Backup plan: I know a woman of sixty years. He worked in a company for a little more than a decade of an administration and office assistant for a staff of one hundred sales people, who loved her very much. Always she made sure all the faxes got to their desks; Reserve writing paper was filled and every employee was necessary.
In addition to his job description, it looked like a mother to all of them: making sure services were cleaned, old food was removed from the fridge and decorating the entire floor which the department occupied. He worked hard and never complained. She was always smiling, friendly and courteous. It felt good about being a ‘mother’ to all people who entered and left that department. She felt comfortable with his position. No one else could do the things she did. And someone else did better than in the building.
One day, he went to work as usual. After doing her morning chores, she was invited to the office, where he was told his services were no longer needed. The company was subject to certain measures of retrenchment in every department and unfortunately, her role would have to be sacrificed. He was then asked to leave the building as soon as possible. They claimed, however, that before making the decision, every attempt had been made to find a position for her somewhere within the company.
It has financial obligations to fulfill and has not yet saved enough for retirement. She still has credit to pay and she was saving for a trip abroad, something she never got to do in his younger years. I wanted to save to establish a business selling books. Suddenly, he would have to revalue its projects. Losing work in the light of the approaching retirement age, you will have to leave some things I had dreamed of.
I’m sure you’ve heard hundreds of similar stories. Just five months before writing this article, I had read about reducing costs despendiendo companies to jobs. Its main objective is to remain competitive, so they would not have to raise the prices they charge their customers. Companies are outsourcing jobs overseas because labor costs in other countries are relatively cheap compared to the local currency and sometimes because of significant skills or technological advantages. Other businesses lessen staff when sales fall and can no longer sustain to pay the same amount of people they have on their payroll. No organization – even large and established business – is immune to the need to become even thinner in the market environment always more and more competitive.
In the past, most people believed the companies or governments – who worked for – could guarantee a job for life. Today, I think increasingly people are becoming more and more aware that having a job for life is something unreal. It’s a terrible situation to be working every day, taking care of some other business and realize that at the end of the race, years of service is not a guarantee of welfare. Because of this, I think people are now looking to improve your chances of having sufficient funds to meet their needs and desires after retirement.
I think there is a growing awareness that the ultimate responsibility for their own well being of each individual. People begin to understand that their boss or the company they work for have no obligation or ability to ensure that care after finishing the work for them. According to the article written by John Roskam (*), based on information from the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) on self-employment and independent society, the tendency to self-employment will accelerate in the coming decades.
Five reasons explain this change:
- Our societies will continue to develop in knowledge-intensive industries and service.
- Jobs of the future need more education, however, better educated workers can choose to work for themselves instead.
- Older workers are more comfortable with being self-employed than younger workers, which could indicate that individuals prefer to work for themselves as they get older.
- Individuals want more control and flexibility over their working arrangements and self-employment permits.
- People are more willing to take responsibility for decisions that affect their lives and their families.
In addition to this trend, more and more people are trying to gain greater control over their financial assets.
What we can learn all of this article is the idea that we have to rely on our employers to be there for us when we desperately need them to pay us our periodic salary checks at the end of our working days. There are alternatives and, while we can still, I think we owe it to ourselves and our families have a backup plan and look for every single opportunity available. The question for you is: Do you have a backup plan?