Career Management: An individual responsibility

Career Management:

An individual responsibility

10, 20, or 30 year work environments are no longer. They have been replaced by a fluid, changing, reactive and responsive work culture with a fluctuating distribution and redistribution of work responding to needs of the day, hour or moment.

An individual who plans and actively manages their career is an individual who wins no matter what odds are against them. This individual achieves results and propels their career by engaging in prudent decisions which pertain to their career environment. The individual is actively sought after by many departments because they have the most updated skills, knowledge and experiences needed to add value to the current talent market environment.

The traditional model of company security, vertical career paths, promotional layers and associated rewards has given way to the new order of business. Today’s organization is flatter, has varied career paths and doesn’t offer assumptions as to career progression, security and subsequent rewards. Individuals are now faced with the challenge of ensuring

• (a)Continuous employment to continued employability;
• (b)Vertical careers to lateral careers; (moves within same job grade but different jobs)
• (c)A single lifetime career to multiple careers;
• (d) From employer-managed careers to employee self-managed careers.

Managing your own career is becoming absolutely essential as companies have to focus more attention to returns to shareholders and external competitive pressures.

More than ever, individuals must take sole responsibility for building and managing their own career success. The old career paths and expectations are gone. Actively managing your own career is vital. Organizations’ are finding it difficult to achieve the goal of helping to assist in employee career management due to the environmental, organizational and technical changes taken place within the global society. This is a time of change and rapid adjustment which can be painful for some and wonderful for others. Are individuals prepared for this responsibility?

Organizations have been downsizing and restructuring to create a rapid reduction of overheads. The massive change experienced by management and the workforce has both negative and positive effects. Change used to be natural and progressive. Now because of many factors, particularly economic, we are looking at mandatory change in career management.

Career options, skills, interests, environment, job content, goal-setting and action planning are only some of the areas to be covered at the Monday Nights on Auburn Avenue by Career Sofa. Sessions begin on Monday, February 4, 2008. Groups of no more 8 will meet once a month. Participants will experience a change in self-concept, become more focused on what they want to achieve from their career. This will lead to goal setting and actionable plans for the year. This is a fantastic opportunity for 32 individuals.

As you consider these facts, please consider actively engaging in managing your career, talent and passions. Enroll in the session will help you to build actionable goals, which you commit to achieving in order to increase your marketability and continued employability objectives and goals.

Clash of the Hood and my 40

Dear Career Sofa,

I am a young man who was fortunate enough to get off the mean streets and into a classroom. I have a degree and a good 40 hour a week job. I have difficulties at times with transition from my roots (tough urban neighborhood),  to my work environment; why are they trying to make me act like them?

I am very good at what I do, I get praised for my technical skills and my ability to solve problems quickly. I get criticized about being aggressive and too Hip-Hop in my dress and mannerisms. I fill like this corporate environment is stifling my abilities.

Help a brother out!

“My Choice” Job, Career or Passion

This is a poem from the book “Antidotal Poetry for Career and Personal Success” by Marilyn Carroll

Poetry has long conquered the concepts of love and loss. It has analyzed the agonies of war, the notions of beauty and the beliefs behind religion. What poetry has so often failed to do, however, is tackle practical issues which have a big impact on the everyday lives of readers, such as success in the career market.

“My Choice”

Job, Career or Passion

My job creates a path to earn my pay,

It leads me to work an eight hour day,

My actions are those of no variety,

And they create no imaginary activities.

The work is dull and mundane at times,

Filled with useless problems and uneventful timelines,

Yet I return each day in order to release

My personal financial anxieties

*

My career compels me to initiate,

It produces and pushes beyond eight hours unknowingly.

It keeps me focused throughout my day,

While leaping into new directions and salaries,

It builds and advances my occupation,

Filling my day with direction and diversity,

Overflowing with innovative ideas

Each day, causing me to embrace each day new

possibilities.

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My passion provides my quest for change and improvement

Allowing direction, creativity and, flexibility.

It reaches Beyond income and provides essence.

Building self worth

While igniting my imagination,

It advances my vocation

Allowing my talents

To embrace and embark on new opportunities.

 

Left Behind and Wondering

Dear Career Sofa,

I need help! I am working a job were my skills and abilities are going unnoticed. When I interviewed for the job I made it very clear that I only wanted to work the job if it involved duties which required a high level of technical skills to perform but instead I continue to receive duties which I perceived that someone at two or three levels below me could easily performed. I spoke to my boss about this and received the reply that things are tight and we need everyone to chip in and help out where needed. Then he ended the conversation saying that the situation is what is and he could do anything at this time to change things.

My response to him was thanks and a look of total disappointment in him as a leader. I am beginnig to wonder if I would have been better off downsized instead of being in the select few left behind.

Yours truly,

Left Behind and Wondering…..

Dear Left Behind and Wondering,

The challenges you are facing are typical in today’s economic times. Your wondering is an indication that you may need to review your talent portfolio against the offerings in your current organization as well as those outside the organization. If you would like to continue your current position absent non-technical tasks, it may be helpful to make suggestions to your boss about how to use the additional duties which have been delegated to you to someone who you would to mentor and coach in your department as an opportunity to advance their talent portfolio. By doing this everyone has the opportunity to become a winner.

Your boss may be just as disappointed as you are about the tasks his group has to take on. The one thing I know for sure in situations where there has been an organizational restructuring or downsizing is the fact that this is a primary opportunity for individuals to shine be capitalizing on their talents and patience and using it in positive ways to gain insight and advancement for future opportunities.

Best of Luck in the choice you make

Marilyn Carroll – Career Sofa