The month of March is ridden with audits and tax filings and budgets. It helps organizations analyze their performance in the year gone by and set targets/goals for the next year. Some organizations also shut certain parts of their business and develop newer avenues which look promising. Employees, on the other hand, get appraised every year (in some cases quarterly or half-yearly too) where their performance in the previous year is assessed and a growth plan for the next year is laid down. However, most professionals miss a simple trick – they don’t sit down and audit their career balance sheet themselves.
What is a career balance sheet?
The appraisal done by your organization assesses your performance vis-à-vis the expectations from your role. However, there needs to be a mechanism in place that helps you understand how far you have succeeded in achieving your career objectives. A promotion can’t possibly be the sole objective of your career.
A few years back, when I was working as a HR Manager, the Regional Sales Manager (RSM) of my organization had an interesting problem. She had offered a promotion to one of the Sales Executives but he had denied the promotion and had requested for a department transfer instead. He wanted to work in Operations. The RSM didn’t want to offer the transfer since he was good at his job and asked for the HR’s intervention. After speaking to the sales executive, I realized that he was working according to a career plan. He had decided to work in sales for a couple of years to understand how business is being sourced so that he can be an effective operations’ professional. We managed to convince the RSM and give him the transfer. He heads Operations for the Asia-Pacific region today.
We all start with a career plan but somehow we lose the focus along the way. If we were to sit down at the end of every financial year and look at where we stand professionally and create professional goals and objectives for the next year, we would have a more satisfied career. This is what I like to call the Annual Career Balance Sheet.
Is it really necessary?
When we start working after finishing our education, we have certain goals in mind. As we grow and evolve, these goals keep changing. If we do not have a mechanism to ensure that our efforts are made in a focused manner, then we end up taking jobs that we don’t like or roles that don’t bring out the best in us. This eventually leads to stress and the proverbial mid-life crisis.
By analyzing our progress every year, we can certainly avoid the ‘I HATE MY JOB SYNDROME’ that engulfs more than half the working community. Also, such an analysis can help us understand if the role that we are currently in is working towards achieving our career goals or taking us away from them.
In a nutshell, it is absolutely necessary that you audit your career balance sheet every year.
At Change Ur Story, we realize that many professionals go through their entire career without sitting down and analyzing their journey. They are also unaware of their changed career goals and go through their professional lives mechanically. We urge such professional to DISCOVER themselves and make it a habit to continuously assess their progress. Our Discovery Sessions, are targeted towards enabling people audit their annual career balance sheets and achieve growth, satisfaction and happiness. Drop us a line and let’s get your balance sheet ready!
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