Trust is going to have to be hard-earned in the tech industry after the last year. That’s a shame because figuring out how to not burn out employees is going to take everyone working together.
If you want to challenge yourself to learn something deeply, start figuring out how you would train someone to do it. If your employer doesn’t have an opening for a full-time trainer, create some opportunities to cross-train with your team, to reach out across teams and help teach them some of your skills, or to introduce them to some new technology that is coming. The skills you develop with come in handy, and you’ll be showing off some serious leadership skills as well, something that is probably in short supply in your industry. It is in most, anyway.
Those are essentially the same steps I would recommend for anyone wanting to network in our industry. Get active in places where Legal Tech folks gather, like LinkedIn, conferences, and networking groups, and volunteer to be a part of some of those same groups. Whether that networking is for career opportunities or just to be connected with people in the field and share tips and information, that’s what I would do.
So, if those actions are what passive job-seeking looks like, we should all be passive job-seeking.
We’ve lost this idea. We’ve bought into the fallacy that being engaged at work, having best friends at work, and bringing our full selves to work is the “correct” way to function and get ahead in life. That working 60-80 hours per week at our jobs is somehow going to change the world. I think Toni’s father had it right.
Get your money, then come home. Nothing less, nothing more. Work is not home, your life isn’t there.
If you work somewhere that this is an issue, it might not be you. It could very well be the workplace. A workplace that can’t keep right on rolling when one of the team is on PTO is a workplace that hasn’t planned staffed or done talent development well. A workplace that is truly looking out for the well-being of its employees would not leave anyone in a situation where taking a break is more stressful than not taking one.
So after 12 years, I’m back, but it’s very different. Because 12 years is a long time and things change fast around here. This opportunity only came about because I’ve been changing and now have something different to offer, that matches up with how the firm has been changing. I could have resisted learning all these new things over the years, but that would have also limited what I could do going forward. I’m really happy I didn’t do that. It might be the best career move I’ve ever made.