Change your deliverables as you gain more work experience
Is your approach to work, productivity, and output changing with the years on the job?
If it is not, it should.
As we accrue years of work experience, expectations on output & proficiency which we demonstrate changes. What is expected of someone with 25 years of experience is different from someone who is 10 years into the job which in turn is different from someone who has been working just 2 years.
Young employees – The potential worker.
Organizations recruit young employees as the workers and leaders for the future – i.e. the potential worker.
First, they bring new ideas, the thinking of their generation and peers. These can be especially relevant to CPG and B2C companies looking to acquire customers in that age group.
Second, this is a pool which can be groomed and grown to be productive workers in the future.
Finally, they bring energy, adaptability, and low encumbrance, allowing them to take on tasks which colleagues with more commitments may be less inclined to.
If you are a young professional in an organization, this is what is expected of you. Demonstrate insight into your generation and how your organization can engage them as customers or employees. Be am active learner, show enthusiasm & adaptability to take on tasks with stretch schedules and oftentimes assigned with little prior notice.
While you do this, keep in mind that while you have been recruited for youth, the clock is ticking and with each tick, you are becoming less youthful and more tenured. The expectations from you will change.
While demonstrating energy/adaptability and enthusiasm; invest in building a relevant skill and specialization in a technology, market, or process which will deliver value in the next stage of your career.
Experienced employee – The productive worker
Experienced employees, whether grown from within or recruited as lateral hires are expected to be the productive workers and mentors
As the productive worker, you are first expected to deliver results and ensure that they are delivered efficiently.
Deliver results – Since you are the experienced professional, the primary expectation is that you know the task is done and will deliver results. The salesperson expected to hit quota’s consistently, the doctor to remedy, the customer care agent to ensure client delight, the accountant to ensure that books are in order. You are the backbone of today’s success in any enterprise.
Ensure efficiency – Efficiency is the other facet of productivity. As the experienced worker you are expected to deliver more with the same time & resource. You are after all the one who has tenure in the trade, has seen different situations and hence can ensure results most efficiently.
Finally, be a mentor – Since you deliver results & efficiently, who better to groom the younger members in your function? While running hard to be the performer delivering today’s results, you are also most likely to be entrusted with building the teams for tomorrow – coaching, mentoring and making other team members productive.
Tenured employee – The insightful worker
Your tenure may have come from working in the same firm, industry or trade for many years. You have seen business cycles, observed different ways of addressing opportunities and challenges, and where processes and systems are facilitative and where not.
The value which you can most bring to your organization is insight.
From the years of experience, highlight what works well and what needs to change to make it work better. Point the organization to opportunities which its resources are best deployed after.
As a career salesperson, marshal organization effort towards opportunities and approaches which will ensure a high percentage of success, or new markets. In the supply chain identify how resources can be made available most efficiently and rapidly. In corporate roles like accounting or human resources implement processes which are contemporary and facilitate organizational goals.
The day to day operations are being run by the mid-career employees. That is their role. You bring tenure in your role and hence experience and insight.
Your role is that of an agent for change – to make things better.
In closing
At different levels of experience, the outcomes expected from you change.
As a young potential employee you were recruited for energy, adaptability, and insight into your generation. With experience, the ask will be to be the productive worker & mentor who delivers outcomes consistently and efficiently while grooming teams. As you become a tenured employee you are expected to make things better – more productive, efficient.
Continuing to do the same and in the same manner can lead to stagnation and redundancy.
Remember, there is a younger, more energetic, hungrier, and perhaps lower cost worker who can deliver what you are delivering. If you don’t more up, you will most likely move out.
Drive yourself towards your new deliverables commensurate with your experience & tenure. This is a lynchpin of professional growth & success.
Keep swinging!
