How committed are we in our job? How committed should we be? How can we ensure we are committed.. What do you think employers or our team mates or manager thinks of commitment… Are our managers more committed than us because they have a fancier title or higher salaries and have more power in the organization…? What the heck is commitment in a job?

I am not going to answer them all…. but these are all questions we all need to individually journey through… Sometimes it is good to go with some dictionary references.. Here are some interesting stuff I googled.. So commitment is “the state or quality of being dedicated to a cause, activity” this makes sense.. but look at this one “an engagement or obligation that restricts freedom of action”

I understand the idea of being dedicated to a cause…. but how can commitment restrict the freedom to act.. I guess if we are committed to something there is going to be trade-off and you will not have the freedom to act as you want.. because you are bound by a contract or that commitment..

What is our commitment as an individual…? to survive.. to ensure the survival of people dependent on us… This can be a long list but let us just start here… Now how do we move that to our job…? I think that we are in a job as a result of the commitment we have as an individual.. So the commitment on a job is in a way the secondary commitment… it is a subset… For me the commitment on a job does not supersede in anyway my commitment as an individual… a human being… a contributor to the society…

But I find a synergy here.. When I am in a job… I am committed to the salary paid to me.. I have to deliver value as that is expected of me and it is part of the contract I have on the job.. yes I also expect that the other side of the contract is upheld…. If anyone breaches the contract then it is void…

Now from here let us look at commitment on a daily basis… Here the people I work with matter a lot to me… My commitment to ensure that my working relations create a positive reinforcement to those with whom I work… This would mean my immediate team members.. extended teams and across the board…. And these have to align with the commitment my company has towards its customers… And always this is seen in the light of my commitment as an individual outside work…. Conflicts have to be resolved…. And also understand that sometimes we reason it instead of resolving it…

I also have a responsibility to help the company meet its commitment to its employees including me.. which is ensuring that anything that happens in the company that works against that commitment be pointed out… The culture is something I am part of…. and I have to work for it….

Enough of me going on a rant… the point is we all need to think what commitment in a job means to each one of us…. we need to ask these questions.. even if we don’t have an answer we should journey through that exercise….

Categories: Enjoying Life and Work, Work & Career

Tags: Career, commitment, job commitment, Work