P. ANTHONY BURNHAMPresident, ProActive InstituteSome by choice...

P. ANTHONY BURNHAM

President, ProActive Institute

Some by choice and others because of corporate downsizing, most U.S. workers change employers--and even careers--at least once during their working days. P. Anthony Burnham’s previous position heading the reorganization of Carnation Co. ended in 1990 when his became one of the posts eliminated. So he started ProActive Institute in Costa Mesa to help people make the transition into a leaner job market. Burnham discussed the current employment situation in an interview last week with Times staff writer John O’Dell.

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Rockwell Space Systems in Seal Beach said last week it is going to an outside vendor for data processing and will lay off 70 people. Disneyland has changed its rules for retiree health benefits, and that could force scores of veteran employees to quit years earlier than they had planned. Northrop Corp. said it will lay off 3,000 workers, most of them in Los Angeles County. It doesn’t seem to be a good time to be an employee.

It’s the only time we’ve got and if you are prepared, it can be an exciting time. If someone suggested just three years ago that a company like Rockwell would hire out its data processing, they’d have been laughed at. That’s letting outsiders deal with the lifeblood of a business. But that’s where we’re at now, and we are never going back.

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So where’s the excitement? Aren’t we talking about layoffs and a lack of job security?

We are really looking at a more secure future. In this new job market, the only important thing is results. You, as the employee, must be able to quantify the results you can obtain for an employer. The employer hires you to achieve those results, and you have a job until you no longer produce results or until the employer no longer needs the kinds of results you are capable of producing. Security comes from the results we accomplish and the knowledge that we really are working for ourselves.

We talk about the new workplace, but the truth is that there is nothing new. We are just going back to basics. The 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s spoiled us because we got dependent on someone else--the employer, the corporation--to provide security for us. It was our tenure, not what we contributed on a daily basis, that determined our job security.

The only thing uncomfortable about the “new” employment market is that it puts responsibility and accountability back on the individual, and we’re not used to that. But think about the pioneers, even our grandparents and great-grandparents. They struck out and did what they had to do, and nobody was holding their hands. They would be shocked at how spoiled we have become. And now we are going back to that kind of very basic approach. We’re going back to reality, to our roots as individual entrepreneurs.

And when you understand that and understand that you really do work for yourself and are responsible for marketing yourself and training yourself, then you have gone a long way to being secure.

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Won’t the continual turnover of employees cost employers more in training than they’ll save on the payroll?

No. Changes in technology already mean that employers are offering constant training. The people taking advantage of it are the employees they want. And as we move forward, more and more employees are going to insist on training, maybe even if it means less direct pay, because the trade-off is they will be better prepared for the next generation of jobs, and that will make them more secure.

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How do we learn to shed our old habits?

The trend in Orange County, as in much of the country, is that business is moving from production jobs to service jobs. But whether you are an assembly line worker or an accountant or a middle manager, what you have got to be able to do today is to quantify your accomplishments.

You have got to be able to tell prospective employers how productive you are and how your productivity can transfer from one employment engagement to another.

The basic skills for this are the ability to communicate well, in writing and verbally. Workers are so bad at this these days that it can give you a big competitive edge just to be able to talk and think in terms of the results you have obtained in an old position and how you can apply them to a new position.

Time is money. That’s a cliche, but it’s never been truer. Companies are doing more with fewer people; that’s the whole flattened organization concept. There are fewer people to focus on the same or even more projects, and the work’s got to be done quickly, so you’ve got to have precise communications to make it work.

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What about actual job skills? Aren’t they important?

Skills training is very important, but people have to learn to become entrepreneurs so they can take the results they have accomplished and market them. If you just have the skills but are unable to convince an employer or employers--and there will be a succession of them--that your skills fit their needs, then the job skills don’t help. You have to be able to show that what you bring to the table will contribute results to the bottom line of that organization. So you have got to be able to market yourself just as though you are a product.

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So an aircraft welder who is about to be out of a job should take marketing classes instead of learning how to make electronic circuit boards?

People need to do both. The way to look at it is that you are always employed because you work for yourself. You might be between engagements, and that’s a good time to get some training to better prepare yourself for your next jobs. And when you are training, you are working, even though you may not be getting paid.

You should be getting training while you have employment engagements and in between. That training should include job skills, marketing skills and business skills.

One of the most important classes anyone can take is one of the many that the community colleges, universities and private organizations offer in how to start and run a business. Today that’s just what every worker is doing.

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On American competitiveness. . .

“We got very spoiled and complacent in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, and while we were in that condition the rest of the world caught up with us by stressing that results were what counted. We are competing with people who got better at free enterprise than we were.”

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On a model for the future workplace. . .

“The film industry. You have very skilled people coming together for a defined period of time to accomplish a specific job. And 10 minutes after it’s a wrap, they disband and go off to the next gig.”

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On employee benefits. . .

“If we all must think of ourselves as independent businesses, then we need portable pensions and health care that travel from job to job.”

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On the secret to coping. . .

“You’ve got to put your arms around every change that comes along and embrace it, just like we used to embrace security.”