Allivieate Those End Of Furlough Fears
Furlough. It’s a word that we hadn’t heard of before April but it seems to have taken over 2020. Is it even a word in the dictionary, or has it been invented this year – who knows?!
Unfortunately, it’s still a scheme that’s very much in use. As of 16th August, 9.6m jobs were still furloughed and it has so far cost an eye-watering £35.4bn to keep us afloat. They’re staggering figures, but if we’re honest furlough has been a god send to both employers and employees – from a personal perspective, it’s meant that we’ve all been able to keep our mortgages paid and our jobs. But, the end of furlough is fast approaching with the deadline being set for the end of October. With this niggling away in many peoples minds, we have found that it’s common for people to think that the worst is going to happen come the 1st November, and of course, while no one wants the worst to happen, it might be a possibility.
If you have these fears then the best way to alleviate them is to prepare. It really is key. Grab a notepad and write down the best possible outcomes. It may be that you go back to work full time, haul your computer to the office, settle into your chair that still has your bum and legs forever imprinted in it and get back to the day to day as if the past 8 months didn’t even happen (Covid who?!), or you go back to work full time but now have more flexibility in the approach your employers have to work – we have found this the be the case more often than not, and quite frankly, it’s been nice to show our clients that flexible working can be achievable and does work!
This is the bad part. Next, you’ll need to write down the worst-case scenario. You lose your job. You lose some of your contracted hours. It’s not nice to see these written down, but you can’t skirt around it and tackling the problem head-on is what’s going to help you prepare.
Firstly, if redundancy is your biggest fear then take a gander at our blog post offering redundancy advice, it should give you an idea of what to expect and how you can work to overcome it.
Next step, is to get your CV sorted. We’re more than happy to help you with this and are happy to provide advice on what you should and shouldn’t include. But it boils down to really thinking about every aspect of your role, the skills and experience that you have gained to date, and your career achievements. Get them all together and make a “Super CV”! Use it as a base. It then means that when you see a role that you’re interested in, you can add or delete parts to really tailor your application and show that your skills are the best fit for the role. A good tip for this is to read through to job ad and highlight the parts of the role you are capable of doing, then adding it to your CV using some of their keywords to show just how well you’d fit – it’s sneaky but can work!
Next up job boards. If you’re not 100% sure that you’re in the market for a new role then don’t upload your CV, or you’ll most likely get calls from pesky recruiters trying to sell you the dream – we’re not all like that, promise! It also means that you’re not leading the likes of us, or potential employers up the garden path. If you are really open to opportunities, then you’ve got nothing to lose and should get it on there! The one thing we do really recommend though is signing up to job email notifications as it can be really helpful and means that you’ll have a good idea of the current market and market trends. You’ll be able to see the skills that employers are looking for, meaning that you can learn and expand your knowledge, making you more hireable!
And lastly, chat to your employers and express your concerns. You might be worrying over nothing, or they may be able to tell you their plan for when the scheme comes to an end and try to come up with a solution that helps know where you stand moving forward.
We know that this isn’t much, but hope that it’ll help you put a good spin on things should the worst happen. And, on a positive note, jobs look to be on the rise in September – woohoo!
