At the start of 2024, Caroline Szellemes noticed staff at her workplace were suddenly missing.
Working remotely, Szellemes didn’t think too much about it, as it was often hard to gauge who was in the office or working from home.
Caroline Szellemes was given just 24 hours’ notice before being made redundant.Credit: Jamila Toderas
“It’s not a huge company, but it was big enough to not notice. It was weird, people kept disappearing and no one talked about it. It wasn’t until I was made redundant that I realised how many they’d let go within the space of a couple of months,” she says.
“I had a feeling that redundancy was possible, but honestly, I didn’t think I was in the firing line. I understood over the past few years that it’s been difficult in the tech space with automation and redundancies.”
Szellemes worked as a content marketing strategist. The reason behind her redundancy was a company restructure.
“I was only given 24 hours’ notice that my role was being made redundant. Before this job, I’d been working in the contract space for many years and felt a full-time job would be more stable, as I have a mortgage. Ironically, it’s not the case anymore, I was in this role for only nine months,” she says.
Redundancy can be an opportunity to try something new, reskill, start a business or even take a career break.
Initially, the 52-year-old began applying for full-time roles, but decided to go back to contracting. Since then, she has enrolled in a counselling degree and founded a startup, 180Selfcare.
“The redundancy gave me the opportunity to change my career path. I’m less stressed and have time to work on my wellbeing and start-up. This, along with short-term contracts, is more stimulating to me.”
‘People kept disappearing’: Should you take a redundancy?
23
0
30.04.2024
At the start of 2024, Caroline Szellemes noticed staff at her workplace were suddenly missing.
Working remotely, Szellemes didn’t think too much about it, as it was often hard to gauge who was in the office or working from home.
Caroline Szellemes was given just 24 hours’ notice before being made redundant.Credit: Jamila Toderas
“It’s not a huge company, but it was big enough to not notice. It was weird, people kept........
© The Sydney Morning Herald
visit website
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Rami G Khouri
Mort Laitner
Donald Low
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Nikkei Editorial
Michael Kwet
