New Telegraph-Admin 
The structure of workforce and work itself continues to go through an evolution that we are struggling to deal with to- day. While change is not strange or new, the magnitude and speed of current evolution and changes are probably not comparable to what has been seen before.
The speed of change differs by industry and geography, yet work and career as we know it has vigorously evolved, and the evolution isn’t stopping anytime soon. It is, therefore, important to build resilience into our career plans, not to stem it from the winds of change, but to have a solid anchor that keeps it springing upwards after every turbulence.
Both organisations and individual employees need to pay close attention to the concepts of building career resilience through planning and management in order to retain, motivate talent, and also ensure both business and career continuity.
Resilience is not synonymous with a denial or absence of storms. It is not standing still like the statue of liberty or the Victoria memorial that stands through every weather, including day and night, without taking a duck from the elements.
Resilience is a capacity for responsiveness to the vagaries of environment and change, but coming back to stand firmly after every duck. Business and career struggles are inevitable. It must come at some point and in different shapes and sizes. However, just like thunderstorms, they are temporary noise and flashes that come and go. Most successful organisations under- stand that excelling at managing employee career and growth is a precursor to business growth and expansion.
They understand and emphasise this in their culture that while employees are primarily responsible for career management, organisations have a critical role to play in the career planning and development mix for business continuity purposes. Such organisations provide various resources to support careers, such as development opportunities, coaching and mentoring, and also empowering and training managers on how to coach and hand-hold their employees in navigating the various paths of their careers.
Resilience is not synonymous with a denial or absence of storms
Whatever amount of support and opportunities that an organisation can offer will not matter if not gracefully embraced and optimised. Building career resilience starts and stops with the individual career owner. It comes with a huge mixed bag of luck and sacrifices.
Luck here is defined as those extra efforts at self-development and value creation, the extra push to extremes to get ahead and get better, the letting go of those holdbacks and lazy habits, and the courage not to just lay back and watch things take to chances.
Resilience comes with a deliberate, focused, and responsive approach to endure the pains that come with growth. While we all pay attention to the sprouting, flourishing of the giant oak tree that can withstand every wild storm of the rainforests, such an oak must have spent years growing deep roots, hidden from the eyes, which now symbolise its strength, endurance, and longevity in the forests.
No doubt, building with resilience in mind is not a kid-glove affair. The ingredients include empathy, reliability, competency, integrity, and vulnerability. It is a high-priced stake. Empathy is the starting point here. You must develop a personal drive and courage for the long haul. While empathy opens the gateway into resilience, the other components keep you on the journey. Let us attempt to make this a little simpler and more relatable.
A major challenge to building with resilience in mind is how to balance current career needs and expectations simultaneously with future-proofing a new skill set and competencies for tomorrow. It is a set of habits that one must understand, find, and grow to achieve the desired result. Here are five pillars – CLARC, to keep on the dashboard in building career resilience.
Continuity: Always think of continuity in career path and journey. Your journey needs not be a marathon, but some different sprints and dash races. But make sure you keep moving and going. Long-term: When you think long-term, you prepare mentally and otherwise to take on various vicissitudes of the journey. Nothing surpasses longterm planning and thinking mindsets.
Accountability: When a ship sets sail and leaves the dock, the captain has only one thing in mind – Mis- sion. Forgetting every turbulence the waters may throw at the sail, the most important thing now is assuming account- ability for the safety and success of the mission. Resilience comes with a strong sense of accountabil- ity and monitoring progress. Resources: There is often a world of resources available to us for any kind of journey.
Some- times we know and utilise such resources; but often, they are never used or optimised. Make efforts to identify available resources both within and outside. They are always there in abundance – recognise and allocate their use. Challenge: The reason most business and career journeys are truncated is that someone did not accept the challenge to step out, or they got into the sail and stopped sailing.
These may be as a result of various factors and assumptions. Unfortunately, most assumptions are bubbles. Oladapo Akinloye contributes this piece from FasTrack Academy. We are a one-stop knowledge management and skills development Centre. We help individuals and organisations build the required capabilities to position them for the needs of an ever-changing business world and to optimise their career goals and productivity.
