Rejuvenating your career is not just a current fashion fad, but a reality for most people across the globe. Given the reduced economic forecasts being predicted by the IMF and the World Bank, the outlook for the Euro zone and the USA certainly doesn’t look very bright. Consequently, greater emphasis continues to be placed upon organisations to do more with fewer resources. The same also applies to employees who are expected to deliver excellent results whilst working in leaner organisations.
It is very easy to get swayed by what is happening on the international stage and feel gloomy about career prospects and eventually let your career stagnate. People who are reactive towards internal business activities are usually the ones who let their careers fall to the wayside. You can start by finding out ways to increase your contribution within the organisation. This is imperative as organisations are relying on internal talent to help them navigate during challenging business times.
You do not need to wait until “things get better” before you start rejuvenating your career. It is worth spending time and effort looking at your career and where you are heading over the next coming years. Now is a good a time to undertake a career audit and evaluate, assess and plan forward. By doing so, you increase your prospects and can react quickly if there are internal or external changes.
Benefits of Rejuvenating Career
Dealing with daily “fire fighting” duties means the bigger career aspirations get left on the shelf for another day. The intention may be to action a career plan, but there’s a greater probability that something will get in the way, such as project deadlines, meetings and reviews. One day becomes a week, one week becomes one month and before you know it, one year has gone by. You are a year older, but may not have progressed very far in your career.
Taking greater control in injecting some new lifeblood in your career means you are taking responsibility for professional career decisions. Long gone are the days where people were reliant on managers and HR to assist in designing successful careers. Instead, the onus is upon the individual to take the lead with organisations facilitating applicable business development needs.
There are a number of benefits in rejuvenating your career and include the following:
- Rejuvenating careers is no longer preserve of the elite within the organisation. Everyone from bottom up needs to be engaged in this activity, especially during leaner business times.
- Increased professional self esteem
- Greater sense of empowerment
- Increased profile within the organisation
- Increasing employability prospects
- Acting as an invaluable resource within the organisation
- Feeling professionally content
- Skills development
Value Add
Find out what is going on within the organisation; look at your company’s goals and aspirations for the coming fiscal or calendar year. Can you identify where you could be of greater value to the company? Adding greater value is not just a cliché or a buzz word, but something organisations are looking from all employees. Organisations are increasingly finding it a necessity to do more with less resources and that’s not just because they are being frugal, but business economics is playing a significant role in dictating the new business game plan.
Top Tips on Rejuvenating Career
Take a good look at your career and daily work schedule and identify all the tasks you are expected to undertake. The following questions serve as a useful checklist to help undertake this task.
- Which tasks require the bulk of your time?
- Which non essential tasks get too much attention?
- Which essential duties require more attention, yet get neglected more often?
- How much time is actually spent undertaking the priority tasks?
- Which duties are you most accountable for?
- How much time do you spend on these tasks?
- What could you be doing more of to increase productivity or to increase value?
- Who knows about your committment to enhance your contribution?
- Who else could help you increase your input?
Now take a look at the organisational objectives and see where you could be making a greater contribution. Can you identify tasks or skills which will make a difference? Can you identify projects where your skills can best utilised? Maybe it might be worth speaking to your line management and seeking some direction on contributing to projects. It may also require you to look at your daily schedule and see how and where additional work can be accommodated, without a detrimental impact on productivity or performance.
Fire fighters usually view themselves as the backbone within the organisation. However, it is the architect within the organisation, who is smart enough to combine daily duties with the bigger global organisational picture in mind all the time. By doing so, the architect combines company objectives with his/her personal career plan and is strategically placed to make the best career moves.
Sources
- Tracy, Brian. The Miracle of Self Discipline: The No Excuses Way to Getting Things Done. Illinois, USA. Nightingale Conant. 2010
- Colvin, Geoff. Talent is Overrated. Surrey, UK. Portfolio Publishers. May 2011
- Coyle, Daniel. The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born, It's Grown. NYC, USA. Bantam Publishers. March 2010.
Pervin Shaikh - We all have the necessary inner tools in our tool box to make a huge impact on our personal and professional lives.
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