Job security has become something that workers have to build themselves rather than expect from employers
Dr Paula Caligiuri is the author of the book titled Get A Life, Not A Job: Do What You Love and Let Your Talents Work For You. A work psychologist, Dr Caligiuri is also CNN career expert, professor in human resource management at Rutgers University, and career counsellor. Here are some interesting and useful highlights from the book:
Dr Caligiuri provides evidence that the old ‘psychological contract’ between organisations and employees is gone forever. This means employees are on their own to create any type of employment security.
Because job security has become something that workers have to build themselves rather than expect from employers, Dr Caligiuri views it as extremely risky to put all your employment eggs in one basket by putting all your energy into one job. For instance, she notes that 80 per cent of the recently unemployed received less than three weeks advance warning, and among them, 60 per cent received no advance warning that they were about to be unemployed. Rather than have faith in ongoing employment from one organisation, she recommends instead multiple career acts.
Dr Caligiuri says that great career share five fundamental elements: (1) Self-awareness of talents, interests, hobbies, needs, motivators, and how you like to work; (2) Continuous self-development of knowledge, skills and abilities; (3) Unique and critical roles to increase your value to employers, clients, or customers; (4) Well-managed time, money, and human resources; and (5) Harmony among work, family, and personal life. She believes you are more likely to attain these elements if you pursue several career acts rather than one.
She gives several suggestions for how to choose and build career acts: (1) Leverage existing expertise or talents; (2) Expand a hobby, interest, or passion; (3) Pursue an occupation (but preferably not focusing solely on this); and/or (4) General sources of passive income such as royalties, affiliate marketing and rent.
Her inclusion of a discussion of career anchors are: Values or drivers that motivate people to seek and ultimately find satisfaction with work. She uses the model developed by Dr Edgar Schein. The eight career anchors are: (1) Technical or functional expertise, (2) Leadership or management of people, (3) Autonomy or independence, (4) Security or job stability, (5) Entrepreneurial creativity, (6) Service or dedication to a cause (7) Competitive challenge, and (8) Work and life balance. Align your work with your most important career anchors and career satisfaction is more likely to occur.
If you are going to take the gamble of limiting yourself to one job, Dr Caligiuri says, “Please be amazing, make it a career you love, and have a safety net.” The safety net is your uniqueness to the business and your centrality to employer, customers or clients.
Some additional Thoughts:
‘Get a life’ is sometimes used as a phrase to demean someone. If a person is feeling emotionally fragile because of difficult employment circumstances, this title might cause them to pass up this excellent book.
While Dr Caligiuri cautions against oven-working because of multiple career acts, anyone who keeps a full-time job while creating a side gig or who is juggling several part-time jobs will tell you that it can be exhausting. Multi-tasking is not the preferred state for most human brains. Other than mentioning sufficient sleep, exercise, good nutrition, and vacation time, readers have wished the book had expanded on more practical strategies to maintain psychological and physical health while simultaneously achieving across more than one domain.
Many of the ideas in this book require an entrepreneurial mindset and business savvy to succeed. However, a majority of families not only fail to teach entrepreneurship, they actively discourage it because they are stuck in an old school thinking that the only ‘good’ career is a linear one where you study something in school that directly leads to a practical job. For people interested in something different, family and educational systems have a long way to go to teach the necessary functional skills and psychological perspective needed to succeed.
As unemployment rates are high and job stability is low, creative approaches such as those offered by Dr Caligiuri are useful. Overall, this book is well-worth the small investment of purchase as it will likely spark ideas and for many readers, help them to weather economic storms. — Agencies
