a look at your finances and make sure you have an emergency fund. So again, we can't necessarily prevent you being. impacted in a layoff. We can't necessarily prevent your company going under or whatever. We can't, we can't necessarily control any of those things.
[00:27:33] But what you can do is take a look at your finances, make sure you've got a little bit of an emergency fund there, whatever, however many months that, um, feels good to you, depending on your family situation and kind of the things that you've got going. You know, talk with your accountant, talk with, with your financial planner.
[00:27:52] This would be a great time just to do a quick check-in on that. Just to say, Hey, listen, you know, if the worst would happen, you know, where would I stand? And so sometimes just feeling like you've, you've got, um, a little bit of a nest egg there, a little bit of a buffer can really take the pressure off when there are times like this where there's lots of uncertainty, we don't know what's going on.
[00:28:15] Um, and in that, , you can feel a little bit more secure. And you know what? If the worst would happen, we would be fine for X number of months. And what that would al, what that also does is enables you to make sure that when you are out there job searching, that you don't feel the pressure just to take on anything, right?
[00:28:37] Just to take on any job, just because you need the. I actually just had a client just today except an offer, um, at a, at a new company. She unfortunately got caught up in a layoff. Um, in December. Um, there was a merger, you know, which again, this has nothing to do with, um, the economy. Actually. There was just a merger with her company in a different company, and unfortunately, whenever those things happen, Um, sometimes you'll get, um, you'll get some redundancies, or in her case, just her whole project got canceled as a result of that, uh, of that merger.
[00:29:17] and luckily she got, um, kind of like, she got like a heads up on that. She got, you know, she was told like three months in advance, Hey, your role, the whole team is going to be let go at the end of December. We need you to wind things down over the next three months. Plus you're getting like five months of severance on top of that.
[00:29:37] So she luckily had a really great. You know, heads up on, Hey, this is happening. So then she was able to connect with me and we were able to start working together, um, before, before her, her role, um, wrapped up. So she kind of got, um, got a head start on her job search and. She is the main breadwinner for her family and you know, so she did have a level of pressure because she's like, Hey, I do.
[00:30:08] Yeah, I have a bit of a runway, but I am also the breadwinner for this family, and so I need to make sure that I'm making. Making some really, um, smart decisions. Luckily she had, um, her, you know, some finances in order that she felt, again, a, a little bit more comfortable. And just today, once again, she got, um, she got her job offer and she accepted.
[00:30:32] And it's actually at a position higher and several tens of thousands dollars higher than what she was making before. So it all, it all really worked out for her. But this idea of being able to have, um, feel like, okay, I've got my financial house in order. We've got a little bit of an emergency fund that, um, again, should the worst happen.
[00:30:54] Um, at least on that side of things, I feel secure. I feel like we can waiver a little bit of a storm and you don't have to feel like you have to panic. Which brings me to my final number seven. Um, last tip on how to recession proof your career right now, which is to stay calm. I know it's really easy for me to say that right now, but you.
[00:31:22] going into all out panic mode. You going into a spiral, you wandering every single day. Is this the day my boss calls me up and lays me off or calls my partner up, you know, my spouse or whoever up and lays them off? Right? Because if you're, um, if you've got, if you've got a partner who works, you know, you might be both, both of you might be nervous or just kind of a little bit on edge right now, but you having the ability to.
[00:31:50] Cool, calm and collected and say, listen, I have. can only control so many things in this world, and these are the few things that I can control. I've done all of these things. I've done a skills audit. I am, I am up to date with what's going on, and I've got a realistic view of what's going on in our, in our company and our industry and the threats and, and, and things to kind of keep an eye on.
[00:32:15] I have been articulating my value. I've been making myself visible. The leaders in this organization know who I am and what I'm doing, the value I'm bring. My LinkedIn and my resume is up to date if I need it. I have a strong network out there that I know that I could go to tomorrow and tap into and they would, um, they would help me out.
[00:32:37] I've got my finances in order. , I am able to show up to work and do my best work even in the face of uncertainty. Because if you are feeling panicked, you're fe feeling vulnerable, you're feeling, um, you're feeling outta control and you're in this spiral, you're not gonna be able to perform very well. And again, that's part of the decision making process.
[00:33:03] Whenever leaders are looking at who are the people we need to unfortunately let go. You know, a lot of times they're looking at people who are some lower performers that you know, maybe aren't, um, people, they feel like they can count on as much, and so you're not gonna be able to perform at your top if you're, if you're constantly in this panic mode or constantly just scared.
[00:33:27] that, you know, tomorrow could be the day, right? So it's really important to stay calm throughout this. You're allowed to be nervous, you're allowed to be frustrated and even scared. You know, those are normal feelings to feel, and you're totally allowed to feel them. But if you can. Feel those feelings, but yet stay calm and know that, listen, I've got this, I've, I will be able to take care of this, should the worst, should the worst happen, I will be fine.
[00:33:58] The family will be fine.
[00:34:00] So that is how we can recession proof our careers right now. This is not about. , you know, trying to prevent us from getting let go or from, or from a bad downturn in our organization. But it's just how can I make sure that I'm doing the best I can? I can control what it is that I can control, and if worse comes to worse, I can.
[00:34:23] I am well positioned to make this pivot. Quickly. So thank you so much for joining me today and send me a DM over on LinkedIn and let me know which one of these tips you are going to do first. And just remember, you have amazing experience. Anyone would be lucky to have you on their team, and you are more than your job.
[00:34:44] So I will see you in the next episode. And Remi, and remember, your career deserves an upgrade.
