INTHEBLACK June 2022 - Magazine - Page 63
“Some people have a tendency to think
everything has to change for anything to
change. I always think you should think
carefully before moving jobs and never
leave in the heat of the moment.”
PROFESSOR JIM BRIGHT, AUSTRALIAN CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY
“I always think you should think carefully before moving
jobs and never leave in the heat of the moment.”
4. AM I MERELY TEMPTED BY ANOTHER JOB
OFFER?
Doubtless, many qualified finance and accounting leaders
will be headhunted over the coming months, and Bright
says it is important to check whether you are accepting
a role because you are merely flattered.
“Many people are seduced into new jobs,” Bright says.
“They see the shiny coffee machine in the lunchroom, the
ping pong table or the prestigious building – but there are
only so many times you can play ping pong.”
Instead, it is important to reflect on what you are truly
looking for in the job. Is it a high salary for a few years
because you need to pay off debts? Or is it a psychologically
safe environment after an especially bruising experience with
a boss with whom you didn’t get on?
Both are perfectly sound reasons to move. However,
“the most important part is that reflection piece, so you
can be sure of what it is that you really want and need”,
Bright says.
5. ARE MY EXPECTATIONS OF WORK TOO HIGH?
could ask your employer to make you a remote
employee.
“You can get what you want or need without
having to leave the job,” Silver says.
3. IS THIS THE RIGHT TIME TO DECIDE?
After a gruelling two years, and with pandemic-related
disruptions far from over, Silver argues you should tread
carefully to make sure the desire to change jobs is not
solely fuelled by residual stress.
“People have experienced a lot of grief over the last
couple of years, and there is a lot of processing people
need to do before they can make these kinds of
decisions,” she says.
Jim Bright, organisational psychologist and professor
of career development at Australian Catholic University,
adds that people may think they need to make a
momentous decision to feel better about work, but this
is often not the case.
“Some people have a tendency to think everything
has to change for anything to change,” he says.
Bright believes we often expect work to be a kind of
professional nirvana.
“There is still this notion that your career has got to be
the most fundamentally satisfying thing in your life and
the total expression of who you are,” he says.
This attitude may result in a perfectionist and highly
transactional approach to work – refusing to settle for a
job that isn’t ideal, becoming convinced all problems stem
from colleagues and not themselves, and clinging to the
belief that a friction-free office experience is just around
the corner.
“The rhetoric around work is that it is increasingly about
satisfying our needs, about what we deserve,” Bright says.
“I’m not saying our needs aren’t important, but what if
we looked at it from the position of how our talents can
be useful and how we can make a contribution because,
for me, work becomes meaningful when you feel you’ve
made a contribution, however small.”
At the end of the day, sometimes it comes down to
accepting that there is no right or wrong move, he adds.
“Sometimes moving jobs is a risk, and sometimes
staying is a risk,” Bright says. “And you’ve got to be able
to live with that uncertainty.”
intheblack.cpaaustralia.com.au June 2022 63