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Article from The Business Times, 16 Sep 04
They wear many hats - BT Sept 16 2004 (Singapore)
CORPORATE loyalty, as we used to know it, is now passe. We once regarded so highly the person who spent his entire career with one organisation, branding him a loyal employee that the entire workforce should look to for inspiration.
But according to career pundits these days, you should be prepared to lose your job involuntarily or to move camps by choice half a dozen times or more.
What has caused the turnaround? In so many developed economies, the trend of lower birth rates and a fast-aging population has given rise to a new set of challenges. A growing population of workers are looking for more meaningful work. Then there are those who cannot find work - meaningful or otherwise - as well as those who are considered by employers as undesirable hires mainly due to their age profile (40 plus, and getting younger!).
In order to enhance employability, and to find work that complements their life, more people are turning to portfolio careers. Simply defined, a portfolio career manager is a self-employed professional who performs, simultaneously or sequentially, various roles.
He may be a professional who does research, writing and editing for Client A, and also lectures at the local university and provides management/corporate turn-around consultancy.
The idea is to cultivate a variety of skills. In February this year, Chris Humphries, the director general of City & Guilds, the UK's leading vocational awarding body, was quoted in a news article as saying: 'A job for life has long gone and in the future it will be commonplace for a professional such as an architect to hold down a job as say a chef, at the same time.'
This won't be considered as moonlighting but simply pursuing two careers simultaneously. This may sound like quite a leap, but according to Mr Humphries, the trend of job and career diversity will grow and employers can expect to see resumes landing on their desks from candidates who possess a broad range of skills.
This will inevitably mean companies start to judge potential employees on their transferable skills rather than just their sector experience. As a result, it will become increasingly important for individuals to extend their skills so that they can compete with other candidates.
A 44-year-old Singapore-based regional human resources director with an American MNC, Edmund Chew, acknowledges this shift. He said: 'No longer are we looking at just core competencies for the job. Increasingly, my hiring managers are seeking to find if candidates have taken the effort to pro-actively manage their careers and to ensure they have a variety of skills and talents to bring to the table.'
A portfolio manager, as first conceptualised by Charles Handy in the 1980s, is no longer just a concept. A career portfolio may contain anywhere from three to 10, or more different marketable skills and talents. You can offer one, some, or all of these to whoever wishes to buy these services. And the best part is that you can decide to work for as many, or as few, hours in a week as you choose.
So, how do you develop a portfolio career?
In a nutshell, there are four key steps:
- Identify your major career and life accomplishments. Unlike financial investments, past performances are a good indication of future potential/contributions. Re-visit your life and career progress, identify what you have done well particularly.
- From these, you can identify your key business strengths and personal attributes which you can transfer over to your portfolio career.
- Identify your key work values. What is important to you in your career, and life? If you favour structure, predictability and a stable stream of income, then having a portfolio career may not be your cup of tea to begin with.
On the other hand, if you value the excitement of unpredictability, freedom to use your time, and the chance to work with different groups of people, then you are potentially heading in the right career direction by exploring a portfolio career. Other work values to evaluate would include level of autonomy, opportunity to be creative, and teamwork environment.
- Once you have the above self-discovery information to work with, you can begin to identify possible silos of career portfolios.
| A career portfolio may contain anywhere from three to 10, or more different marketable skills and talents. You can offer one, some, or all of these to clients. And the best part is that you can decide to work for as many, or as few, hours in a week. |
Focus always on what interests you most. In the world of career management, interests must always come first. We all must necessarily do things that we have an interest in, otherwise why bother?
When you have narrowed your list, then it is time to begin the process of starting on a new chapter of your career, and life. One that has Me, Inc firmly stamped on the cover.
For US-based Noha Garas, having a portfolio career happened by chance. 'I was faced with some health issues a few years go and had to resolve to leave the full-time, traditional workplace,' says Ms Garas.
'At the time, I didn't really stop to design a career plan. I simply knew that because I needed to devote a certain number of hours per week to doctor visits, that would preclude having any kind of full-time corporate position. Soon, former colleagues and clients began to call to ask if can do a project for them here and there.
'I said sure, and purely by chance, my present day consultancy was born.'
Ms Garas has had a portfolio career since 1998. Ms Garas faced challenges along the way. She says that there were times when she had more projects than time and actually had to turn work away. Then there were times when she had been barely able to fill two hours of work in a given week.
Also, she had to learn to handle all of the back office functions associated with keeping a corporate entity, such as accounting, tax and legal filings, and day to day administration.
British portfolio manager, Richard Tierney, 48, says he only realised he was a portfolio professional after he was well-established. According to Mr Tierney, flexible people, those with low boredom thresholds are best suited to a portfolio career.
The world we are in today will, no doubt, continue to evolve and change. Corporations will continue to merge, de-merge, restructure, and right-size, and with these changes, job losses are inevitable. Ownership of a portfolio career may be one way out for most of us who need and wish to continue living a productive and income-generating life.
There is no right age for one to embark on a portfolio career. As a matter of fact, one should be consciously working towards a portfolio of skills, knowledge and talent along the entire course of one's career.
For the many Singaporeans out there who are facing challenges in getting back to full-time corporate work, why not give the alternative route of a portfolio career a thought? If you do decide to venture into this, then it is time to wave goodbye forever to the dreaded and feared retrenchment axe.
You will be your own boss!
Paul Heng, CMF, Managing Director, NeXT Career Consulting, and Founding President, Asian Association of Career Management Professionals
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