Career Crafting | Blog from David Rothermel

In today’s climate – work life and home life are more heavily entwined. Spouses, parents, children, and extended families have been forced to manage remote working, remote education, and lockdowns for more than a year.  What have we learned in this time?  How has our career life affected our home life and most interestingly how has our home life affected our careers?

So, first things first – Why do we work?

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs simplifies this eloquently in his pyramid-shaped diagram. He has simply put that we all work to provide shelter, security to ourselves and those who are in our care.  

But once we have attained that, what motivates us as individuals? 

Is it money, time, personal fulfillment, or esteem! What are your personal goals and what do you really want from your work?  Is there a way to craft your career to attain these goals?  I would say yes, but it is necessary to be introspective and reflective.

Many people consider that their job responsibilities are fixed. But in many cases, job responsibilities are more malleable than you tend to assume especially now that we are into digital transformation work structure is more fluid, creative, and innovative. As leaders, we strive to encourage our teams to take initiative and identify where changes or adjustments are feasible, desirable, and potentially rewarding.

So, as you start the reflective process of career crafting, there are three-step framework that you can focus on:

Tasks: Are your current tasks fulfilling you and valuable to your organization?  Are there specific areas that can be improved or adapted? 

Try and adjust the parameters of your responsibilities, increase your engagement in areas of interest and decrease your focus on tasks that can be automated. If, for instance, you excel at coordinating projects, but a chunk of your time goes into data collation, you can automate your latter task and explore projects that allow you to work more collaboratively and cross-functionally.

Relationships: During the pandemic – one cannot overstate the value of relationships.  Interactions have been greatly reduced and we need to find new ways to communicate, build and strengthen our relationships whether it is with your colleague or your client.

Seek out ways to have better quality relationships with the people around you, be proactive in connecting with those you value. If your company has a mentorship program, be engaged. If not, reach out to someone whom you view as a mentor and start a conversation. These efforts allow you to grow, add value and gain experience in a leadership role and potentially increase productivity across your department.

Purpose: Even if you do not have the flexibility to entirely reshape your career, you can still change how you view your overall purpose at work. Reframe your perspective and look out for ways on how to transform your old ways of working and innovate new ways.  Our goal should be to reciprocate value – add as much value to your organization as you receive. 

A group of researchers who study ‘job crafting’ described a diagram exercise to conceptualize the different aspects of a job and unearth potential improvements. Here’s how it works - first you create a “before” diagram that depicts your current job responsibilities. Then, make a list of your motives, strengths, and passions. The last step is to redraw your diagram. This “after” diagram aims to highlight the gaps between the current components of your job versus what you enjoy and are best at. It can serve as a blueprint guide for creatively thinking about how to better align your strengths with your daily tasks.

Be cognizant of the overall environment

Be aligned with your organization’s culture, values, and ethics. Pay attention to your organization’s mission and make sure that you can embrace its values. Talk to your colleagues and understand how their job or the organization helped them grow and develop as a person. Then ask yourself this question ‘Do I strive to become a person like them?’ Whether you view your job as merely a paycheck, as a step up the career ladder, I would always encourage you to approach your job as an avenue for becoming a better person. By doing this you will be able to craft your career that reflects your character.

So, don’t wait, start today. Rearrange and craft a career that will not only drive happiness for you but will also benefit the organization. This is an activity that you will do once in a lifetime and reap the benefits forever.