Career paths can be fraught with potential disasters, from being made redundant to being sidelined or passed over for promotion. Other difficulties that could make your work life a struggle, if not intolerable, include colleagues you don’t get on with, awkward managers or culture clashes.
Why is it important?
Career paths can be fraught with potential disasters, from being made redundant to being sidelined or passed over for promotion. Other difficulties that could make your work life a struggle, if not intolerable, include colleagues you don’t get on with, awkward managers or culture clashes.
These situations may feel beyond your control but their effects can be moderated and situations resolved, if not entirely prevented. In reality, you are likely to devote more time to planning a holiday than risk-proofing your career, but in these turbulent and unpredictable times it pays to put some measures and practices in place that allow for these eventualities.
Where do I start?
While it is not feasible to anticipate everything that might go wrong in your career, you can work towards reducing some of the risk. Conduct a review of potential risk factors or what could go wrong and prioritise them.
Typical things you should look out for include: a downturn in your sector; a change in the business priorities of your organisation, or a merger and acquisition; technology has been installed that transforms the way the department works; there is a new management team in place and as a result your career plans have taken a nose-dive.
Formulate plan B
Once you have identified and weighed up each of the risk factors and their likely impact on your career plans, it is essential to devise a plan of action to solve or counter their damaging effects.
A second opinion can prove invaluable in clarifying risk and arriving at potential solutions, so consider talking your concerns through with a coach, mentor or trusted colleague.
Support your manager
A shaky relationship with your manager is often a shortcut to career disaster, so find ways of getting along. Even if you both see eye-to-eye, consider how the relationship could be improved and trust and loyalty deepened. Get to know their strengths and weaknesses so you can add value where it is most needed – making your manager look good is likely to work to your advantage.
It is also important to be alert to what is going on at senior management level. This will give you some idea as to the pressures your immediate manager works under and will enable you to better support them.
Knowledge of what matters to senior management will also provide insight in to the company’s true mission and direction rather than the usual rhetoric and propaganda.
Become a PR ambassador
If you think your company is a great place to work and feel proud of its achievements, advocate the fact. There’s far less chance of you being dispensed with if you are known to be a champion of the organisation and have a passion and commitment for what you do.
Read the signs
Not everyone has the luxury of notice when made redundant, and while a sacking must follow standard procedures, formal warnings can still come as something of a shock. While difficult to prepare for, general awareness can provide early warning signs and allow you to take action before the worst happens. If you sense trouble, pre-empt the situation by requesting a meeting with your line manager to discuss your performance.
In either case (redundancy or dismissal), protect yourself by having good internal and external networks to help with career progression. Always keep your CV up-to-date and take advantage of any outplacement services.
Keep on learning
Keep skills up-to-date, build on and expand your expertise. Be aware of your limitations and work hard on these areas. Benchmark your skills and abilities against best practice. Be on the lookout for new opportunities that will help you acquire new talents or expose you to new experiences and responsibilities. The higher your market value, the more in demand you’ll be.
For more info
Corporate Confidential: 50 Secrets Your Company Doesn’t Want You to Know – And What to Do About Them, Cynthia Shapiro, St Martin’s Griffin, ISBN: 0312337361
This article first appeared in Personnel Today magazine
