Career Growth Vs. Work-Life Balance: 4 Ways To Prevent Remote Work From Slowing Your Career

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Career Growth Vs. Work-Life Balance: 4 Ways To Prevent Remote Work From Slowing Your Career

By Caroline Ceniza-Levine | Forbes Magazine | July 8, 2024

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To get what you want and meet all of your career priorities, you need to “design” your career and not just follow what everyone else is doing or even what the company initially demands. You can have a vibrant career and still set boundaries around your work and life. Here are four ways to design your career to prevent remote work from slowing you down:

1. Look for success stories to emulate.  Knowing that you can have both career growth and work-life balance is the very first step, so you’ll stick to what you want and not just fold at the first sign of pushback. Look for other colleagues who work remotely and manage to get promoted, stay visible and stay marketable.   Keep in mind that, if all the people who advance are people who work mainly onsite, you might have a company culture that prioritizes face time. This doesn’t mean all companies demand face time, so this is something you can specifically look for in your next opportunity. However, if you want to stay at your current employer and grow within, make sure you can find precedent for both the remote work and career growth you want.
2. Define what growth means to you.  Career growth can mean increasing visibility around the company, expanding scope of responsibilities (aiming for the C-suite?), more resources (e.g., team, budget), a supportive network, and /or new skills, expertise and experience to add to your background. Over time, a healthy career should show all of these things, but you can’t focus on everything all at once. How do you want to grow your career in the next one to two years?  Depending on your immediate career growth priorities, you can then figure out how to make progress while working remotely. To increase your visibility, you’ll need to be proactive about getting virtual access to meetings and scheduling time with decision-makers since you won’t just bump into them on a typical workday. If you need to expand your role or resources assigned to you, this is something to specifically ask for and negotiate with your manager and other higher-ups. If your network is thin, perhaps you have only developed relationships within your department, then you’ll need to book time with people outside your department. If growth means learning new skills, broadening your expertise or acquiring different experience, then work with your manager to outline what exactly you need to learn and how you will do that.
3. Identify and mitigate career risks.  Remote work carries the risk that you’re out of sight and therefore out of mind. Leaders forget about you when it comes time to dole out career-making assignments or simply to save your job in a restructuring. However, that out-of-sight risk can be mitigated by nurturing your network and maintaining your visibility. Block time on your calendar to prioritize these relationships. Raise your hand to present at meetings or to ask an insightful question – you won’t fade as easily into the virtual background if you’re the one leading the discussion.
4. Match decisions to your personal situation.  There is no one-size-fits-all career decision. Remote work takes you out of the office where decisions are made and work gets noticed, so there is some risk in increasing your remote days while you’re pushing on your career. You can put in extra work to get your career visibility back up or repair relationships that weaken in your absence, but you can’t recoup the family time that you miss while working.  When figuring out tradeoffs between work and life, always consider the timing of your decisions.

2 key takeaways from the article

1. To get what you want and meet all of your career priorities, you need to “design” your career and not just follow what everyone else is doing or even what the company initially demands. You can have a vibrant career and still set boundaries around your work and life. 
2. Four ways to design your career to prevent remote work from slowing you down: look for success stories to emulate, define what growth means to you, identify and mitigate career risks, and match decisions to your personal situation.

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Topics:  Career Planning, Personal Development, Work-life balance, Progression