Never before has self-development and personal training been more crucial than it is today.
In an age where job-hopping is no longer frowned upon, as employees take on new roles and join new companies to find the one that suits them best, employers have slowly begun to stop investing in developing individual workers who may leave before a return on learning is realised.
Therefore, adopting strategies yourself that can accelerate your career can provide employees with the best possible option to get ahead and achieve more.
He went on to reveal his top three strategies to help employees assume control of their development and accelerate their career:
Put strategy first
With statistics stating that one-third of employees report that their bosses don’t assist with career development, Wingard believes that the onus should fall on to workers to be proactive and work towards a strategy to improve their own skill-set. They should prioritise ways in which they can gain more experience, attain marketable skills and build a group of supporters.
One way to enhance this is to find a mentor. This doesn’t necessarily have to be a senior leader and could be a co-worker or a junior colleague. As long as the mentor has teachable skills that can accelerate your career, mentor-ship can make a huge difference to the future of your role at work.
Be your own ‘Chief Marketing Officer’
Wingard advised that today’s workers must become their own ‘Chief Marketing Officer’ and therefore should be analysing, refining and improving the way that they appear in the job market. One of the quickest ways he suggested is to embrace education to improve oneself.
These could be in the form of free webinars that inform users of the latest techniques within business, or you could choose to invest some more and take on an online course or attend weekend workshops to expand your skill-set.
Get feedback
While feedback can be both positive and negative, it is all constructive and can help to grow your career. Therefore, it’s essential you regularly ask for feedback. Wingard noted that discovering strengths and weaknesses in soft skills is the first step all employees should take when trying to accelerate their career, and the best way to do that is by asking for feedback.
Ensure you regularly reach out to your peers and line manager to see what you could improve on, while also finding out what you’re excelling at to provide yourself with a benchmark. This will ultimately steer you in the right direction and provide structure to your career goals.