Self-powered Careerist? Is this another new fancy term to which we now need to become accustomed? Yes – if you are looking for selecting top performers for your organisation!

Are you looking for people who:

• Take responsibility,
• Have learning agility,
• Are explorative and innovative,
• Are “big picture” minded, and
• Enjoy taking on new challenges?

Then you are looking for Self-powered Careerists. People who understand the changes that are affecting every facet of the organisations, and understand what they need to do maximise the opportunities of the changes – and do it!

So, what then is a “self-powered careerist”? Research undertaken by Career Systems Inc has identified 5 critical attitudes typically found in Self-powered Careerists. These are:

1. They step up and take responsibility for what they want and what is needed and don’t blame the “system” for what goes wrong.
2. They are “talent rich” – they have a potpourri of skills and abilities and know instinctively of new talents necessary and go about developing them.
3. They are inquisitive, they ask questions, and they understand the learning needed to power both themselves and the organisation.
4. They don’t see just their aspect of the organisation. They see the “bigger picture” and understand it and know their contribution.
5. They put up their hand when challenging situations arise and are not afraid to take a calculated risk.

But there’s a quid pro quo. Self-powered Careerists need an environment that allows them to be “self-powered”. They need an environment that:

• Has a clearly defined career lattice throughout the organization with no limitations or restrictions,
• Facilitates career conversations and enables people to achieve their goals through achieving organizational goals,
• Allows people to work in areas that taps into their passion, strengths and personal goals,
• Enables people to build a “personal brand” and market that brand as an asset to the organization,
• Creates career opportunities that makes peoples work and lives in the organization a truly win-win situation, and
• Provides the necessary work environment and tools that enable people to perform at their best.

It is up to managers to create this environment and this in turn would ensure:

• Improved productivity,
• A more innovative organization,
• A more engaged workforce, and
• Better retention of critical skills.

That sounds like a “win-win” to us. How about you?

If you would like to create a career lattice for your organization or know more about creating an “engaged” workforce, call us.

What do IT people want when it comes to job satisfaction, motivation and engagement?  A question that is often in the minds of HR people who have this responsibility in organisations.

IT people are “different” – and always have been.  Firstly, to be successful in IT one needs to be both left brained (analytical – creating the whole from the detail) and right brained (creative – going from the whole to the detail).  The work environment and how they are managed needs to take this into consideration and create environments and opportunities where both sides of the brain are “exercised”.

Secondly, IT people are in short-supply – globally.  Especially “good” IT people.   And fewer people are studying IT at universities, despite increasing demand for IT skills.  This means that IT skills are a “scarce resource” and this needs to be managed within the organisation following standard “supply and demand” rules.

We hope, with your contribution, to study this further and, perhaps, come up with some really useful ideas on managing IT people.

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