Good Jobs ...... Bad Jobs

When moving into a new venture there is the fear of risk and anxiety reins in thus giving you a step back rather than the curiosity to move forward. Assume you are fresh from university or college, there is a thrill that you get during your first day of employment that sends a cold chill creeping down your spine. The day you get that call that you are hired and can report to work at a certain date, your nerves stop functioning because you think that now you can achieve the life you have dreamt about. I once gave a public lecture on this topic in one of our local universities in the year 2008 and I tell you the response in emails from then has been overwhelming. Students are inquiring on how to get the right job and avoid the wrong jobs. People, I tell you today without fear of contradiction and based on my large experience from leading corporate employers.......there are bad jobs and good jobs.

In a world like ours there are three categories of human capital:
1.       The employed: these are a group of people that dedicate their lives to working for others. Employers can entice them with pension and medical cover which makes them very comfortable hence forgetting the need for independence. Employees will wake up at 5:00 a.m everyday to report to duty and loyal service only to get a small portion of the profit called bonus which blinds them further. The comfort from me is this is where everyone begins unless you were born lucky.
2.       The employers: This is where you should strive to be after ten (10) years of employment latest. If you graduated in the year 2000 and you are still employed, unless you are taking home over Sh. 2m, I can tell you there is somewhere you went wrong...retrace your steps. In this class of people you will find entrepreneurs, inheritors and leaders. They wake up around 8:00 a.m, go to the gym to 10:00 a.m and play golf. They will take time to hang out with friends after lunch. These people will pop in to their posh offices once at the middle of the month have a chat with the accountant on the state of affairs, talk to the manager on his next business strategy and go away to Turkey for a game at Panathanaikos. You should belong here. (Read more below)
3.       The luggards: These are a group of people who don’t know what they are doing. You will probably find them in the rural areas where they can do anything for something. If there isn’t anything for them to do, they will do nothing. They will always be groaning and blaming the government for their woes. Don’t belong here.
Sorry for straying a little bit but that was necessary, next week we shall also cover topics on how to move from an employee to an employer and share our views & thoughts with a ten year plan or strategy of achieving this important goal. The first mistake you can ever do is to view your boss or employer as a supernatural being with impossible capabilities – simply unmatchable.........Ooh please you are wrong. Employers are people like you with means. Can you just imagine a life with a guaranteed net income of over Sh. 100,000 monthly without going to work, you can sleep and earn it, and no office. Trust me you will be an employer within two years but if you get the same income from a growling boss, pressure at work and tension in the office with fear of a sack, you will never move. This reminds me, Human Capital Consulting is seeking a consultant to develop an article on personal financial management. Look out for it in the coming weeks.
Let me go back to bad jobs and good jobs. What motivates you most at your work place? What motivates you most to look for a job? Why did you study what you studied? Have you chosen a career? Why that career?
Most of the answers to this question will be, ‘it pays well’. I know money is a motivator and with the right career choice, you are bound to get good money but I have a different opinion on this and most human resource experts will agree with me. With over 8 years in this field, I have seen people make the wrong choices in the various multi – nationals that I have worked with and those my collegues used to share with me. In life it is easy to get the wrong idea and when choices are presented to you, you easily go for the cheaper option. Assume a situation where you like a career that appears unpromising like deejaying and after university, you get an offer from a big audit firm or bank or a manufacturing company to pay you Sh. 90,000 per month. The most obvious choice will be to go for the job and leave talent aside with the hope that you will save and later pursue your talent – Great idea but don’t lose focus. Most people get into very well paying jobs in the corporate world with the intention of getting out once they have the capital to start up what they like, this is very hard.
Dear readers, there is nothing as good as being your own boss, you will never struggle with work because you are earning from talent, work will never be enough for you because you want to make more money for yourself. Just have a good chat with most employees of today’s world; they can confess that employment is not an answer to stress but getting the right job will help you a great deal. I am not totally against employment but I am suggesting a good choice in your career. Go with talent and not money. Talent brings in money.
Motivators range widely and differ from one person to another but if you can do anything for money then that is your motivator. Most employees want good jobs and a good job is the one that:
1.       Takes advantage and utilises your strengths and uplifts your weaknesses. A job that makes use of what you like doing and your strengths is a good job.
2.       One that provides an enabling environment, where you are treated with dignity and you feel needed.
3.       Your shortcomings are appreciated and cared for. For example if you are sick, you are given enough time to rest because when you are ok you dedicate yourself to the job.
4.       Enumerates you well and you feel that your compensation is exactly equal to what you put into the job.
5.       Provides the means and tools of performing the job better, gives you enough free time to interact and build your social life and family.
6.       Pressures in the job are dealt with easily and tranquillity reigns. No back stabbing and stepping on the other to climb the ladder. Although this may be easily achieved by management setting the right systems.
Do these jobs exist? Yes. Such inside your soul and find what your talent is, find out what you are good at and enforce a plan into landing the right job that you desire. Bad jobs exist and they are the opposite of the above. When a job misses one of the above, it is a bad job. Just evaluate the reason why you are in a specific profession and a job. Will you die an unhappy person because of greed for money? I have lived long enough in this field to tell you the truth that no one becomes wealthy from employment but just mere richness. The difference is that the employed have money in the short run and the wealthy always will have it in the long run. The longevity of your finances is tested one day when the salary delays, there is no bonus or the company goes under. I worked with a leading audit firm in the world early 2000s and people took home very big six figures and thus you don’t expect them to struggle but shockingly towards the end of the month, they used to camp at finance asking when the salary will check in. Not a bad thing but this shows you that even the highest paid Kenyans struggle like you in employment. If you are thinking of asking me of CEOs taking home millions, my answer is those are millionaires already who own a stake of what they are managing and thus they are entrepreneurs. Get off the idea that they are better than you in management, they only have more wealth than you.
The first thing I will do if I were you is to create wealth and then aspire to be an employer and not an employee. This is not a discouraging message for the employed but I am encouraging use of talent and if your talent is giving to the society, join and NGO, if your talent is in mathematics, why don’t you be a statician, if you like music be a dj or a musician, if you like comedy please go for it. Utilise talent and don’t look at other talents and think they are weird. You all know a local comedian with Radio Africa who wrecks in millions every month out of telling you jokes in the morning, a group of deejays that has grown into a full fledged media house, a world champion record holder in 800m men who made millions recently without whose education levels are at form two and many more examples that I can give of how talent makes millionaires (not to mention footballers running after a ball to make 120,000 pounds a week).   
Today, I tell you that whatever you do, please be sure you like it and make it commercial – I promise you will see the result after some time and this sweat will be sweeter than the one you want to make in the short run. Look at ten years from now and see if you still want to go home unhappy or take your wife and children to an holiday in the Bahamas while people are working for you in the office. Your choice.
I know you have ideas, ensure that you actualize them the soonest possible.
All the best