Your Employer Won't Save You

Welcome to The Shift, a weekly newsletter where I provide thought-provoking ideas to help you think differently about your career and money.

Professionally Trapped

I read a shocking stat the other day.

75% of the workforce feels trapped in their jobs or professions!¹ At first, I couldn’t believe that. Then, I took a minute to look around… it’s probably fair to say we all have plenty of friends, colleagues and family members that feel this way. Am I right?

The tug of war between employer and employee is nothing new. Lately, it’s why most people (83% to be exact) are itching to make a career change in the next year.

Maybe the pandemic was the tipping point for us. Maybe the change was 15+ years in the making (which is what I believe, and I can’t wait to write about it, but that is a topic for another date 😊).

Either way, we’ve got a problem. We want change but we feel stuck.

Telling Lies

Change is a funny thing. It is easy to want, but very hard to take the leap. Feeling trapped or stuck is really just one excuse we use to avoid doing something different.

Usually the inner dialogue about change starts out by telling ourselves we don’t know “how.”

If you force people to explain their thinking beyond that surface level, you usually find excuses like these ones:

I know I’ve used a few of these myself! Making excuses is an easy out. So why don’t we make the change we know we need?

The most real reason people like us don’t take the leap? Well, it’s usually because the job is tolerable enough. What?!

Most people have to be miserable, like uncomfortably miserable, to dive into change. We all know change is hard and sadly it does not guarantee success. That means there is some level of risk you have to accept to change your career.

That all seems to make sense, but I think there is more to avoiding change than dodging risk. You’re not just avoiding risk; you’re missing out on the reward. That sorta implies that you believe you can achieve enough of a reward (career advancement in this case) where you are.

If you think I sound crazy, you’re not alone.

Subconscious Savior: Employers

You see the last excuse on the list in the box above? People think they can’t succeed in making a career change because they don’t have the internal support to receive a promotion, or for the training to learn the skills necessary to get to the next level. 85% of workers aren’t satisfied with their employer’s support of their career.¹

OK. If that is true, then those employees should have their resume ready to roll!

But they don’t. More than 25% of 35-44 year olds have tenure of five to nine years with their companies.² Longer than any other age range.

Experienced workers don’t want to leave their current employer. Remember, we talked about how hard change is. 😊 These employees are holding on to hope. A hope that the training will come, the mentorship will appear, or a bigger bonus will offer a commitment to the employee’s future. They may have good reason to hope given some of the employee benefit programs that have been created in the last couple of years in response to the louder cry for assistance in balancing work with life.

Still, what’s the saying? Hope is not a plan?

Not Your Parents’ Employer

Look, most of us know it’s up to us to facilitate change in our careers. We even know there are countless resources available for no, or low cost to help us. It is still easy to fall back on the belief that if we are loyal and we work hard our employer will take care of us.

That was true in our grandparents’ generation, and maybe our parents’ generation. The world has changed rapidly since then.

I believe we’re entering an era where the individual wants to regain control of their lives, including their careers.

Let’s make The Shift!

Lindsey

1. Oracle Workplace Intelligence 2021 AI@Work Study, October 2021.

2. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employee Tenure in 2022, released September 2022.