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By: John Dillon on Tue Feb 3, 2009

Economic times are tough, that is no secret. The global economy is crumbling, whole sectors of the North American economy such as real estate, automotive and financial services are imploding and companies large and small are laying off employees by the thousands on a daily basis.

As an individual employee at a company facing these difficult times what can you do to survive the recession and keep your job? In this article we provide you with five specific tips and ideas that although they may not change the economic environment or guarantee that you will keep your job they can provide you with the best opportunity to survive the economic recession and keep your job.

1. Have a job retention strategy

Many employees are clueless. Clueless about the economic environment, clueless about how their manager measures their performance, clueless or deluded about how much value they create for their employer and clueless when they finally get laid off because they didn't see it coming. Don't be the clueless employee, have a job retention strategy and plan in detail what you will do to differentiate yourself from the herd and make your value and contributions to your employer obvious to your managers. You may still lose your job but at least you gave yourself the best possible opportunity to succeed.

2. Double your work effort and intensity

In tough economic times many employees get pessimistic and weaken their resolve at their job, almost as if they're resigned to losing their jobs like the proverbial sheep being lead to the slaughter. This is precisely the wrong attitude to take, when times get tough and the environment is imploding intelligent organizations and workers quickly realize that amongst the few things that they can still control are their effort, their intensity, their strategies and their attitude. When all around you are scared and confused put your head down and double down on your work effort and intensity. Be a source of leadership and inspiration. After all, what's the option?

3. Focus on solving problems and delivering results

It is a simple fact, when times get tough and companies have to downsize the first employees to generally get laid off are those that don't generate results or focus more on problems than solutions. Employees that focus on process and meetings as opposed to results and addressing real problems can be 'carried' during good times but when a manager has to choose amongst who in his team will stay and who will be let go you can be sure that the manager will keep those employees that are making his/her life easier by delivering results and solving problems.

4. Be Flexible

In difficult times such as these particularly in companies that have already laid off workers employees may be asked to perform tasks slightly outside their primary job duties, in some cases many employees claim to be performing two or three jobs as opposed to one. The reality is that although not the ideal situation for the employee or their career development during a crisis economic environment an employee that is flexible and adaptable to the quickly changing environment will be seen as making a greater contribution and more likely to keep their job and survive the recession.

5. Play the Political Game

It is sad that in many professional environments political skill, brown nosing and other similar behaviours count for more than actual performance on the job and highly political employees who may be incompetent can still thrive by playing politics, such is life... This is a critical point, particularly in tough, high pressure environments the importance of political activities increases, don't be the competent, hard working employee that gets screwed because he/she ignored that key factor of job retention and success in general, the political game. We will not get into the details of 'politics' in the work place in this article except to say that you should be aware of the political environment in your workplace and make sure that at least it is not working against you.

It is a fact that during the recession most firms will downsize to some extent, many have cut and will continue to cut anywhere from 5% to 50% of their work force, or even more, so that regardless of your job retention efforts you may still get laid off, such is life. Our recommendation is that having taken the steps above will still place you in a better position to retain your job or find a new job than those that did not. You may also start your Canadian Job Search by visiting Canadian career websites such as JobTwist.ca.

Best of luck surviving the recession...