How To Progress Your Career And Increase Your Happiness At Work

We are likely to progress our careers and increase our happiness at work, if we start viewing ourselves as a business.  After all, (excluding legal protections and tax status) the only difference between a company and an individual employee is scale.

Business / Individual (You are in the market)

Whether you own a business or you have a job, you are in the marketplace.  Your goal is to sell your services to people or organizations who need them.  If you plan to maintain or increase your current level of compensation, you must increase the value of your services in the eyes of your customer (i.e., your employer).

Note: You have to increase your skills even when maintaining to stay abreast of changes in our dynamic marketplace.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

The value of your services is determined by the marketability of your knowledge, skills, and abilities. To increase that marketability, you must take three simple actions:

  1. Increase your knowledge – pursue formal education in your field; routinely attend training courses/workshops, attend professional events, and read industry journals / white papers / case studies / books related to your field.
  2. Increase your skill – continually take on increasingly more difficult work tasks and projects at your job. If you are unable to do so at work, volunteer to do so within another organization.  While executing tasks look for better ways to complete the tasks.  Put to use the knowledge you gained from your formal education courses, trainings, and workshops.
  3. Increase your abilities – Learn new technologies. Learn all you can from the more productive people at your job and in your career field.

Working Philosophy

Despite your best efforts, increasing your knowledge, skills, and abilities may not lead to bonuses, awards, and promotions in your current position.  You may have to seek advancement elsewhere.  Therefore, it is paramount that you adopt the following perspective to prevent disappointment and productivity relapse:

  • When you accept a job, you agree to perform a given set of tasks for a given amount of compensation. Your employer is not required to provide any additional (post negotiation) perquisites.
  • Your employment is an agreement between professionals. If your role with an employer is no longer beneficial to you, you are free to leave.  If your position within an organization is no longer viable to your employer, they can let you go.
  • Every day you work a job, you are working to ensure you receive positive recommendations from your manager and (at least some of) your co-workers.
  • Be thankful that you have a job and that things are happening for you. Although things may not happen at your ideal pace, remember that for the majority of the people on the planet things are not happening at all.
  • Work to deliver your services more effectively and efficiently than anyone else within your organization.  That way, if the organization has to make cuts, you will be immune or the very last to go.  Should the company make you redundant, it hurts itself.
  • Seek validation from the market, not your job. Float your resume and do interviews from time-to-time to gauge your value in the marketplace.
  • Within every organization there are 3 categories of employees – cronies, workhorses (merit), and seat fillers. You want to become known for merit.  These people are least expendable because they possess the knowledge and industriousness needed to keep the business going.

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