The uniqueness of our experience matters
I did not go to an elite school or grew up in a rich household. Confronting the odds of career progression myself and working on the Talent space for +15 years, I have been faced with hiring biases favoring elite schools and privileged backgrounds.
When we talk about diversity, we often ignore what the starting point of individuals has been. Sailing without strong wind behind requires extra effort to get ahead. Traits like creativity and resolution develop as a result.
I have set myself in a quest to talk about the jobs that I did and are not listed on my Linkedin profile. They are often perceived as irrelevant and something not worth talking about during career conversations. We can shift mindsets if we recognize that every job and experience creates valuable learnings. These are some that I gained in my second job working in a supermarket warehouse:
Well being goes first
Health and Safety training was required for the job. I was sharing my working space with heavy machinery and manipulating perishable products. Knowing the “traffic” rules within the warehouse, using protective equipment and following strict sanitation protocols was a must. Prevention was key! The warehouse was next to some fields in the countryside. Failing to maintain cleaning standards would attract rodents and insects. Any misstep damaged products we had to throw away and created personnel, legal, operations and financial challenges.
Repetitive tasks and tight schedules combined with poor management created an alienating environment. Some of my colleagues developed burnout. There was no training on how to handle mental health and it was generally downplayed and stigmatized.
I quickly realized that both physical and mental health are necessary for our overall well being and have a direct effect on productivity. They deserve leadership’s attention and have to go first!
The knockout effect of doing a bad job
In the warehouse, we had some machinery operators whose job was stocking shelves with new produce. This is way before the era of highly robotized warehousing! Operating the machinery required of precision and attention to detail. Some of the operators I worked with made no mistakes and others stumbled more often. Whenever they made a mistake and dropped a product, it did not only create product waste. It created more work for the cleaning personnel, increased the likelihood of finding defects by quality control when loading the trucks and affected the overall inventory system. Doing a bad job does not only have an effect on the quality of our individual output. It has a knock out effect on the work that everyone else around us is doing.
Prove your value, opportunities will come
I started with the lowest paid job as a cleaner. After a few months of consistent hard work, having dealt with several accidents that required quick action and actively addressing a sanitation emergency, I was offered a transfer to perform quality control tasks. Checking the quality of the products before the trucks left and capturing information for inventory management and buying operations gave me my first exposure to a corporate office. Being vocal about deserving a promotion and getting ahead might work for some. My personal experience has been that if you are focused on being excellent in your job and you collaborate effectively with other teams, opportunities arrive.
The uniqueness of our experience matters! still apply and share these learnings in a very different environment. Whatever your job is I guarantee you will benefit from putting the well being of people first, being mindful of the knock out effect of doing a bad job and focusing on excellence and collaboration. Do you have any examples that speak to these points?