Are you in a career rut? Do you wonder if there’s a better way to navigate your professional journey?
The concept of a nonlinear career path is gaining traction in today’s rapidly evolving work landscape. Gone are the days of climbing a predictable corporate ladder. Instead, modern professionals are embracing a more fluid approach to career development.
Keep reading to discover why this shift is happening.
Nonlinear Career Paths
According to Tupper and Ellis, modern workers are following nonlinear career paths rather than moving up the career ladder due to three main factors: work is changing, how we work is changing, and why we work is changing.
Reason #1: Work Is Changing
First, the type of work we do in our jobs is changing. This is because technological advancements have automated most repetitive tasks, meaning we now do different tasks and use different skills each day. Further, companies must constantly develop to stay afloat, requiring workers to be adaptable and have a broader range of skills than ever before. Finally, rapid change means organizations’ lifespans are too unpredictable for them to guarantee workers an internal ladder to climb—who knows if their jobs, or the company, will exist in the future?
Reason #2: How We Work Is Changing
Second, how we work is changing—employers are giving us more autonomy and less direction. To highlight this, the authors point out that fewer and fewer people are working nine-to-five, on-the-ground jobs. Instead, they’re being given the ability to work wherever they want with more flexible hours. This requires employees to take control of their career growth—without constant guidance from managers and peers in person, they must autonomously set their career goals and determine how to direct their time and attention to reach them.
| Workers and Leaders of the Modern Era In Trust and Inspire, Stephen M.R. Covey discusses the changing work environment, elaborating on how these changes have come about and how they not only impact workers, but the nature of leadership as well. Covey explains that the underlying factor behind the authors’ first point—the unpredictability of daily tasks and future prospects for workers and organizations—is the shift away from industrial era work and toward modern-day knowledge work. In the industrial era, workers mainly focused on manual tasks that were streamlined and didn’t require much creativity. However, due to the automation of most manual tasks, the majority of today’s work is knowledge work—which hinges on a person’s ability to continuously learn, generate new ideas, and collaborate with others. This has markedly changed the nature of work and organizations because success hinges on innovation—whoever comes up with the next best thing beats the competition. This is why organizations are constantly changing and why workers must change along with them. Further, Covey explains that this not only requires workers to be more autonomous and internally driven, but it also requires workplace leaders to understand how to inspire autonomy and personal drive in employees. As a result, whereas Tupper and Ellis present five abilities that workers need to to thrive in this ever-changing environment, Covey provides five doctrines leaders need to adopt to inspire employees: 1) Everyone has a higher potential to achieve, 2) people’s needs are dynamic and important, 3) everything is in abundance, 4) service to others comes first, and 5) change starts with me. |
Reason #3: Why We Work Is Changing
Third, the authors explain that the reason we work is changing—rather than working for financial stability, we’re prioritizing jobs that make us feel passionate and fulfilled. Tupper and Ellis note that this is partially because people are living longer and therefore working longer—they want to enjoy the jobs they’re spending the majority of their life performing. They note that 48% of Baby Boomers and 30% of Millennials report prioritizing a job they’re passionate about over income or status. This leads many people to try numerous roles and professions throughout their careers.
(Shortform note: Other research reveals lower percentages of people working for passion. In one survey, only 16% of Baby Boomers and 14.3% of Millennials report that they’re working for passion. Further, passion isn’t a top priority for Millennials at all—one study showed that Millennials prioritize pay, retirement, ability to make large purchases, and ability to afford vacations all before passion in their reasons for choosing a job. They note that this may be because Millenials are the lowest-paid generation. Ultimately, in contrast to the authors’ argument, it seems that passion as a career priority is becoming less popular.)
