Your career advancement & you

Who is responsible for your career advancement? You, or your company, or both? Your company could be responsible too a certain extent, but it is you and you alone who is liable for it. You need to dynamically take part in all activities pertinent to your  career for the simple reason that it is you alone who understands whatever you aspire for. The degree of motivation that you have and the standards that you have achieved is also known to you best. But regrettably, many men and women shirk from this important responsibility and do not take any onus for their career development.

If you want to have worthwhile opportunities for good career prospects and to accomplish your career objectives, it is necessary that you be clear about what your initiatives ought to be. You need to chart out a course of action in detail so that you are able to reach a position that you aspire to. If you are working for an organisation, you should match your own objectives with those of your company. Any failure to do this will result in failure and which will bring about a drop in your performance; and give rise to disappointment and frustration.

Your move forward will also be contingent on the encouragement and guidance that you receive. Sans them, all your planning will be of little use. This pepping-up is best done by the organisation that you work for. Therefore, your seniors also need to be aware of how and what you envision and seek to achieve. If they know them, your strengths and fortes can be made good use of; and transformed into productive actions on ground. And concurrently, you too will be able to find opportunities that will be in harmony with your penchants and capabilities - all within the precincts of your company’s focal areas.

You may harbour some ambitions and your company may have some too. It is essential that you are aware of your organisational objectives and the course it is adopting to move towards their realisation. Therefore, your company should spell out its requirements to all employees so that they can be synchronised with individual aspirations of employees. If your company does all this efficiently and smoothly, your productivity, as also of other employees will rise leading to faster accomplishment of organisational objectives. You should always keep in mind that it is teamwork that will bring about success, though your own capability, sincerity of purpose and capacity to perform optimally will also matter. In the light of the foregoing, today most companies are laying great emphasis on the career advancement of their employees and providing them opportunities to acquire additional qualifications and experience. 

If your company displays interest and shows concern for your career advancement, they will also exercise control over you and initiatives taken by them. If that be so, you must place trust in your company and your seniors; and also look for stable mentors who can help you to find out gaps and also bridge them. It is only with this intent that companies are increasingly ensuring that there employees are better poised to face challenges by making them undergo learning and development programmes.

It is a mistaken belief that your promotions are an indicator of your career advancement. You should understand that career advancement is not only about vertical growth, but also acquiring proficiency in different fields as well. Career advancement is truly achieved if you can acquit yourself well in domains more than one. You should be absolutely clear about one issue - the need to understand that it is your skills alone that will prompt your success. Therefore, you should make efforts on a continuous basis to acquire new skills and also update your present ones. 

Today, organisations are finding it rather difficult to deal with the issue of attrition of employees trained by them. While your loyalty towards your company may call for sticking on to your job, it may not necessarily be so. There could be malfunctions and defects in the assignment of duties. To overcome this issue, companies implement a retention strategy, which inter alia, entails engagement of employees on a regular basis, keeping their individual needs into consideration. Recognitions bestowed upon for good performances and periodic counselling are part of this strategy.

You must understand that you can be successful if you clutch opportunities in time. As explained above, companies are becoming increasingly disposed to generation of a working environment wherein employees realise that their career advancement interests are being taken care of. If that be so, the responsibility to make certain that your career advancement takes place is yours.