OWN Your Career (Part 2)

This week I’ve been inspired by two dear friends that have taken action to manage their careers. If you have not had a chance to read part one, please do.

http://workinglater.blogspot.com/2015/10/you-have-to-own-your-career.html

I received an e-mail this week from someone who has had it! She is done, she is through, she’s worked hard to make a difference  at her organization and you know what?….it is time to move on! That is career management and owning your career. It is knowing when it is time to stop trying to save an organization that doesn’t want to make changes and when you have to take Mahatma Gandhi’s advice personally, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

There comes a point in a career when making a move is a better answer than beating your head against a wall. I have been there. I have done it. It is scary and SO worth it. Even if the move is temporary and you have to make an additional career move; you gain confidence by taking action to stand up for yourself at work. If you have children, you show them the example maintaining self-worth in their careers like they would in a personal relationship.

This individual added me to her ‘circle of trust’ as she makes her escape to a better job situation. She is working on her resume, updating her LinkedIn profile, doing selective networking. It is all about taking  constructive ACTION—she is working, updating, doing. She’s not expecting the organization to change; she’s not waiting for someone to save her career and she’s not just going to sit there and let something happen to her. Hint: None of those things work. Even if you wait to get laid off and get a severance, the emotional will impact your confidence to interview for a better job. The severance is never enough money.

People ask me how do you know when it is time to move on. Tony Robbins puts it like this, “Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.” Here are some other signs when you need to do the hard work to make a job change:

1—You are moving toward something, not running from a bad current job situation. You are looking for an opportunity to learn something new, to move into a leadership position and expand your experience or to learn a new skill.

2— Going to work makes you sick, literally. I know a person who had migraines that usually started Sunday evening or Monday morning. Some Sunday nights the back of his neck was so stiff he could barely move his head from side to side. His body was trying to tell him something.

3— From a personal business perspective there’s no compelling reason to stay. You have reviewed options for health benefits, you don’t have to repay tuition reimbursement or relocation benefits if you leave now. You are not weeks away from being vested in a company pension,  401(k) plan or receiving an annual bonus. If you can, do not leave any money on the table when you leave your present company.

4— You are being put in a compromising position. I received a telephone call from an executive assistant I met at a career talk several years ago. Her boss repeatedly asked her to lie to his wife when she called while he managed several affairs with other women. My advice to her was to get away from him as a boss ASAP. She found another role in the company. Anytime you are being asked to do something illegal or you experience illegal behavior toward you—tell HR. They are obligated to investigate. If the offensive or illegal behavior is part of the company or department culture—it is time to find a new role—out of the company or department.

5—Nothing you do is right. You may have done the job for years, but now it is not good enough. Your performance appraisals or other documentation (warning notice, performance improvement plan, suspension or occurrences) put you at risk for being terminated with cause. Your manager tells you verbally your work is poor; your work is returned to you for a re-do or worse yet, it is given to co-workers for a do-over. Unless that manager leaves, it is seriously time to consider a change.

Job Burnout: Your Co-worker's Problem

Monday Morning Pep Talk

It’s the elephant in the room. 

After nearly a decade of layoffs, mergers/acquisitions, constant corporate change and cutbacks, threats of unemployment and volatile 401(k) values putting retirements at risk; is it any wonder that some of your co-workers are experiencing burnout?

The medical profession is ripe for career burnout and  the incidence is well-documented in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Archive of Internal Medicine and other professional journals. What about the employees of companies outside the medical field? 

Mayo Clinic offers these questions your co-worker can ask themselves:

• Are you troubled by unexplained headaches, backaches or other physical complaints?
• Are you using food, drugs or alcohol to feel better or to simply feel?
• Do you feel disillusioned about your job?
• Have you become irritable or impatient with with co-workers, customers or clients?
• Do you drag yourself to work and have trouble getting started once you arrive? 
• Do you lack the energy to be consistently productive?
• Have you become cynical or critical at work?
• Do you lack the the the energy to be consistently productive? 
• Have your sleep habits or appetite changed? 

There are many factors that contribute to job burnout. It is a root cause of declining employee engagement, declining productivity and increased health care costs human resources is trying to reverse in the workplace. Corporate America didn’t need the 2010 Gallup study by Harter to tell them lower job satisfaction foreshadowed decreasing bottom-line performance. Back then Gallup estimate $300 Billion annually lost to employee disengagement.

In the past three years, one of the most consistently viewed blog post I have written is about losing self-confidence as one ages in the workforce.

http://workinglater.blogspot.com/2012/07/where-did-my-confidence-go-i-know-its.html

Experienced workers face a host of challenges and this includes pressures at home to compound doing more with less at work. So this week, practice patience, tolerance and being human to your colleagues. Help is available confidentially through Employee Assistance Plans, health care professionals and through your trusted support network. Take some time to enjoy yourself over the next 168 hours!

Check Out: 

Positivity by Barbara L. Frederickson, Ph.D.

Flourish by Martin E. P. Seligman