On a macro level, the headlines go on and on.
- 4,000 jobs lost here. 500 jobs lost there.
- Top executives removed or demoted.
- Blue-collar workers retrenched or put on temporary status.
- Furloughs and pay cuts across the board.
On a micro level, many of the people affected by these changes are thrown on the scrap heap without any place to go.
Some are too under-qualified and/or over-aged to have much hope of getting rehired any time soon.
Of course, these trends were well underway before covid hit in Q1-2020, but covid has accelerated and amplified many of them and taken them in some unexpected directions.
Career planning has become even more uncertain now and whatever job security people thought they had before has definitely gone for a six* and isn?t likely to come back.
* a cricketing term, referring to when the batsman hits the ball out of the park for six runs
One thing has become crystal clear to me and to millions of others:
Managing your own career is not something you do once every ten or twenty years or when you want to change jobs. It is an ongoing and continual exercise based on changing circumstances and trends.
And old-style corporate paternalism is dead
In the days of ?corporate paternalism?, when companies operated in a kinder, gentler, more predictable environment, most people never thought about their careers as something to be ?managed?.
They went about it (or rather allowed themselves to be caught up into the general matrix of collective thinking on the topic) in one of two ways:
1) Most took whatever job came along in a somewhat random sequence of what might be called ?career progression?. In other words, that thing where entry-level workers work hard and aspire to become supervisors, supervisors hope to become managers, managers to become senior managers who would become VP?s all the way to the CEO position, usually in the same company or industry ? not very difficult to understand or requiring of much critical thinking.
2) Their employer pretty much managed their career for them.
My father?s (and both grandfather?s) career fell into the first category.
It was just how things were in those days. By the way, I don?t mention their wives ? not because I?m an MCP, but because they didn?t really work for pay ? and that was also how things were in those days.
The model was pretty much: Don?t think! Just do what your dad did!
And back in the day, in my hometown of Doncaster in Northern England, by far the biggest employer was the coal mining industry, so all 3 of those men started out in that industry and learnt their trade there, before ill health and/or better opportunities saw them move on, but always within the same general trade.
My dad?s career as an electrical engineer took him onto gigs in several countries with his career ending in Dubai where he lived for the last 20+ working years before retiring to Cyprus.
Not bad for a coal-mining boy from Doncaster.
But never once did I hear him talk about career planning.
He was a smart man but if I had known then what I know now and asked him what his career planning looked like, I think he would have been completely lost for words.
As for the 2nd category of career planning, I would characterise at least the first decade of my own professional career as such.
By the time I qualified as a chartered management accountant, and as a result of the Thatcher years, coal mining was dead as a viable employer in Doncaster and elsewhere so that was not going to be an option for me ? and that was not where I wanted to be anyway.
And having gone through the time, money, and health investment of getting a professional qualification, it was pretty clear to me that I should pursue a job (and indeed an entire career) as an accountant.
It was an obvious choice and everyone around me told me so.
And that was that.
I got a job as an accountant and got to work.
Did pretty well too.
I managed to rise through my then employer?s ranks fairly quickly, promoted 5 times across 3 countries by the time I was 30 and all without me doing a single minute of career planning.
Remember the 2nd category? (?Their employer pretty much managed their career for them?) ? yup, yours truly, certified career coach, author of the Ultimate Career Guide and career self-management evangelist was squarely in that basket ? LOL!!
Embarrassing, right?
Well, before you laugh at me, I would invite you to take a look at your own career, and see if you can relate to either of these categories in the way that I have described them.
If you are nodding your head a bit (or shaking it in disbelief at how embarrassed you are too), then you might be wondering how to get off that treadmill and into some real career planning.
Well there?s good news and there?s bad news about those 2 options.
In fact it?s the same news, depending on where you stand:
Both those models are dead. This is a fact.
Even the most paternalistic of employers have completely revised their thinking in this area and so should you.
They did not necessarily want to, but the way the world has been moving (and which covid-19 has accelerated and amplified), they have been forced to, in order to compete (or even survive at all).
And many have not survived.
Even in Japan and other parts of Asia, where paternalism has been a way of life far beyond what it ever was in countries like America, there is no longer anywhere near the same degree of support for this philosophy.
Every market is now far too dynamic to rely on your employer to plan your own career.
Your boss and his boss are too busy thinking about competing, meeting their KPIs and self-preservation to give due thought to your future plans.
Of course, this is not always the case.
Many bosses rightly consider their staff-members as their greatest assets, but in times of trouble, they can become their greatest liability and indeed are the most ?controllable? expense, i.e. the one they are most able to cut at short notice in response to market pressures.
Again, covid-19 has amplified this unhappy trend.
We all know someone whose job has been cut in times of economic squeeze.
Perhaps you are one of them or concerned about becoming one.
My best-selling book DO WHAT YOU LOVE, LOVE WHAT YOU DO is for anyone whose career needs a pick-me-up and that does not necessarily mean leaving your present company or even your present job, but it does mean going through a series of self-examination questions and determining how you personally can best respond to today?s volatile environment.
One thing is for sure, you and I are living in the most dynamic conditions ever. We need to either face up to that or fall by the wayside. There is no in-between. And the situation is going to become even more pronounced in future.
The good news is that you can take control in this uncertain world of employment, and you are invited to take the first all-important step to acquire the book which is available to you at a special member?s discount. The next step is to read it carefully. But, as mentioned earlier, that alone will not be sufficient.
You must understand and apply the ideas in the book, otherwise you will gain little.
If you prefer to get it all in one place (and much more career analysis and advice),
you can download my best-selling book
DO WHAT YOU LOVE, LOVE WHAT YOU DO
at a special member?s price.
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Till next time, always remember I am rooting for you!
With love & blessings
Peter Fleming FCMA
Your Career Success Coach