Autumn 24 Full The Entrepreneurial Spirit Issue Final

“F ind yourself a job that makes you happy 80 percent of the time,” career coach Madelyn Mackie urges. For Mackie, a person’s ideal position is in their “superpowers,” drawing on the range of skills they can mostly do in their sleep but which they still enjoy learning and expanding. “Some people can make Excel spreadsheets, sing and dance, while others are great at communicating, planning, or many other things,” says Mackie. “It’s all about finding the place where you fit.” Life-Work Balance Mackie observes that since the pandemic, job seekers are looking for positions and employers that offer a cultural and values fit and a skills match. Workers increasingly seek a “life-work balance,” in which people can do their jobs well, but their roles are flexible enough for them to live the rest of their lives. This is another spin on the concept of “work-life balance,” but where a person’s life is prioritized and not just fit into evenings or weekends. Mackie points out that many people in the mid-career stage are also caregivers for school-aged children and aging parents and have responsibilities outside the office. “If you’re a parent, you want the chance to go to your kids’ school field trips or recitals during the week. Or if you’re a pet parent, it’s nice to be able to go home to walk your dog,” she says. To Mackie, employers must understand that happy workers are good, loyal, productive workers. So it’s a win for people to set their schedules through remote work, using technology that employers got used to during the pandemic. “People seek this kind of flexibility in their job roles,” Mackie explains. “And also through entrepreneurial side hustles that enable them to pursue passions beyond their formal titles. Someone might be an accountant but also walk dogs or bake pound cakes because they love pets or baking.”

“There are so many different ways around the world that people set up their lives and define success.”

Mackie, an ardent admirer of Maya Angelou, points out that Angelou was a Renaissance woman who pursued photography, acrylics, dance, acting, singing, and literary arts. In the same way, today’s job seekers can pursue multiple interests and skills. Mackie firmly believes there’s no right way to live or develop one’s career. A recent trip to Nairobi, Kenya, with her best friend, reinforced this for her. They visited one of the villages of the Massai tribe, where people brushed their teeth with twigs off of trees cooked over open fires, joined the villagers for sword throwing, and milked a goat together. “That opened my mind,” Mackie says. “There are so many different ways around the world that people set up their lives and define success.” Now more than ever, Mackie says diversity and inclusion are crucial in the workplace. “Women and people of color are looking to see people who look like them not just at the office but in organizational leadership.” It matters that the employer practices their values and treats all people with equity and respect. Mackie promotes DEI by partnering with companies to retain diverse talent and to help that talent advance within the organization. Toward that end, she would like employers to put the “human” back into human resources and recruiting, as automated applicant tracking systems can miss out on qualified applicants. “We need to get back to real face-to-face conversations,” she says. Three Steps to Finding Your Ideal Role After eleven years in business, Mackie says that the people coming to her consulting firm now tend to know what they want and seek help rebranding themselves to land the positions that will work for them. “The hardest part is the mental shift,” she says. “Too many people think they’re too old or can’t get qualified for their ideal roles or out of luck if they don’t have the right degrees, and I help them work through that. I tell them they’re grown people who have got to do what they’ve got to do.”

308

309

Powered by