The Online Investing AI Blog

If you’re sensing a layoff, or have already received word that the firing is coming, you can take some steps to not just survive the downturn better, but also set up a new life.

I call this transition planning. Here are some tips:

If they ask you to sign a severance agreement, don’t sign it hastily.
You can talk to your supervisor about negotiating the terms. Ask for more money, job search assistance, and health benefits extension.

Ask for an extension to tie up loose ends.

If you are in the middle of a project, for example, ask to stay on as a consultant or freelance worker. You may have to take a cut in pay, but it would at least give you confidence (and money) while you enter this transition period.

Read more…

Automated Trading, Dreams Come True, Investing, Money, Online Investing AI Automated Trading, employment, finances, financial, layoff, stocks

A friend recently called and said a series of layoffs hit his current employer. He might be next.

I expected, at the very least, a little fear, but that’s not what I sensed. It seemed like after months of speculation and weeks of tension in the office, the news of layoffs hit him as a relief.

I believe that the once firm solder that welded his true self with his work self was beginning to break free. He was discovering that “what you do” is not synonymous with “who you are.” Or, as I and Frank Sinatra like to call it: do-be-do-be-do, that subtle chant that balances our work and our life.

In fact, if truth were known, his work self had long since overtaken his real self. His real goals and real interests were supplanted by paper-filing, bean counting and pencil pushing.

The news of the layoff–this sudden divorce–finally broke the hypnotic spell formed by the recitation of fear mantras (I must. I have to. They’ll fire me.) and the comfort of a set schedule.

While he’ll continue to go to work, a plan, of sorts, is being formulated and I think the counsel is worth passing along.

• Since he has time, he’s already preparing for the financial challenges with some personal budget cuts. He’s starting with the things he doesn’t need: 400 channels on the tube, for instance.
• He’s raising immediate cash by selling some stuff he’s collected over the years and talked himself out of selling because he never had enough time.
• He’s developing other revenue sources by exploring things he loves to do. This weekend, he’ll help another friend cut wood. It’s the type of physical labor he loves. (Go figure.) He also wants to explore his passions and see if he can convert them to money: writing and inventing.
• He’ll look for passive income, too. Making money through investing and trading is one possibility.
• Finally, there are aspects of his job he likes and is good at. He’ll start a career search. This time, though, it will be on his own terms. Or maybe, he’ll start his own business using these skills?

As we work on Online Investing AI, it’s a mission of ours to begin to help people break the hypnotic spells of “who they are” versus “what they do.” We would like to provide as many people as possible a way to earn passive income growth (through trading) and build financial independence, so that they go to work because they want to, not because they have to.

In my opinion, the contributions of people discovering who they are… not hiding what they do… will improve the world in unimagineable ways.

Business Strategy, Dreams Come True, Investing, Money employment, layoff, layoffs, work

Sometimes layoffs are necessary, especially when it’s the difference between keeping the business alive.

But, as Tim Sanders points out in a recent blog post, layoffs should be among the last options to save the business. In my opinion, they might hasten the end of your business.

In previous downturns, your machines and your real estate–basically the factories and those expensive high-rise offices–were worth more than the workers. Anyone could be trained to turn a crank or swing a hammer, or so the logic held for the era.

If you believe the new economy values knowledge and networks, as Sander’s points out in his Love is the Killer App book, you have to do some rethinking. All this knowledge and all those connections are released the second you give your employees their cardboard box tickets for home.

You will likely never replace them.

Not only will you never replace them, networks have a weird way of coagulating. Those employees you deemed irrelevant to the continuation of your business may turn out to be your competition. It’s happened!

Luckily, some smart companies out there are approaching this economic dilemma in the right way. They’re trying to retain employees while they’re looking to make cuts elsewhere.

Some ideas:

• Decentralize. Keep the workers, but let them work out of their own homes and apartments. Cut the costs of unnecessary office space and the plush, but useless offices.
• Rework salaries and pay. Can you adjust pay and benefits to save money temporarily?
• Recharge motivation and compensation. Some companies will cut back on salaries, but offer different types of compensation, like creating a sales commission or boosting profit-sharing potentials.
• Attack the business challenges. Your employees didn’t start the downturn, but they may be the keys to your turn-around. Direct your workers to solve your challenges.

Layoffs may be needed, as Sanders points out. But they should be a last–not a first–resort.

Business Strategy, Great Books, Online Investing AI downturn, economy, layoff, love is the killer app, pay, salaries, tim sanders, workers