Today, the time has changed. If you have got a good job, it does not mean that you have got sufficient liberty to express yourself. You are to do what you are asked to do – if your employer notes any deviation, he may kick you out any moment. If there is any legislation to ensure uninterrupted job to you, you may have to move the wheels of court when your employer dismisses you on any account. In intervening period, what will you do?
Good job means that your employer has got a good person to pursue his aims, not yours. You can get satisfaction to the extent of 50% if your employer gets 150% out of your remuneration. Not only this, even if you are employed with a specific job description and set hours, today your employer expects you to be entrepreneurial. You are always expected to come up with ideas and take initiative to enhance his profits. You need to come out of the comfort zone you might have built up around you with the time passing by while working in a company.
You must always assume that once you join a new job, your job is dead after some time. You will have to reinvent what new you can do in the interest of your employer. Otherwise, it will become a tiring one – you put in your time and you get paid at the pleasure of your employer. Some time back, we had thought that jobs were for life – you acquired, performed and got paid until you were retired. It is no longer valid. Globalization has increased competition. US youth is being warned of Indian capture of the job prospects whereas world markets are being flooded with cheap Chinese goods. We can avert such things if we reinvent ourselves – what new we can do to our life, to our working and increase our productivity for a longer period.
We may have to change our expectations and prepare ourselves for a new world. If we ask a bright graduate from a world-renowned institute to earn a decent living but without undertaking a full time job, it would be out of imagination. Why? He is not prepared to do addition to his own wealth but ready to do so to add to some other’s wealth. He is not willing to take risk, he is not sure whether the results out of his calibre attained in that institute will bring out would be sufficient to make him lead a decent life. Why are you depending upon some one else? On the other hand, please set up a retail counter for the young who could not be able to complete even his 8th standard education due to having joined his father to collect the payments from the customers when they visit his retail shop to purchase consumables. He will run the retail counter more profitably and lead a more decent life than the bright graduate from a business school. It happens because the son of a retail outlet owner learns the basics of the business more speedily due to his real exposure to the practical working. We need to reinvent our education system.
This 21st century needs the people who are useful, not just employable. Companies and the government departments/agencies are becoming flexible and agile by concentrating on their core activities and outsourcing the rest. It is like building up a web site where you put up what you can do the best and for the rest, you provide links. Organizations are in demand of specialized partners who are open in their fields and are able t collaborate and co-create innovative outcomes.
Today, work whether you are in a company as an employee or outside as a self-employed, demands more creativity and mastery than traditional jobs. Just, getting yourself fit in the company environment and, delivering incremental improvements year by year are no longer enough. A study shows that more than half of the employees working in UK Companies are not traditional employees. This trend is going to continue all over the world.
In the past, a mere degree from a reputed college was likely to guarantee life long success. Now this has become an entry permit only, not a green card. Professionals and managers must put up challenges constantly before their subordinate to deliver more and more with less and less costs. They too are themselves required to ensure better results. They are required to keep themselves responsible not only for the outputs but outcomes also.
We need to recognize that in spite of tremendous industrial development the world over, still major portion of the labour comes from agricultural sector. We need to empower them, to enable them to reinvent their working methods by inspiring them to carry out self-teaching so that they may try to come out of their comfort zones. For them, we need to make the rural economy as self sustaining by creating a complex of having many interdependent units to take up the raw materials and convert them into value added products.
Secondly, educational and research institution need to focus on creating and supporting designers and innovators for appropriate technologies and energy sources. The focus needs to be shifted from giving degrees to making them technically sound entrepreneurs.
Thirdly, we need to reorient our banking system to identify the entrepreneurship amongst the promising persons and employers to provide on-job training to those employees who are committed to innovation and creation of new methods of working. Banking system can promote local front end organizations to providing financial, accounting, costing and other logistical support to small business and their coordination with the large scale industries.
Since this century is likely to see massive shift in the nature of corporations and the work culture world over, we will have to forget the industrial age in which our seniors spent their life with dull working environment. Today, the work force may like to enjoy working. That is possible only when we reinvent our work and make it possible enjoyable for all. We will have to re-fix up our priorities – our duties to our family, our society and our own economic needs must be classified and dealt with accordingly. We must redefine for what purpose we are working and what should be done to accomplish our dreams without hurting others too.
Be Happy – Reinvent your work.
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