Career management is an important aspect of professional development. Achieving maximum success requires incorporating effective techniques that represent employee needs, desires and likely career directions. Due to a less predictable organizational, societal, and global landscape, professionals are dealing with dynamic and variable career pathways. Hedge and Rineer (2017) argue that employees have to take charge of their own career development by building new competencies. This allows them to adapt to the evolving dynamics of the workplace and organizational frameworks (Hedge & Rineer, 2017). Despite organizations providing the necessary tools and resources for career development, it is upon the employee to enhance their professional growth and increase marketability (Hedge & Rineer, 2017). Employees enhance career development by being passionate, developing a proactive personality and through continuous learning.
Being a passion driven individual attracts companies and fellow colleagues. Pollack et al. (2020) indicate that passions for one’s work are associated with perceived self-identity, overall success, persistence, happiness, and financial gain. When an employee lacks passion, they may stagnate in one position of their careers. Passion is not only the love of a job but also incorporating the work into self-identity (Pollack et al., 2020). With passion, employees gain more perseverance and the drive to achieve work goals. Passionate employees overcome obstacles and moments or frustration more easily (Pollack et al., 2020). Every professional must question every stage of their career and identify higher achievements that excite them. Pollack et al. (2020) suggests that employees can exhibit either harmonies or obsessive passion. Harmonies passion means that employees internally accepts a particular responsibility as important to their growth (Pollack et al., 2020). In contrast, obsessive passion is driven by pressure to engage in various goals rather than doing so voluntarily.
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Organizations expect employees to offer viable solutions to unusual circumstances through proactive behaviors. Proactive personality refers to an employee’s ability to affect their environment through initiative action and perseverance in the event of a problem (Turban et al., 2016). Employees lacking this trait never identify opportunities to change things. They rely on others to initiate the difference in the organization and thus achieve minimal career success (Turban et al., 2016). Proactive personality is integral as one’s career unfolds because people develop based on their internal attitudes and influence on the environment they work in. Turban et al. (2016) asserts that proactive employees portray higher organizational knowledge. This aspect is correlated with higher promotion rates since superiors perceive a proactive employee as a leader capable of driving organizational success.
Current work environments are changing at a rapid rate. Professionals have to seek new knowledge, areas of improvement and identify how changes in their firm could affect their career goals. Through continuous learning, workers are flexible enough to retain their jobs and establish competitive advantage. Bersin and Sanders (2019) indicate that 80% of all CEOs currently perceive access to new skills as the most significant challenge in business. Notably, human beings are born with a constant instinct to gain more knowledge throughout their lives (Bersin & Sanders, 2019). From a career perspective, growth-mindset enhances the ability to learn and develop. Employees can augment their careers by creating a “to-learn list,” which indicates learning opportunities on a daily, weekly or monthly basis (Bersin & Sanders, 2019). Adhering to his schedule ensures that an employee balances their current work requirements and their own self-development.
In brief, employees must adapt to changes in the workplace. They must commit towards analyzing career pathways an identifying resources that can enhance productivity. Successful organizations are prioritizing on identifying innovative and proactive employees, capable of driving change in their organization. Notably, career development is a collective task for the company and employee. Passionate employees develop intrinsic motivation, which develops them into top performers. Additional learning updates education and job skills. By doing so, an employee becomes more marketable based on intellectual achievements and experience. To this end, employees must sustain these techniques to increase job satisfaction and achieve career success.
References
Bersin, J., & Sanders, M. Z. (2019). Making Learning a Part of Everyday Work. Harvard Business Review . Retrieved June 22, 2020, from https://hbr.org/2019/02/making-learning-a-part-of-everyday-work
Hedge, J., & Rineer, J. (2017). Improving career development opportunities through rigorous career pathways research. RTI International , 1-20. https://doi.org/10.3768/rtipress.2017.op.0037.1703
Pollack, J., Ho, V., O'Boyle, E., & Kirkman, B. (2020). Passion at work: A meta-analysis of individual work outcomes. Journal of Organizational Behavior , 41(4), 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2434
Turban, D., Moake, T., Yu-Hsien, S., & Cheung, Y. H. (2016). Linking Extroversion and Proactive Personality to Career Success: The Role of Mentoring Received and Knowledge. Journal of Career Development , 41(1), 20-33. https://doi.org/10.1177/0894845316633788
