Keep Your Jobs for a longer duration

It took me years to comprehend and digest a few questions that always made me uncomfortable during my professional career:

1. Why people function so differently in the corporate world?
2. How people can spend their whole life in the same organisation and get retired thereafter. Isn’t it boring?
3. Are such peoole any lesser competent, lazy or contented?

On the other hand, I found that when it comes to people skills, particularly networking, leveraging and influence, my value system was very different to the one I was thrown into. If someone happens to be unhappy with his/her job and s/he is surrounded by the fears of the joblessness under the given market situation, before tendering resignations, they should take a look at these tips on how to keep their jobs and still hunt for better opportunities.

1. We’re as Good as our Last Appraisal

I’m not kidding. We’re as good as our last performance review. Even if we’re top performers for 5 years in a row, if for whatever reason we did not manage to get a top rating this year, we’re doomed. And to play the rating game is like being in a war zone; it’s a blood bath out there. All companies are not the same. A few get concerned as what has went wrong and where and they start working closely with such employees.

We may think that in our amazing company, they really sit down and evaluate all our results, compare them with our peers, iron out the differences in work plan and workload and give us a fair assessment on where we stand. If we go to work thinking that at the end of the year, this is how evaluation will be done, we are in for a huge setback. So, the message here is to stay consistent if we’ve performed well over time.

2. People are Nice to Us Only …

Is that true that people behave nicely to us only when we are influential or when they need us? Once the need or influence changes, so does their behavior. Some people who become our best friends over time as we work with them day in and day out for years, would not even stop saying “hi” as soon as our role changes?

As if that wasn’t enough to shock the living hell out of us, more time passes, and before we know it they’re back on our team, with a bang, having the audacity to become our best friends again. This is nothing else but serving their self-interest. I’ve experienced this twice and I’m still baffled as to how people can manage such extreme level of fakeness. Maybe they think I suffer from a memory loss?

3. Promotions = Performance or Perception?

Promotions are made on performance or perceptions? What does that even mean? At best they are linked to the perception of our performance. We all view things with our own perceptive lens — my map of the world could be drastically different to anyone else based on my values, beliefs, experiences, culture and communication. People including our bosses judge us for the impression we leave at our workplace, the way we network and the people we hang out with during working hours and beyond.

When we are working in a diverse, multi-ethnic organisation where people come from all sorts of cultures and backgrounds, the way each person views the world, filters information, processes it and then makes meaning out of it could differ significantly. Perception is reality. It is imperative that we portray the right perception of our work and results to the decision makers who matter and will decide on our promotion.

4. Mistakes are forgiven for Superstars :(

That’s quite a big one. I have had the privilege to make some lethal mistakes at one of my previous workplaces that could have ensured my immediate departure from the company, but they were overlooked because I was a blue eyed and was delivering results as per my management’s “so-called” expectations and probably everyone around was also happy with me. But that too didn’t last forever.

Yet, at the same time, I’ve also seen cases when the bosses were found just fishing for employees’ mistakes to be committed so they can say goodbye to them. The key is to be diligent and cautious all the time, especially when employees are are not performing as per expected because even the slightest issue can get us into trouble.

5. Gaining Experience vs. Getting Rusty

We must always remember that there’s a fine line between gaining experience and getting rusty in our careers. Let’s know when to draw that line. Otherwise, we will be left behind. Sometimes we think that we have 10+ years of experience in our existing job role, how about taking a chance to attract the competition for a similar or a better role out there?

Well, let’s think again! In those 10 years, what have we done? Didn’t we do pretty much the same things over and over again, working with almost the same people and haven’t delivered results that could be quoted as slam dunks. Why would anyone be interested in me as compared to this other guy who has worked in 3 different organisations, with newer educaiton, has rolled up his/her sleeves to deliver on the unique roles offered, all while building his/her skill set and led the diverse multi-cultural teams to achieve stellar results. The lesson here: Don’t get rusty. Don’t gather dust on the shelf. Know the difference.

Wrap Up

I’ve seen firsthand that there is a bias against people who job hop. This issue probably exists in the traditional and / or old-fashioned companies where safety net is a real issue. People are either under qualified or under skilled or YES Men. For such employers, if someone doesn’t stay longer with them, it might lack stickability and loyalty.

If we have been in a role for five years and have not gotten a raise or a promotion, we should probably start to hunt a job because the company is overlooking our contributions rather than rewarding us for them. One of the comments I get over and over again from unemployed job seekers is to do whatever they can to keep the job they have unless they’re ready to move on and have a new job lined up.

About the Author

Muhammad Sajwani is a C-Level HR, Transformation Leader, Board Advisor, Business Coach & Organisational Consultant working in the capacity of Managing Director, Evolve HR. He is an author, columnist and a contributor who besides writing for other platforms also regularly writes at BizCatalyst 360. He brings along 30+ years of local & international experience. He is a change catalyst specializing in unleashing the human Dreamgenius through Leadership, Creativity and Change Management. Muhammad has been instrumental in helping organizations come to terms with organizational changes like right-sizing and business process re-engineering. His innovative approach & high personal competence encourages people to not only accept change, but also to excel in it. Muhammad has diverse experience in conducting strategic & management development programs, conferences & events for organizations across sectors.