HOW TO STAY RELEVANT AS A PROFESSIONAL IN THE WORK PLACE
THE TRUTH IS THE WORLD IS CONTINUOUSLY EVOLVING. The choice is for you to make: whether to go the way of the dinosaurs or change with the times. Technology has made life for the career man and woman easier as well as harder. To be successful as a career man/woman in this age you have to keep pace with technology.
Staying relevant, no matter what your pursuit in life is, has always been part of success stories. Relevance in your field requires a combination of hard skills needed to get your job done and soft skills like general knowledge and communication savvy (the equation is that simple). As part of the ever teeming global workforce we have to keep up with more skills than ever before.
As already implied in this text a number of times, skills that were assets to employees and companies alike a couple of years ago are no longer relevant. We find young employees with little experience taking higher positions and bigger roles in a company where we have employees with years of experience under their belt. This is the case because these “dinosaurs” are comfortable in going around completing circles while the world and these young employees are changing, moving with time.
NEVER FORGET THIS: THE WORLD IS EVOLVING. THERE ARE NEWER AND BETTER WAYS TO DO WHAT YOU DO. TECHNOLOGY MAKES YOUR WAY EXPENSIVE AND INEFFICIENT. BEING RELEVANT IS THE WAY TO KEEP THAT JOB.
The remaining part of this text will present to you six ways of staying relevant professionally:
- Like it is generally said in my circle “your network is your net-worth”. A strong network is tantamount to money in the bank if not even more valuable; it connects you with influencers, and open doors of opportunities. But do not get soaked up with people from your “generation”, build and maintain a network across generations. Never assume you do not have any business with coworkers who do not fall within your age bracket. The truth is keeping a network comprising of people from various age brackets will help you in communicating with a wider variety of people, hence, opening your eyes to different perspectives of seeing things and opportunities.
WORD ON MARBLE: LEARN THE SKILLS AND ATTITUDES OF THOSE WHO ARE AHEAD OF YOU; KEEP ABREAST WITH THE SKILLS AND TRENDS OF YOUNGER EMPLOYEES.
- Like someone rightly said: truth is constant but knowledge is progressive. No matter your field, no matter your profession make it your job to always learn to continuously learn. Mind you, it is professionally worthless as a nurse to learn how interpret trends and regression results. Staying abreast with information or trends that will not make you any more relevant is worthless (Permit me to say, it is as useless as “ay” in “okay”). As a professional you have to stay curious, get in touch with materials, attend conferences and networking events that will help improve your relevance as a professional.
- In the workplace this is necessary: tell the world what you have done well and where you have added value. This is not you been arrogant, rather it is you announcing your relevance. Mind you, this has to be done in a subtle way, better put, let our works speak for themselves.
- Finally and most importantly make relevance a priority.