November 2012 - The Career Navigator

Networking for career success is about how big and supportive your professional network is. Do you know enough people who might be able and willing to help you succeed or change if required?

Being able to connect on a personal basis building strong relationships with relevant people is still a core skill of successful professionals. After all, networking for career success is not about the number of connections on Linked in or Facebook, it’s about the quality and accessibility of your contacts!

One way of building your professional network is by attending organized networking events.

While thinking about networking for career success I identified 14 factors which have helped me to become a more proficient and effective networker. It all starts with Continue reading “14 Elements Of Networking For Career Success”

This blog post is actually an addition to the last one in which I already encouraged you to explore your basic desires at work – aka your personal needs.

When I recently read Richard P. Finnegan’s “Rethinking Retention in Good Times and Bad“, I felt reassured that personal needs and desires are really important to drive our career satisfaction. Finnegan creates a link between Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and the work environments where employees will stick rather than leave. He argues that the needs in the middle of the pyramid play the biggest role in this context.

The Basic Desires for Work are

Safety – The need to be free from the effect of physical or emotional harm
Social – The need to interact with others
Esteem – The need to feel important

Later, he gives some examples of how first line managers as well as senior leaders can increase talent retention by consistently fulfilling those basic needs of their employees.

However, when I read this, I suddenly also recalled the famous “Gallup Q12“. Back in 2006, the Gallup Institute published a list of 12 statements. According to their research of more than 30 years these statements allow companies to measure the actionable issues for their management in relation to topics like satisfaction, loyalty, pride, engagement, and so on.

In other words, if they score low on these statements, they’re in trouble! Continue reading “Basic Desires At Work”