Have you heard someone around you say, “I have been stuck in this position, and the only way is quitting the company?”?
In a fast-paced world like today’s reality, waiting for things to happen is more than devastating and demoralizes you and the people around you. Maybe you have been in this situation. Or someone closer to you has asked you for help and advice on how to exit this unpleasant situation. And you didn’t know how to proceed because too many things were at stake. However, this undesirable situation has its solution. There is no need to wait until there is “no other way than to quit.”. I don’t say that you may always need to quit, but knowing things in advance and recognizing signs that your career is not moving in the direction you want to see it can create space for you to act accordingly and change that without losing precious time. So here is my list of six watch-outs for you:
Neither your responsibilities nor your title has advanced for at least three years.
Let’s be honest. Not everyone wants to move forward. Many people feel great where they are at the moment or have been in the last three, five, ten, or more years. But this is not the case with some of us. There is this group of people who strive to move forward. They create their future by writing a plan and sticking to it until it is successful. The ultimate goal may be far in the future, but plenty of steps may assure you that you are walking the right path. Moving forward is one of the things that shows our progress. This may mean different things. The simplest one is a shift in your responsibilities. Checking this is easy. Just write on a whiteboard(a piece of paper, text writing software, etc.) your responsibilities when you started and how they look now. Did you find any change? If NO, then you are stuck in your role. And the same goes for the name of the position. Keeping the same set of responsibilities, that desire for the same set of capabilities, and just changing the title of your role is another sign that nothing is happening with you and that your employer is just blinding you.
Your asks are getting turned down.
You go to ask for a raise, a change in responsibilities, a new role, or a shift in the current position, and there is no positive answer. Employers who value great talent don’t miss opportunities to offer their brightest talents new roles. Leadership teams know that while contribution in the current position of a promising talent may be positive for the company, a new role or set of responsibilities will create a much more significant impact in the long run. Now imagine you perceive yourself as a talent, able to deliver outstanding results. At the same time, when you go to your direct leader, all your requests are turned down. Everything you think is a good idea is considered a risk or unimportant. “It is not the moment for that” – you will hear, or something similar. This happens once – well, maybe things are not so grey as I describe them. But get back in time and look at how many of your proposals you got YES and how many have been turned down. If the second group is larger than the first one, be careful and think about how to change that.
You lack momentum and aren’t hitting your objectives.
People constantly turned down or labeled as average performers with no intent to be further developed start feeling exhausted at one moment. All their objectives start looking the same, are hard to finish, and results turn from a clear goal to a delusion. And if that continues for more than three months, then there it is – you are starting to move back the road and get into the swamp of the average mass. Of course, there are challenging moments for everyone, and we have periods where we feel hopeless and have no power to start something meaningful and new. Still, if these moments become constant for a time, our brain tells us that we have to wake up and find out why we are not moving. In most cases, finding those reasons is enough to start a change process, but even if some obstacles don’t allow us to change, we may need to identify them. Only after that can we start thinking of the best strategy to deal with that “moment.”
Your pay has moved less than 10% over five years.
No matter the years of experience and all the changes in the company, good performance is always rewarded. Many people say that levels of remuneration changes are proportional to the expenses, but companies look at them as cumulative raises. Now, imagine you get a stable percentage over five years. It seems the same, but the basis has changed over the years. So, you have received more than what you see as an initial percentage. Now, turn back five years and compare what you accept to what was in the beginning. Is it more than 10%? Then you are good to go. But if you don’t see such a raise and are sticking to almost the same amount of money as at the beginning of the five years, you have to think about what has happened to you. This sign is a wake-up call that something has gone wrong. People with fluctuating performance often get a raise to see that they are moving in a direction. At the same time, this raise is significantly lower than that of the good and best performers. So, it is time for you to revise.
You don’t have at least three levels of advocates.
People often start with the thinking pattern of how inappropriate it is to ask for help from senior leaders in the department and the company. The truth is that those who grow are known and have connections across company leadership layers that can advocate for them. That may be the manager of your current manager, a leader leading another department, the HR Business Partner responsible for your department, or even the CEO. No matter the network of career supporters, you need them to advocate for you when a change is considered and people are identified to contribute. Your advocates and connections must work for you. It is one thing to know everyone on your level, but building relations on the higher leadership layers in the company is the thing that helps your career. There is no problem if you are inexperienced and don’t know how to build your network of advocates. The scaring part for you is when you are experienced and don’t want to start creating your network. That positions you as a specialist or expert who won’t grow and will stick on the level and in their current role. So, it is not them but you who must act if you want to advance your career.
Your performance appraisals have multiple below-average ratings each year.
Let’s be honest; we first take it personally when we say low ratings in our appraisal. But after the emotion is calmed down, we can see the check. Now turn back in time and see if you were a stable and trusted performer or have been seen as someone who always has to work a little bit more next year to answer the demands of the company standards set. Getting to know your areas for development and accepting them as they come in the feedback addressed to you may help with a career change or help you fix your blind spot before that feedback. Having one development area is good; no one is perfect, even those seen as top performers and great talents. But when you constantly see multiple sites for development gravitating, then you must sit back and reevaluate your situation and personality. Minimizing the average ratings and turning development areas into strengths are good starting points to turn the direction of your career.
IN CONCLUSION:
We live in dynamic times. Getting off the company’s structured path is not a rare situation. But we can only identify where we are and decide whether to change that or continue living with it. Signs are always in front of us. Learning to recognize them is a skill everyone who wants to move forward in their career must master. Now, are you stuck or moving forward?…Think again.
The Human place - a path from you to yourself 