As a result of technological advances and demographic changes, more than six million people in the UK are currently employed in occupations that are likely to change radically or disappear entirely over the next few years. Here are just a few sectors that will be significantly affected. In no particular order …

A recent labour market report states that employers are looking for individuals with key transferable skills like resilience, adaptability and creativity and these are more important than paper qualifications. For as long as I can remember, employers have voiced concerns that recruits from education are not sufficiently prepared for the world of work. But it’s not just the young. Without the ability to adapt, older workers too, are at risk of becoming trapped in insecure, low-value, low-pay employment – or worse, forced out of work altogether. Here are 10 rules or truths about the world of work.

10 Truths of Hiring and Firing:

1. Nobody owes you a job
2. You have to compete to get a job – You need tenacity and creativity. You need resilience.
3. You need to adapt to keep a job. There are no guarantees. Loyalty, years of service friendships are not enough to keep you in a job.
4. You may quit your job any time you want to and without any warning to or much notice, leave your employer ‘high and dry’.
5. Your employer may make you redundant or fire you at any time. They may do this because they can’t afford you, or your job has become obsolete, or the business is collapsing.
6. If you quit your job you may do everything in your power to help your employer find a suitable replacement – or you may do nothing.
7. If you are fired or made redundant your employer may do everything in their power to help you find other employment – or they may do nothing.
8. As you look back you may decide that your employer treated you well and in accordance with their publicly stated values or you may look back and decide they treated you badly and in direct contradiction to their stated values.
9. If you are the only one to be ‘let go’ you may find that other employees will promise to support you and fight to save your job. On the other hand, they may do nothing at all to help you.
10. When faced with the need to adapt you may embrace the opportunity to learn new skills or you may choose not to.

Accepting all of the above, you are a rare and unique individual no matter how the world of work treats you. Your worth is not defined simply by your work but by your spirit, your dignity, your compassion towards others and your resilience.

(Adapted from ‘What Colour is Your Parachute?’ Richard Nelson Bolles)

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Contact Mike Burke 0161 928 9987 or mburke@embraceresilience.com