Can you save your job by taking a step down?
Jill Richmond, now 41, was the market-ing director at a prestigious law firm in Syracuse, New York, until she became pregnant with her first child in 2002. She knew she wanted to keep work-ing, but she was worried about how her performance would suffer once she could no longer put in such long hours. So rather than risk losing her job (and her whole salary) later on, Richmond asked if she could move into a less stressful marketing assistant position that had just opened up. “The partner was shocked, but he understood my rea-soning and appreciated my loyalty,” she says. The firm responded by up-grad-ing the new job to assistant market-ing director, which reduced Richmond’s pay cut to just over $10,000. They also asked her to help interview candidates for her old job, to ensure that the new person would be a good fit.
With rumors of layoffs at every turn, should you consider a voluntary scaleback as an act of self-preservation? Only if you’re sure that you can get hired into the lower-level job—and that you’ll like it. If it’s an arrangement you’ve been considering for other reasons (such as having more time with your family), asking your boss to experiment with fewer hours for fewer dollars can be a smart move. But don’t pull back so much that you make yourself seem expendable, or you could still find yourself facing the ax when your boss real-izes she can easily do with-out you. “And if your company is downsizing, ask yourself if staying there is really the best move for your career,” Phelon advises. “Maybe there’s a better job out there somewhere for you.”
As for Richmond, seven years later she is still in the same position, but she has earned enough in raises to top her original salary. “I don’t get the final say anymore on certain decisions,” she says. “And I’m sure there will come a point where I’m ready to start climb-ing again. But it has helped that I have the institutional knowledge, so I always feel that my voice has weight here. And I have the flexibility I need.”
