Redundancy can evoke many different emotions for people. Hearing that you are being made redundant can be a shock …even if you had thoughts that it was on the cards. Often, people take the news as personal. But redundancy is about the job itself not the person doing the job. The position becomes redundant and therefore the person doing the job is no longer needed. This can be difficult news to hear, particularly if we feel we have worked hard, contributed much and we loved doing the job.

These are very unusual, challenging and uncertain times and many businesses, of all sizes, are finding their revenue has fallen significantly and for some, completely. Difficult, sometimes heart-breaking decisions are having to be made – not from choice but necessity.

How can we help ourselves and each other to maintain a realistic optimism in these times?

It is so important to interpret redundancy as ‘losing our job because the job no longer exists’ rather than ‘we are no longer needed’. It isn’t about individual people but about the viability of a role in a workplace.

Some people gain a lot of pleasure, reward, purpose, enjoyable challenge, healthy competition, companionship, camaraderie and connection from their work and/or workplace and redundancy can mean a loss of these things and it is important to acknowledge what you miss so you find those things elsewhere.

A carved pumpkin is made redundant on the 1st November but contains many seeds for regeneration.

Ultimately my message is that redundancy is not personal so avoid thinking of it that way because it can erode self-esteem unnecessarily and with no benefit.

Take the time to consider your next chapter and embrace it with excitement – sometimes, new growth, greater happiness and alot of good comes from forced change – use your energy to look forward, not backwards x