When I left school, the three highly rated jobs for girls were to be a teacher, a nurse or a secretary. I became a teacher. It was a "good job", seen to have status, security and offered  good financial rewards. It was what they called in those days "a job for life". That was what success was about back then.

So you can imagine my parent's horror when eighteen months after qualification I left this "job for life" to take up a scholarship to study overseas. They were totally convinced that I was ruining my life. For me it was an opportunity too good to miss. This was the beginning of a whole series of professional and career decisions I have made that have not conformed to the professional rule book. Long term employment has never been something I have aspired to. Long term employability has been something that had driven and excited me.

This week Qantas, our national airline, grounded its entire fleet and brought the country to its knees over industrial action with its employees. One of the key issues of contention has been the demand from employees for job security in the face of Qantas's push to outsource jobs to Asia.

It raises the issue of "jobs for life" and whether companies can offer their employees long term employment anymore or whether all they can offer is long term employability.

This means that companies need a new and different type of work contract with their employees, one that honestly and transparently acknowledges that it can't provide long term job security but it can offer them opportunities to develop skills that will give them long term employability.

Each of us, however, as individual professionals and industry experts, needs to acknowledge this reality and its potential for challenge in our own lives. We need to take personal responsibility for securing our long term employability. Read more about how we can do that below.

How Secure Is Your Job?

Long Term Employment Versus Long Term Employability

Qantas, our national airline here in Australia, brought the country and its travelling public to their knees this week when it grounded all its planes over an industrial dispute. While I don't want to enter the debate about who is right and who is wrong here, in the midst of the turmoil this important question of long term employment versus long term employability emerged.

One of the major issues for the workers at Qantas is the guarantee of job security in the face of their jobs being outsourced to Asia. For the Qantas board and management it is being able to structure the company and its workforce for a sustainable economic future. Are the two compatible?

We all want and need to know that we have long term employment. Having it threatened creates great anxiety because it means our very lifestyle, dreams and potential future is in jeopardy. After all we live in Australia and we're the Lucky Country. Aren't we? Yes, we are, but we are also now part of a globalised, pluralist and highly technological society and what happens to us as a society - and an individual - is governed increasingly by forces and events way beyond Australia.

It's becoming increasingly apparent that organisations are no longer able

to offer their people long term employment.

So what does this all mean?

It means we need to shift our focus from long term employment to long term employability.  Companies need to be honest with their people about this, be transparent about this reality. This is a matter of trust between a company and its employees. Qantas, a company that Australia and its workers trusted maybe more than any other, seems to have lost that trust.

Ann Sherry, when she was CEO of Westpac, once said:

Trust starts inside a company.....Creating trust does not mean returning to the past. It doesn't mean that jobs will never disappear or change. That old paternalistic model is gone. But it does mean scrupulous honesty and clarity about the changing arrangements for employment. At Westpac we offer our people employment, but more importantly, we offer them long term employability. We try to help people flourish in their individual careers while delivering service and business outcomes for the company as a whole. It's a new contract, offering development and opportunity in place of ridigity and permanence.

We All Need To Focus On Our Long Term Employability.

What Does This Mean?

It means that

• you need to take much greater responsibility for your professional career and its development,

• you consciously set about developing and accumulating the skills that will ensure that you are very employable well into the future, that if you lose your job in one place you will be well-equipped and have all the skills you need to easily get another,

• you do not just leave it to your manager or your employing organisation to develop your skills,

• you need to be proactive in advancing your own career,

• you need to keep a focus on the big picture in your professional or industry group and know where it is going in the future and stay at the forefront of that,
  

• you need to ask questions and discover what skills you need to move forward,

• you need to seek out opportunities in your organisation to acquire those skills,

• if your organisation can't offer you those opportunities, that you proactively  find the organisation that can offer you work that will see you gain those skills.
  

Once, if you trained or gained experienced in one profession or industry, you stayed there for life. That is not the case today. Predictions are that children starting school today will have 7 or more career changes in their life-time. Many of those will be jobs that do not even exist today.

All of us need to embrace the change that is with us. That is very challenging for many of us. Organisations have a responsibility also to demonstrate the leadership that will equip their people for the kind of future they will face. Many mature workers in organisations are still lamenting the fact that Generation Y are not more like them. They do not understand them, nor do they have the Soft Skills to engage and channel the enormous talent and personal resources of these young people to create a sustainable future for both their organisation and the young person's career. This is all about long term employability.

Work/Life Balance In The 24/7 Workplace of Laptops, Smart Phones and Email

We are all familiar with the old adage: "No one on their death bed wishes they'd spent more time at the office." In these fast-moving times of change and complexity, however, that's exactly what we do - spend more time at the office as our workday knows no boundary.

The repercussions for our lives are damaged and broken relationships with our partners, children, families and friends, as well as stress and severe risks to our health and well-being. We too often live compromised lives as we feel pressured to give up what is most important to us, in favour of what our work demands of us.

All of this, so we say, is for better business oucomes and career development. Are we really more productive in this high-powered 24/7 workplace? 123 million days of job leave in Australia are presently stockpiled because employees cannot take time to relax and recharge.

How do we resolve this dilemma of work/life balance? 

Is it mission impossible or an ideal worth fighting for?

Invite Me To Conduct An In-House Workshop For You On This Topic.

Special Offer During November, December and January.

One and A Half Hour Workshop For $375.00 + GST

This discounted fee is all inclusive and includes notes, but is only available at this fee within the Melbourne/Geelong/Ballarat area triangle.  While I am willing to conduct it elsewhere, there would be additional costs.

Further Information, call me on 03 53332900 or email me at m.harris@peopleempowered.com.au

Copyright © People Empowered-Maree Harris 2011
All articles in the People Empowered newsletter by Maree Harris are copyright, but they can be reproduced as long as they include on the bottom the following short biography- "Maree Harris PhD. is the Director of People Empowered. She is a coach, consultant and facilitator of professional development, specialising in the development and enhancement of soft skills- http://www.peopleempowered.com.au "
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