The contemporary world of work is rapidly changing and highly competitive. Understanding and exercising your agency at work and towards your work-related undertakings are, therefore, critical for you to stand out and foster your career resilience in today’s work environment.
What is Work Agency?
Work agency is your general capacity and disposition to make deliberate choices, take actions, and exert control over yourself and your work environment. You may think of work agency as a set of superpowers expressed in two distinct but complementary forms:
Individual-oriented work agency: This form of work agency is focused on making a difference in or for yourself. It is primarily driven towards outcomes on your individual level.
Externally-oriented work agency: This type of work agency consists of actions that are directed towards changing the work environment or making differences to current work practices.
Here is an example of how these concepts play out in practice:
David is a finance manager at a manufacturing company who has successfully demonstrated the two forms of work agency.
Individual-oriented Work Agency
On the one hand, David exhibited his individual-oriented work agency by constantly seeking to improve his financial expertise. Besides participating in various professional development programmes related to the finance field, he is actively involved in skill-based voluntary work at the local banking trade association. The latter enabled David to engage in practice-based learning to hone his expertise while offering opportunities for him to connect with other finance professionals to develop his social capital for his career.
At his workplace, David uses a project management tool to manage his time and work activities, allowing him to track and prioritise his work tasks and ensure timely completion of the financial reports.
Externally-oriented Work Agency
On the other hand, David actively exercised his externally-oriented work agency resulting in better outcomes for his team and the company. For example, he volunteered to coach and mentor his junior financial analysts by sharing his experience and knowledge to develop their expertise so that they could become valuable members of the finance team.
In addition, David will continuously monitor the industry trends and proactively look for ways to improve the systems and processes in the company. In particular, he has initiated and implemented a new system to enhance financial data transparency and streamline the reporting process within the company.
David is also committed to collaborating closely with other departments and will regularly provide them with valuable financial insights to make informed strategic decisions critical to the company’s success.
Why Both Matter?
Here is why exercising both forms of work agency is essential to optimise your work performance and boost your career resilience:
Maximise Professional Potential: Exercising your individual-oriented agency at work can foster a growth mindset, hone your skills and knowledge to stay competitive and unlock new career opportunities for you. These are vital to realising your full professional potential.
Adapt to Change: Exemplifying your externally-oriented agency can help you understand new emerging needs and navigate through changes both within and beyond the company. Such an ability to initiate improvements, shape work processes, and seek out innovative solutions can prepare you to thrive in any work environment.
Boost Visibility and Recognition: Stepping up to new challenges, taking on unfamiliar work tasks, and exceeding expectations can get you noticed. Both forms of work agency can help to raise your profile and showcase your value to the company.
Create a Fulfilling Career: Proactively shaping your professional development and career growth while improving the work environment can lead to a more satisfying and meaningful career.
In essence, work agency is a self-reinforcing cycle. As you hone your skills and build your self-confidence through exercising your individual-oriented work agency, you will be more empowered to promote change in your work environment. Likewise, the positive contributions and impacts you made to your work environment will further encourage you to invest more in your development.
Tips for Fostering Your Work Agency
Self-Awareness: Understanding your skills, strengths, weaknesses and areas for improvement can lead to more targeted growth plans and contributions.
Proactivity: Do not wait to be told what to do. Actively search for learning opportunities and solve work challenges that can contribute to your professional goals as well as benefit your team, the company and the industry.
Curiosity: Be open, ask questions, explore new ideas, and constantly stay informed about industry trends.
Networking: Build relationships, provide value to others, and learn from those who are more experienced.
Reflection: Evaluate your work and career progress regularly, set new work challenges and career goals and identify areas where you can develop your work and career and contribute to the company or industry.
Key Takeaway
You have an important role to play in shaping your work performance and career. Exercising your individual- and externally-oriented work agency can enable you to develop yourself and make contributions to the work environment. This can help to boost your professional growth, create a more fulfilling work experience, and foster your career resilience. Remember, the only way to stay ahead is to step up, and the choice is yours to make.
About the Author
Darren is a learning strategist and career practitioner passionate about helping individuals, teams, and organisations unlock their full potential and achieve peak performance. As the Founder of WiP, he offers bespoke learning solutions for organisations to enhance and sustain their competitive edge. Together with his team of consultants, Darren also provides training programmes to help individuals develop their career capital, learning ability, and power skills for professional growth.
Click here to connect with Darren on LinkedIn!