The 3 worst pundit methods to make your job layoff-resistant

There’s a lot of job advice out there — some of it is even contradictory within the same article. But some of the advice is just pathetic. Here are my nominations for the 3 worst pundit methods to make your job layoff-resistant.

Arrive early and stay late

The clock, after all, is what counts, isn’t it? Who needs a manager when we all know that butt-time in the chair is where it’s at?

Time spent on the job tells no one about your accomplishments nor does it guarantee success to the department or company. Instead, working longer hours begets working even longer hours to look better than everyone else. Pretty soon, we’ll all be sitting in the cube 20-hours a day just so we can look good.

Look, it’s management’s job to optimize resources to meet the goals of the company or department. That doesn’t get done by counting hours in the chair. Instead, it’s managing to the goal attainment in the department.

If you have a manager that simply measures time in the office, you don’t have a manager.

Look busy even if there is nothing to do

This one cracks me up every time. Really…nothing to do? If that is reality where you work, here is the one step to overcome this: ask your manager for something to do that contributes to the department goals. Doing so will get you working on something that contributes to the success of the department and the team. That is what will make your job layoff-resistant, not “looking busy.”

And if you get nothing to do from your manager that contributes to the goals, then — instead of looking busy — you need to get busy and start looking for another job. Companies are not employing people who are not contributing to the business — they are laying them off.

Looking busy will catch up with you and bite you in the you know where.

Have work-life balance

Most every pundit I know offers up having work-life balance. This is built on a false premise — that there is only “work” and “life.” And because there are only two of these things to choose from, you need to “balance” them.

Hogwash. The truth of the matter is there is only “life.” In our life we make choices about what we do with that life. Indeed, in most of our lives there is work and partners and professional development and children and personal development and hobbies and finances and retirement planning and visiting with neighbors and seeing our family across the country and having dinner with our friends and going to worship and looking for a new job. Plus so much more.

See? It’s a life. It’s not work-life balance.

Instead, here’s what counts

Results. Seriously, that should be it. Just results. Unfortunately, you go down the lists of most of the punditry and you never see this little gem. Contributions matter. Meeting department goals matters. Helping customers matters. Continuous improvement matters.

Some executive somewhere is focused on the results produced. And if your manager isn’t focused on your results, you are at risk no matter what. If you aren’t accomplishing your tasks and goals, you are totally at risk of a layoff.

Worse — without accomplishments, you aren’t that attractive for hiring in a different company either because you can’t show how your work contributed to your department’s success.

So focus on getting to accomplishment, OK?

What’s the worst advice you’ve received on how to keep your job?