There are millions of people who go to the job daily. During covid19 they are still working; the office location might have changed to home. Among them millions of people lost their jobs because of the pandemic and economic turbulent. Are those organizations too fragile that they could not sustain and were unable to retain their employees? On the other side, organizations approached employees, communicated the consequences, took them in confidence. They exercised cost measures but not asked employees to leave.
That is the difference between “living with the purpose” and just “speaking about the purpose”.
On the other side, who are those who lost their jobs? Were they bad? definitely not, but unfortunately, they might have chosen the wrong organization? For a few, it might have the right organization, but then why were they in the exit list? Were they not fit? Or were they fired because of just cost issues? There are a lot of questions.
Once people get the job, they look for the compensation and then they look for more compensation. They compare with their peers and friends and then they change jobs. Sometimes they make excellent progress, sometimes not. During this process few people get the insight and find their purpose. However, most of us just perceive our work as a job. This is called a “Job Mindset” where employees perform all types of transactional duties for getting the compensation. You attend duties for a particular time and you get paid.
There is another set of people who have a wider spectrum of their visions and they focus on the career. This is a “Career Mindset” where they focus on expanding their career by advancing salary, title, power, team size, and/or span of control. They become managers, few of them also become business leaders.
Third mindset is employees who find purpose in their career. They ask why? Why am I doing this? For money, for career or for making the impact and bringing the difference in the organization, life of the people and surrounding? They are creative, passionate, innovative and committed to a meaningful job and engaging workplace that benefits all stakeholders. This is called the “Purposeful Mindset”. When we find the purpose, then it is easy for us to decide the next course of action.
When you focus on the job and career. Sometimes you as an employee are aligned with the organization, sometimes not. But imagine where you find the role and organization which is totally aligned with your purpose. Working for the cause about which you are passionate makes life enriching and happy. Further results will be amazing.
We all think about the job and then career, but very few reflect on the purpose. If you are able to find out the purpose in a day to day job to make it more interesting, more meaningful and having a positive impact on others, then you are excelling towards finding your purpose. By doing this you are insulating yourself from redundancies and insecurities, but to do this, you need courage, curiosity and conviction.
Please read the print replica of my latest book written for leaders on amazon kindle, Vitality in Human Resource: Adding human dimensions in HR processes
(Opinions are purely personal & does not represent my organization)