Major restructuring at the workplace

It has been an intensive 2 days for all sorts of reasons. I finally completed my training course and the learning this week was better than last week. Mostly because there was less material covered and the topics of discussion were easier to understand. And I scheduled the timetable for each day better with improved coordination between my family. Even the baby was more cooperative and that made our lives less difficult. While I may have done the learning part of my training course, I have yet to test my application of what I learnt.

Based on the case studies and examples that were discussed during the training course, my conclusion is that it would take me even more time and effort to be able to apply the knowledge in my job. Which means that gaining knowledge is only the first part and I still have to move on to its application to successfully learn new skills. The usefulness of knowledge is determined by how well I can apply it. Otherwise, knowing more does little for my personal and professional development.

Anyway, finishing my training course wasn’t the highlight of the week. I had mentioned that my wife’s bank was about to undergo another round of restructuring. While the messaging by senior management is that it’s going to be more severe than the previous rounds in the past few years, my wife and her colleagues were hoping that it’s not as serious as it sounds. Turns out it is. The announcement on the new organisation chart and operating model was recently made and it’s a major restructuring. Jobs are being cut everywhere or moved back to the head office location. This is likely to take place by the end of this year.

The big question is how badly my wife would be affected. It’s not looking good but she has a fighting chance to hang on to a job. Even if she could survive, it’s still a negative outcome because all the work remains and flows to fewer people. So any survivors of the major restructuring would have to deal with a lot more work. We always knew it was a possibility that she would have to face something like this in her career but what bad timing. With a 8.5 month old baby and in the midst of a pandemic, both her internal and external job options to find something equivalent are limited.

My wife has been in a number of extensive discussions with her manager, team and colleagues after the announcement. To get more information and a sense of the sequence of events. This is important in understanding what her next steps should be. The clock has started on how long she can stay at her bank with a job. Her priority would be to buy more time so she can navigate internally or externally to another role. I have been doing some strategic planning with her so she can focus her time and efforts on what can yield the best results for her.

Beyond that, I have also walked my wife through how I can support her on my side. While she has the higher paying job, it’s less flexible on the hours and more unstable in terms of job security. I may have the lower paying job but it’s more flexible on the hours and more stable in terms of job security. I’m just going to hunker down at my job to hedge against the risk of her being unemployed. When she makes risky career moves to preserve her job, she needs to know I have the family covered and the household income is sufficient.

I will not be changing our monthly salary income allocation between expenses, investments and savings for now. We hold enough cash buffer to withstand a period of unemployment for the both of us and have never over-invested into the markets. I should only adjust the allocation if she loses her job. But this is something I’m going to monitor more closely to see if I even need to make adjustments before that happens i.e. once her risk of unemployment reaches a certain level.

In the end, it’s important to acknowledge that such setbacks are to be expected in our careers. Tough times are what forces us to hustle, network and plan better. Or even learn new skills and go into new job sectors just to survive. The key is to let ourselves go through the experience and fight with everything we have. That’s the only way we are going to learn and improve from this.