Career ladder – going up isn’t that easy

During the last twenty years or so, there have been phenomenal in our methods of group effort, partnership, communications and calculations. But as far as career advancement is concerned, most people tend to lose their sense of time and are unable to let go their outmoded impressions of reaching a high position in some organization, something that is not in consonance with the current times. That is precisely why career advancement seems to be a bugbear to most of us and also some sort of disillusionment to quite a few.

If you have to be in sync with prevailing times, you have to be conversant how things work at your workplace and adjust to the changing scenarios. Economic slowdowns and consequent downsizings have made going up the ladder difficult. Newer career models and configurations have emerged; they are fairly compliant options that take care of your, organizational and customer expectations. Today, your work and life are increasingly becoming integrated because technological advancements and rapid communications have made it easy for you to work from home. On the other hand, employees understand what they can achieve and what they cannot; and hence are reluctant to forgo anything that they deem as personally important. Therefore, if you have to progress, you have to change your outlook towards careers; ups and downs, stagnations and declines have become a part and parcel of every career. 

In today’s competitive environment, career advancement is like climbing Mount Everest. The ascent is steep but has countless detours that offer you pleasurable options to reach the summit. You need to understand this aspect well. Career advancement is no more rising in organizational hierarchy; today, it implies marching ahead to a destination decided by you. The connotation of moving forward and up has changed.

Are you aware of the perception of career success that others have and what they seek to attain, given the skills that they possess or wanting to acquire? Do you know the same vis-à-vis you? If you find it difficult responding to queries about you, take it that you are having good companionship; and if you have no idea about your employees, it is even better. Career advancement is thus a demanding task. You have to accept what it implies to you, enunciate it and know what exactly is being set in motion as perhaps others would do for themselves. The place that you envision yourself to be in, the responsibility that you intend shouldering, and how you would go about to do it together with the working situations should be clear to everybody.

The maiden step therefore, ought to be a comprehension of what career success means and implies. The way you chase it will be contingent on various actors and perhaps you could do so multi-dimensional endeavours. The experience that you gain or rewards that you get today will be at great variance than say, a decade back. Talking of career advancement, you should keep in mind that pyramid like hierarchies have fewer vacancies up there, but their significance persists. Companies prosper when people from within rise to the top. But reaching the top is not the only yardstick for progress.

A lateral shift is as good as a promotion because you get to learn new things about your company, something that will stand you in good stead. But since it is human beings that are involved, for evident reasons, this may not be a popular and acceptable idea. Taking a step back thus, is a viable option. This is what self-tuning and self-regulation is all about.

Changing actualities at workplace call for a continual effort to characterize our methodology to tackle significant matters related to company pursuits. Towards this, it is essential that every single employee remains inspired. If you want career development to be in sync with developments in the technological field as also other prevalent practices, you need to think out of the box.                 

 Climbing the ladder of career success is indeed a difficult task. If that be so, you should know the moment when to work diligently. More importantly, you should also know the moment when not to work, but to relax. This will not only benefit you immensely, but also will astonish your friends and competitors alike. The difficulty to go up the ladder will persist.