Lost your job? Advice on how to deal with those difficult initial days

Farah Kotadia, founder of Wellness Works Counselling in Vancouver, a registered clinical counsellor and former HR professional who offers support for navigating layoffs and career transitions, is seen in an undated handout photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Handout - Iqra Khan Photography, Photo by Iqra Khan Photography /THE CANADIAN PRESS

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Losing your job can be one of life’s toughest setbacks, so navigating it with clarity requires taking time to process your emotions, understand your legal rights, and seek professional advice _ key steps to getting your career and finances back on track, experts say.

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Like mourning a death, getting laid off from your job can drag you through the classic stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The loss of your job not only means loss of income, but also loss of workplace friendships, your identity and purpose.

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“People don’t always equate grieving with job loss,” said Farah Kotadia, founder of Wellness Works Counselling in Vancouver.

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“By sitting with our grief, we’re actually reflecting as well, and we’re thinking about our next steps… so take the time to grieve.”

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If you miss certain co-workers, Kotadia suggests reaching out to them. “In a job, there’s always pieces that we like and pieces that we don’t like, so what resonated with you? Where does passion come in?” she said.

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Grief in the context of job loss could take a couple of weeks, a few months or even a year to process, said Kotadia. One day, you may feel hopeful sending out five job applications with cover letters and the next day, you may feel like not getting out of bed.

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“That’s OK. That’s normal. That will happen,” she said.

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While emotions can run high immediately following a layoff, employment lawyers advise not to act on them.

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“I don’t want people to take this opportunity to tell their bosses everything they hate about them or bad-mouth the company to others,” said Lior Samfiru, national co-managing partner at Samfiru Tumarkin LLP.

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“All of those things could bring legal action against the individual, but equally as important, may make it that much more difficult in resolving a severance issue.”

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Samfiru said individuals and employers alike misunderstand provincial employment standards, which often require workers to be paid one week of salary per year of employment.

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The standards are just a minimum.

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After considering your age, tenure with the company, industry, any medical conditions and the current unemployment rate, severance could be ten to 20 times higher than what’s outlined in employment standards, Samfiru said. That’s why any documentation providing a wholistic view of your income is key to estimating your severance entitlement. This includes your employment agreement, bonus plans or commissions payouts.

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Samfiru, whose firm’s website has an online severance pay calculator, advises getting legal advice when faced with job loss as 90 per cent of severance packages initially offered by companies are “inadequate.”

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He said he’s worked with clients offered one-month of severance when they were entitled to six.