Chronicle Editor
Work is love made visible!
Kahlil Gibran in The Prophet (1923) said, “You work that you might keep peace with earth and the soul of the earth . . . and when you work with love, you bind yourself to one another and to God.
. . . Work is love made visible”
The core humanistic values of work include being of service to others and contributing to the community while developing oneself. Ideally, we should relate to others and wider society through our work.
Today’s employee is really intriguing. Leaders in organisations can’t stop wondering on the attitude, on the personality disposition, on level of agreeableness, the lack of drive, absence of intuitive thinking, the lack of agility, employees’ inability to interact with others empathetically, the total absence of engagement or self-awareness skills. Added to the list are poor organisational skills, inability to make judgement driven decisions. All these lacks remind me of what Maxim Gorky said in The Lower Depths, “When work is a pleasure, life is a joy! When work is a duty, life is slavery!” An employee looks for a job on his or her own. At that point she/ he desperately needs the job.
Three months on the job a casual, lethargic approach states showing out. In some instances, with some condescending attitude showing its ugly head. You begin to see total lack of enthusiasm and as managers you start wondering whether your recruitment and selection process gave you a person whose personality profile is inclined to serve others? You start asking yourselves whether you did adequate due diligence on the employee’s character, did adequate reference checking, understood the prospective employee’s frustration tolerance levels, why you failed to pick that the employee was emotionally very volatile hence was less able to handle negative life events and worse she or he could shout at customers at slight provocation.
The intrigue is further worsened by the reality that a large majority of employees earn a living through working in order to support their families but they are chatter boxes than doers.
They are less result oriented. The level of disorientation is worrying. Essentially this means adults may periodically need career services because as workplaces adapt to compete, workers must adapt as well. Yes, in some organisations simple hierarchies may still define relationships among many workers, yet downsizing patterns and collegial teams have changed some interactive patterns in work environments.
New technologies require learning new skills and thinking in different ways. Diverse backgrounds for workers demand that all people learn to understand differing cultural norms, values, and communication patterns.
Coping with volatility, uncertainties, complex and the ambiguous (VUCA) work environment
The reality is that the work environments have and continue to undergo transitions and the employee is expected to “journey through” the natural change processes with the courage to face fears and take risks. According to Brammer (1991) the employee’s first reaction to change is coping or adaptation, the second step is renewal which occurs at setting new goals after clarifying values and the third step is transformation which involves a shift in thinking.
These stages explain academics’ way of analysing the dissonance experienced by workers, but reality is that some workers have lived lifestyles where consistent change was not assumed and where identities were forged in only a few organisations within one profession. Such people approach transitions with greater difficulties. Adults experiencing career transitions have many emotions and attitudes associated with the fear of job losses, fear of a void that result from job loss. Instead of understanding that the changes happening at their work places are influenced by factors beyond the control of the organisation they trivialise the happenings at their workplace through feeling that their contributions are unappreciated, they feel they have been betrayed, they become angry and hurt. Management should ensure there are career counsellors in the organisation or outsourced to help provide requisite empathetic support with a view of ensuring a balance between having employees understand the happenings and helping these employees create a new vision for their own future.
Understanding the workers’ emotions during transitions
Many emotions displayed by workers especially the older employees are related to societal messages and expectations. They are judgemental constructs. For instance, society perceives a job loss to be evidence of personal failure resultantly those affected by job losses inadvertently become unkind to themselves. They then exhibit lots of negative energy which hinders them from moving past difficult experiences and open up new possibilities. Management must ensure that they provide supportive listening in order to help the affected employees release emotions and pull for reassurance. In addition, they need to provide the opportunity for clients to openly explore societal messages and to determine the implications and costs of adhering to such judgemental constructs. Employees need help around such self-fulfilling prophecies! Don’t just give them their terminal benefits and throw parties for them. Management need to demonstrate their ethical considerations with requisite parity.
I want to change but . . .
There is a sign of despair here! Someone has worked for your company for over 30 years and has unavoidably reached the 60-year retirement age. Company policy dictates she or he must go. The employee would rather stick to the current status quo as they just see negative consequences associated with their departure from the company. They may be in denial and are literally unaware of the need to face the demanding realities. Moreso, you witness indecision in the person. Indecisive workers spend an exorbitant amount of time avoiding a choice. Whereas undecided workers appreciate they need to do something to improve themselves while they are still actively employed but they just don’t do so!
Adults need career counselling
Ideally management must help their workers become “me-incorporated” while they are still active in the job. They need to be assisted to develop themselves through acquiring new qualifications, new skills and competencies. They then need to be assisted to look to the market for opportunities to sell themselves where their services are needed. Admitted some workers may resist the help! Nonetheless, career counselling must now be more focused in renewing a company’s older workers’ motivation and goal setting so that they become able to deal with almost any endeavour, from career changes to health enhancement to retirement planning.
But . . . do you need to wait for your company to develop yourself?
Tell me, why are you waiting for your company to take you back to college? Why do you allow your organisation to look outside whenever an opportunity arises within? Please don’t wait, instead let your manager see that you are helping. Let her or him see that you add value, you are a creative thinker, you are business rather than a functional leader. Just demonstrate functional excellence. Make bold decisions as a strategic business unit leader. Don’t just be observatory. Be initiative. Take risks. Try and fail rather than failing to try! Be judgement driven. Empower your own staff. Coach your subordinates so that they work smarter than you. Experiment and take lessons — move on. Focus more on data.
Consider developments taking place in your area. Complement your skills through short term and long-term courses so that your skills remain relevant and you can move up the ladder.
This article is prepared and presented in the interest of providing free career guidance and counselling to all people who value education and training as a critical cornerstone to success in life. Trust Academy invites all people, with or without O-levels as well as degree holders who have a dilemma or are unsure of what career path to pursue to visit their offices on 3rd Floor, Haddon and Sly building, corner Fife Street and 8th Avenue for FREE career guidance. Alternatively, WhatsApp Herbert 0773616665.
Bongani Ndlovu