Do you like what you do each day?
How would your employees answer this question?
According to Gallup, only 20% can give a strong “yes” response to this question.
The answer to this seemingly simple question, pretty much sums up your career well-being.
Career Well-being and its impact on our lives
Career well-being, according to Tom Rath and Jim Harter, is one of the five elements of overall well-being. The other four are community well-being, social well-being, physical well-being and financial well-being. According to them, career well-being is arguably the most essential of the five elements of well-being because we do spend most of our time doing something that is career-related – a job, occupation, vocation, advocacy, etc.
It’s not hard to see how an unsatisfactory experience in one’s job or maybe the loss of a job can quickly impact the other areas of wellbeing as well. I am reminded of how sometimes, work-related worries would haunt me in my dreams causing me to lose quality sleep, and how many social gatherings revolve around talking about work! It’s interesting and intriguing how our career-related wins and woes creep into almost every other aspect of our lives.
The realization of the importance of career well-being brings me now to the prospect of defining and curating a thriving career.
In my mind, when employees are thriving in their career, there could be better chances for them to give a resounding “Yes!” to the question, “Do you like what you do each day?”
What is a thriving career?
I’m guilty of using and maybe even overusing the word thrive, probably because I resonate a lot with Maya Angelou’s famous quote,
My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.
So to get a better understanding of how professionals view and define a thriving career, I created a poll on LinkedIn:
The results show that more than 50% of respondents view a thriving career as having continuous growth and learning. Coming close second at 38% is the view of having a work-life balance. A smaller percentage associated it with good performance or a combination of all the options provided.
Two things come to mind as I look at the results:
First, the pursuit of learning and growth is pretty much foundational in one’s career. By focusing on this, other things will follow – good performance, advancement, opportunities and better pay. Being able to unlock a new skill or milestone also gives a sense of personal satisfaction and fulfillment.
Second, work-life balance (or work-life integration for some) might have been the offshoot of many professionals’ realizations during the pandemic. It makes me wonder if the same people would respond the same way if I ran the same poll in 2019.
I’d like to think that a thriving career consists of all these and more. The degree to which one aspect matters more to us over another varies not only because we are different people, but also because we go through different seasons in our lives too.
How can managers help employees rekindle the “spark” for their jobs?
Find out what interests them
From my experience in corporate, as well as in HR consulting and career coaching, I’ve observed how many of us are still very much focused on looking at skills that professionals are good at. I agree that skill related strengths are essential in the workplace, but this view is lacking to help employees thrive.
In my study of career development, I’ve learned about Hollands’ Theory, which is the basis of many personality and career assessments in the market today. According to the National Career Development Association, being able to identify one’s skills as well as activities that they enjoy where these skills can be applied can significantly strengthen career well-being.
So if you’d like your employees to perform well and find meaning in the work that they do, try to find that sweet spot between their skill-based strength and their interests. I found this to be true, through the different clients I’ve worked with and my own personal experience as well.
Check on them, not just on their task
Checking in with your employees is one way you can make them feel seen and heard. This means talking not just about their deliverables and deadlines but also about themselves. According to an article by Mercer, “the manager can demonstrate empathy by asking a variety of questions that touch on all aspects of employees’ lives.”
By welcoming not just work-related topics to your conversations, you get to know your employees better (their needs, values, motivations) and are able to support them better. This also somehow shows that you welcome their whole being at work, recognizing that work and personal life are actually integrated.
(Check out my other article, where I shared some tips on how managers can have better career and performance conversations.)
Provide opportunities to learn
Learning and development isn’t just a function of HR. Managers play a huge role in providing employees avenues for learning. This becomes easier when you’ve done the first two points above – knowing their interests and checking in on them.
According to a survey conducted by Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) in 2020, 94% of organizations offer some form of skill-based training, but only 31% offer all four types of training: initial skill training, job-maintenance training, employee development and upskilling.
This means there is a huge opportunity to provide on-going learning solutions throughout an employee’s career. Apart from the typical self-paced or live training already being provided, here are some other ways to support employee learning.
- Secondment or Job Rotation
- On-the-job experiences or on the side projects
- Mentoring Programs – pairing them with a subject matter expert in their field of interest
- Coaching Programs – engaging with an external coach to help employees learn about themselves, discover and nurture their potential
