Make yourself redundant

We study to get the job; we don’t study to be employable. Our education system doesn’t create employable workforce. They create qualified people who don’t have any idea how their life will take shape. Even topmost schools (except vital few) who claim that they create best engineers or management students, are not doing good. Students get their placement because of huge alumni network.

However, everybody in life manages to get something. Not everybody does what they wanted to do but they choose something in life for the livelihood. Few gets job, they change jobs assuming their life will be good, but it never happens. Few choose to be an entrepreneur. Few fails, few succeed. Success stories are discussed, and failure stories are buried under the carpet. Finally, they do what they have in their hand, and life moves on. Those who are successful in their lives are because of their individual efforts and not necessary what they learnt in their colleges.

The problem starts when they start settling in their job. In the struggle of life, most of the employees just stop learning new things assuming that what they are doing today will remain forever. Accountants do the same job for many years, same is for HR Professional and salesperson selling the product in same way what he uses to sell a few years back. Most of the people just learn but don’t want to unlearn. They don’t understand that the world is changing so fast that methods, ways, tools are becoming obsolete very fast. This is applicable for all generations.

When I started my career long back, the HR department was just a support function. Main responsibilities were transactional like employee relations, legal compliance, payroll processing, recruitment, training & development etc. Everybody working in HR department was doing all things without giving much thought. But over a period of time, role totally changed, organizations realised that they need HR specialist in different areas of HR, not only the person handling everything and missing the core. That’s how HR Transformation started, new roles like HRBP, Center of Excellence Experts in L&D, Talent Management, HR analyst etc started getting attention. Those who change their mindset and learn for the future ensure that they are in the Game. Rest remained at same role and then went outside from the profession or working somewhere which they are not enjoying. Same thing happened in Finance with new roles like business controller, finance controller, business analysts, experts in different functional areas. This is in all areas of the business. This change is because of the market and not because of internal change. Customers are more educated and aware. They already know the features of your products and hence it is not only selling the products but selling the value proposition and benefits of the product instead of product itself.            

So, with high end technology, changed expectations from customers and market, we need to reinvent our jobs also. For this we need to think how we can make ourselves redundant.

Once I think that the job I am doing will not be there tomorrow, then what are that roles will be for me and then what I need to learn. In this process, learning is fast. You not only confirm your seat when there is reorganization but also increase your employability in the market.