I want to help you make great choices so you can make your next job work for you.
When I first speak with my clients, I am keen to know what they are looking. About 50% are relatively clear on what they want, and the others are completely focused on what they don’t want.
Even the clients who are thinking positively are not usually able to go into enough detail to give me a clear picture. For example, they will give me a generic ‘I want to work for a company with great values’. This is a good start, but I need to be able to understand what specific values those are.
By targeting their language, everyone they speak to will have a clear understanding of what they are looking for and may well be able to offer great suggestions or advice.
Today I want to focus on the 8 key areas for consideration so you can make your next job work for you and not give you any negative reasons to leave (see article on why you may want to change your career).
Objectives
You are likely to find yourself dissatisfied if your job doesn’t give you a sense of purpose or meaning. If the tasks you perform feel monotonous, irrelevant, or disconnected from your personal values, it can lead to a lack of motivation and overall dissatisfaction.
By understanding what you enjoy doing and/or working towards you will be able to gage whether a job will give you an opportunity to work towards objectives that you find fulfilling.
Balance
Work-Life balance is so often something that we complain about, but this is very personal and changes with us as our lives change.
When a job demands excessive hours, encroaches on personal time, or prevents us from pursuing our interests and spending time with loved ones, it can contribute to unhappiness.
You can expect a job to have its stressful moments, especially if you are pursuing a challenging career path, but there should still be balance. Struggling to achieve a healthy work-life balance can lead to burnout, stress, and a general sense of dissatisfaction.
To make sure you maintain your resilience whilst being able to adapt to new goals, you may need to get clarity in an interview about any expectations the managers have of you. It is especially important to ask about their goals for you within your probationary period.
Opportunities for Growth
Feeling stagnant in a job without any prospects for growth, advancement, or skill development can be demoralizing. It can sneak up on you because you could well have found a role challenging to start with but, once you are comfortable it becomes easy.
This easing of pressure can feel like a pleasant hiatus to start with but can then start to erode your confidence. When this happens I hear clients say they feel as though they are stuck in a rut, and have stayed somewhere far too long because it was convenient.
Make sure you understand where you could find challenges or opportunities to learn and develop new abilities. Find out what the organisation does to support their staffs’ growth and how also how easy it is to access. Create a career trajectory for yourself and make sure you check it at the start of a job, or if you start to get bored and stuck in a rut.
Environment
When I talk about environment, I mean both the physical environment as well as cultural/political. It is quite easy to prioritise your preferences in location, office space etc.
For example, after having to run many workshops in a basement with no windows and stale air conditioning, I vowed never to repeat the experience. That was an extreme, but for me I would certainly not get on a train for 75 minutes twice a day now.
It is good policy to make a list of your priorities before you start to apply and understand your red lines and what you might compromise on.
Harder to uncover is a subtly toxic workplace culture, unsupportive colleagues or supervisors, and lack of effective communication, excessive office politics, bullying, micromanagement, or a general lack of respect and recognition.
Any and all of these can lead to feelings of frustration and unhappiness. Please make sure you do your homework and speak to people. Network and ask really smart questions of anyone who is connect with the company to find out what it is like to work there.
Compensation and benefits
We all feel better if the salary for a job of work reflective of your skills and experience. However, there are several criteria to take into account because your salary is not necessarily the sum of your package. There may be pension, health insurance, bonuses etc. Whatever components comprise your salary/package, it is very important to do your research first and find out what your value is in the current market.
If you know your worth you can negotiate your package and feel confident that are going to receive fair compensation for your efforts.
If you feel your payment does not reflect your contribution, or if you perceive a lack of fair benefits, it can significantly impact your sense of job satisfaction. Financial stress or feeling undervalued for the work you perform can lead to resentment and dissatisfaction.
Company culture
When it comes to the culture of a company, there may be mission, vision and values stated on the website. This is always a good place to start but needs to be checked out carefully.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, you should already know what type of values you need a company to demonstrate. That is not the end of it though. There may be a case when the company is genuine about upholding their stated values, but if the department you work in is under pressure, there might be micro-culture that doesn’t suit you.
Values are easy to talk about generically, but to ask insightful questions at interview you need to be able to understand what they might look like in practice. Remember, if your personal values clash with the values or practices of the organization you want to work for, it will create tension and dissatisfaction. Misalignment in areas such as ethics, work-life balance, social responsibility, or diversity and inclusion can lead to a feeling of disconnection and frustration.
Management Style
Having a manager with a style that is incompatible with yours is probably one of the key factors that will ruin a job.
If you meet your manager at interview, it can feel relatively easy to assess whether you will enjoy working with them, but make sure you ask questions to highlight their style. However, just because you work well with a manager there may be times when you still have to make the decision to move on.
Circumstances can change, you may need to spread your wings a bit, take on more challenges etc. Alternatively, there is so much constant change in industry these days that managers leave and the next one may not suit you.
Please make sure you are prepared to take responsibility to create and follow your own career goals if the style of management is no longer right for you. Working with a misaligned style can lead to challenging communications and a completely unnatural way of working. This will lead to feeling of frustration, dissatisfaction and an erosion of your confidence.
Recognition
Almost without exception, we have a natural desire to feel valued and appreciated for our efforts.
The way any one of us needs to receive this recognition will be very dependent out our individual personality types.
Think back on times when you have felt a sense of satisfaction, especially because of something you had achieved which was recognised by others. This can come in many different ways, sometimes monetarily, at others time by a suggestion being taken forward, or a commendation. There is no real limit to this, but understand what works for you.
Sometimes someone just saying ‘thank you’ is enough but at other times it can feel like the company is taking advantage of you.
When individuals believe their work goes unnoticed or unacknowledged, it can lead to decreased motivation and job dissatisfaction.
In conclusion, you may not be in control of everything, or in a position to make sure all your assumptions are correct but there is a lot you can do to try and ensure you make your next job work really well for you.
If you would like to discuss any of the above please don’t hesitate to contact me.