Redundancy Australia: Woman shares lessons from job loss

In September of 2020, Kim Stockham lost her dream job. Looking back, the Newcastle woman says it was a blessing in disguise.

After working at online travel group Expedia for eight years, Kim Stockham was made redundant from a job she loved.

Working as the company’s Director of Corporate Communications in the Asia Pacific in Singapore, she remembers seeing the dire state of borders and travel as a result of the pandemic. Despite this, Ms Stockham was still shocked when she was hit with the unfortunate Zoom call in September 2020.

“Even when you’re watching what’s happening in the world while working for a travel company, and preparing yourself for the worst, I was still shocked when the time actually came,” she tells news.com.au.

“I still cried,” says Ms Stockham. “It happens and then you’re not who you thought you were in the morning and that’s kind of a reality check.”

Ms Stockham said the redundancy news left her feeling lost and sad. Picture: Supplied.

As someone who admittedly enjoyed her job and the company she worked for, the mum-of-one described the process like a break-up.

“You’re a sensible person so you understand but then that phone call comes in and it feels like that break up line: ‘it’s not you, it’s me’,” she says.

“When you loved where you worked as you did, you believed in the company and a lot of your energy is spent at work, it’s a really hard thing to step outside and figure out who you are.”

Moving on

Immediately after being made redundant, Ms Stockham recalls feeling dejected and a loss that was like grief but not “as dramatic”.

One of the moments she struggled with was going to her first business function without a business card. “You’re like who am I?” she remembers.

The financial burden of losing her job was also a source of stress. In the months after receiving the news, Ms Stockham and her husband decided to leave Singapore and return to Australia, which meant they had to factor in quarantine costs and costly plane tickets.

“We had a lot of these upfront costs that added to a lot of stress, so I used a spreadsheet which tracked money coming in and money coming out to keep things real,” she says.

However, describing herself as a “pretty positive person” she tried to “redefine the narrative” around job loss. Turning her worries into facts she could deal with also helped with this.

“Redundancy is like a forced redefinition of what’s important in your life but I still felt really sad. However, when I was feeling sad and/or sulky I thought: ‘I had a great role, I was part of something fantastic but it’s over. I just have to find the next stepping stone,’” she says.

“You figure out you’re the same person but your ego is a little bit bruised – but that did take a couple of months.”

The added emotional toll of being made redundant over a video call made the experience even more isolating, says Ms Stockham. Picture: iStock.

However, when it came to planning her next steps, the mandatory two week period she spent in hotel quarantine, forced her to be still and reassess her career. That was when Ms Stockham realised she wanted to transition into freelancing and start her own business. She’s since put her new goal into action and heads up a consultancy business from her hometown of Newcastle on New South Wales’ Central Coast.

“I decided that maybe I wasn’t so crazy about the jobs I was applying for and figured out what I really wanted to do. I then decided that freelancing was a good step for me,” she remembers.

Acknowledging and growing from the grief

When it comes to emotionally recovering from job loss, SEEK’s Resident Psychologist equates job loss with grief, which she defines as the difference between “where we are and where we thought we would be”. People going through job loss may also experience the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, albeit in a nonlinear order, she adds.

“You have to feel it. Be angry about it, be sad about it, be resentful, be jealous. Feel all of those things. They’re really normal responses to what is a very significant event in one’s life.

The one thing she recommends people not do, is to “minimise” the experience.

“We then carry that resentment, anger or helplessness into the job hunt and it erodes us,” she says. “You’re still carrying the grief and you almost hijack or sabotage any new opportunities because you haven’t processed or acknowledged it.”

Instead, it’s the “processing and acknowledgment” of all of your emotions that will allow you to move on.

“One way to do this is to look at how you’ve historically dealt with grief – like a relationship break-up or rejection – to identify the techniques that may help.

For people going through the experience of being made redundant, Ms Read says it’s crucial they acknowledge all of their emotions, like grief, sadness, dissapointment and anger. Picture: iStock.

Ms Read also recommends people to not over-personalise the job loss – something that can “easily spiral down the rabbit hole of self-pity,” she says.

“Often there are so many external factors at play – ever more so with Covid,” she continues.

“Try not to over-personalise the loss. If you really contributed in some ways because you didn’t deliver or you didn’t have the skill set or your attitude was less than, then it’s useful to have awareness. That’s called insight.”

If, like Ms Stockham, you put a lot of identity into your job, Ms Read says it’s worth trying to “loosen the grip” of the attachment, whether that’s to the title, employer or salary. This can help you realise your transferable skills to go into other jobs and industries.

“It’s a set of skills and a set of values plus qualifications or technical skills as well. Then we start to see how you have much broader application across industries sectors job role,” she says.

For Ms Stockham, something which was key in her recovery from job loss, was sharing her experiences with others who had recently gone through something similar. Not only was she able to be a source of support, it also allowed her to realise her progress.

“As she starts this journey, I can see my progress and appreciate the milestone moments while helping someone else get through it,” she says.

“When you see other people in it, you’re thinking: ‘This won’t last. You’ll get through this and there’ll be something else in your life and it may be a hell of a lot better.”

This article was created in sponsorship with SEEK