In our employee journey, we have heard numerous times, employees ask, “what do you want from me?” Meaning, they are doing everything they can within the experience level that they have to be an effective team member. So, what is that staff member missing and why does leadership keep asking an employee to do more.
Often, leadership has not explained that they want an employee to do more and be flexible in the job role that they hold. A lot of staff today, especially ones with less than 5 years of experience are just concentrating on what they know. Their vision of flexibility just isn’t there yet. Leadership and managers through the growth at a company have learned to adapt and complete job roles or tasks well beyond the comprehension level needed at the time. However, someone above them at the time would have needed to have a little patience and the ability to allow them to stretch themselves to learn. Learning takes time and the ability to make mistakes to get to flexibility.
With such a competitive market in the economy today, businesses need to be flexible in what they offer as a product/service. There are two strategies that businesses will discuss on a high level and they are Red Ocean and Blue Ocean Strategies. In the red, you continue to fight it out with your competitors and in blue, you design another level of service that your competitors are not doing yet or could do ever. The main thing being is to change up what you do while staying in your lane to offer a more flexible business for the owners and employees of a company. However, just because you are a flexible business, does that mean you have the tools and resources in house to handle flexing to demand. There are multiple questions, such as;
Businesses can change all they want, but with the change, that requires all stakeholders to be prepared for things to come. Don’t just think that you can change, and everyone will follow along just because. The business will need to communicate furiously so that everyone stays where they need to be.
We will use Earth Moving or Civil Contracting as an example here because of our experience in the business itself. If you have a project manager/estimator that has been doing this job for over 10 years and one day the owner decides to come in and ask them to move into a VP role or move into a Sales Position. The owner cannot have an unrealistic idea that this person will adapt in a matter of days or weeks. Yes, some can, but very few. The odds are not in your favour that the transition will be seamless. Here are some things that we recommend having flexibility in your job;
As a valuable member of the business you work for, and the economy changing, what are you doing to become more valuable and flexible? Are you the staff member that is looking to always be doing the same thing, don’t want to change, or take on more learning courses? You have a high possibility of suffering in the new economy. The truth of the matter is, people are not sure where the new economy will lead us, but we will need to have the ability to change and adapt as staff. Here are some suggestions to help;
We believe that the same job role, the same person is going away from the marketplace at a rapid rate. You are going to need to adapt.
To summarize the blog, what is everyone at your company doing to adapt to the new economy? The need to be flexible will help you in the long run. Learn to adapt, learn what your customer wants now, communicate with your staff on the direction the company is moving.
Whenever your company needs assistance in developing flexibility amongst its stakeholders, feel free to reach out to Future to Now Consulting and let us know how we can help.
