​[00:00:05] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Have you ever felt stuck in your career, and if you have felt stuck in the past or currently, when or if is the right time to change? When is the right time to make that move to something different? Have you had a, a sort of career change, I sort of roughly know your career path, but have you sort of changed careers since you started work?

[00:00:28] **Scott:** Yeah, without boring everybody with my entire career history, in a nutshell, uh, I came out of uni, did a bit of retail. As I think a lot of people do around that time to get some money. So that retail experience was really helpful, but it wasn't what I wanted to do. I wanted to be in digital. So, I got a job in the police for 20 years and grew that to a successful team. During that time though, the role changed, and maybe we'll touch on that as we go through today, around actually. Staying put versus moving jobs. That's obviously the topic of today. I did pivot suddenly, uh, unexpectedly, uh, through an unexpected redundancy, and that led me to what I do now, which is entrepreneurship.

So I've kind of seen both sides of it. I, I know your experience is a lot wider. You've done a lot more moving around. So I think we can give different perspectives but what about your side? What was your. Your path.

[00:01:28] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah, absolutely. Well,

[00:01:29] **Scott:** I.

[00:01:30] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** a little older than you, Scott. so yeah, I'm, I'm, I've got a, a varied career and, and again, I won't, I won't bore anybody listening to this, but I've changed careers a few times. I was, I've been in the military, I've worked in the corporate sector, I've worked in the public sector and, you know, worked for myself.

I lecture at the university, so I think clearly sharing that experience, both of us have changed careers. So let's have a think then. are the signs that you perhaps start picking up that tell you that it's time to change? Were there any times where in your, your working life that you were sort of picking up some sort of emotional signals that you felt that it was right to change? What are those signs, do you think?

[00:02:09] **Scott:** Yeah, I think the, the first one for me would probably be the feeling of growth and development and or lack of, and, and you can get too comfortable, I think, in your job and feeling that actually, um, I, I know it, I've, I've done it. It's kind of becomes easy now for some people that. May be good and they may be comfortable with that.

And I think I was, my, my, certainly my situation for a long time with the police, I've got son with special needs and that actually worked for me being able to be successful, but not particularly challenged because I, it was a challenging environment to work in, but. I'd managed to get to a place where it was, it was, it was quite easy, if that makes sense.

Still challenging but easy because I knew what I was doing. But was I growing

[00:02:57] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yes.

[00:02:57] **Scott:** potentially not at certain points. Uh, at, at points I was when actually something new came along. It was a new opportunity and where we touch on some of the other points later I want to talk about on intrapreneurship. We'll touch on that hopefully a bit later.

But the main thing for me was feeling. Not challenged, not growing. And again,

[00:03:15] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Right.

[00:03:16] **Scott:** listening to this will need to make a decision. Well, is that good for me? Or actually, do I want to be seen to do, I want to grow and develop. So I think growth would be the main one for me. I think feeling kind of stuck.

Feeling stagnant, unchallenged or bored in the job. That would be a telltale sign for me. The big one, I think. Growth.

[00:03:34] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** I think you touch upon some really interesting point there that this idea of a dissatisfaction, if you're in a job, you are in a career, and if you're learning and you're growing and you're developing, that can be really exciting and it feels good. But I think, as you say, once you start picking up that. You know, it's almost intangible. What is it? Why do I feel dissatisfied? And, and we, we've talked about in other, other episodes, this idea of burnout. I think that if you're starting to recognize that no matter what I do, you know, the work is never going to get any less, I'm really busy. You, that sense of dissatisfaction can actually lead you to think I might just switch jobs or perhaps. Switch careers. And I think what we need to be clear about that a lot of people struggle with, maybe the work doesn't align with their values, it doesn't align with their, their personal ambition. And I, I dunno about you, but in terms of your, your working life.

But I've drifted into jobs, I've drifted into, into careers, into, you know, a career path 'cause the money was there and I, you know, I've talked to many people over the years and the first job they got after, say, leaving a levels or. University, they took that job just to get themselves on the career ladder, and then they find five, 10 years later that they're still doing the same thing. And you may not, it may not be something that you, you value. So I think you're right. I think there's, there's usually a combination of factors that encourage you to start thinking, should I do something different? could just literally be. For example, at the moment there's a whole AI thing. I I, people are probably thinking, maybe I should jump ship now.

You know, AI is gonna come and take all of our jobs, or there's money to be made in, in ai. So I think we've got to be clear. What, when do you start feeling like you want to change? Why do you feel that way? But what's the best thing to do? Because it's not always about changing jobs, is it? It may not be changing. Um, the employer, it might just be asking for a different type of work.

[00:05:27] **Scott:** Mm.

[00:05:27] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** That's something else that people can do.

[00:05:29] **Scott:** Yeah, I think, yeah, certainly the, the alignment to the goals though is critical because certainly for me, working in public sector for a large chunk of that time, whilst the challenging environment due to the nature of the organization and ways of working and budgets, et cetera, the. End result was incredibly rewarding.

You are, you are serving the public, you're helping people, certainly the police, you're helping people in their time of need. And the work we were doing, the services that my team, were digitizing, seeing the impact of that work. And I'm a big advocate when I speak to teams and help them as think about how can you get as close as possible to the customer?

How can you get to see the delight on their face when they successfully achieve something or they. Buy something that makes a difference to their life, depending on the nature of the work. And I think that the going home at the end of the day and or working from home at the end of the day and switching off, you know, we talked about this on burnout episode, but.

Did I achieve something that's aligned to my goals? That helps me feel satisfied that my role at work has helped me make a difference. That is crucial. For some people it's, it's gotta be more than the money. Yes, the money is part of it, but actually, if you're spending a large chunk of your life, which we do in our jobs, it has to align to our goals and the goals.

Yes. Our money to. Pay for the bills to pay for the mortgage. But actually for me, it's intrinsically linked to that satisfaction of does the work I do today make a difference to people? Does it help me feel satisfied that I've contributed to society or helped somebody in their time of need or made their lives better for me, that was a real driver.

The one of the reasons I stuck around for so long in that role, it wasn't the best paid, but it was rewarding.

[00:07:15] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Mm. You just reminded me. One of the jobs I had, which I felt made the biggest impact was probably I worked the longest hours. The pay wasn't incredible, but I really felt it was, it was a work where we were building a, a new website business that was challenging some of the media giants, and we were. Moving money away from giving it to this like faceless media bureaucracy. And we were bringing money back into education and I worked really long hours and it was hard work and it was, you know, challenging. But I really felt aligned with the goals and the values of the organization. So as I say, I think we, we, when we are thinking about changing careers. sometimes stumbled into a career because that was the first job that we took outta university, and now we just realize we've grown up and we, we wanna do something different. Or maybe the organization is, you know, there's, there's redundancies coming, maybe the. uh, situation is not so great for our business.

So there's lots of different factors that can come together and, and the statistics say that at any one time, I think it's something like 24% of UK workers are currently dissatisfied that with their careers. Now, I think before we start talking about that, maybe we should start talking about. it time to, to change or, or should you stay?

Are there reasons for staying, do you think, before we start thinking about how to change and you know, when to change? Are there other reasons why you should stay in your, your job? What do you think?

[00:08:40] **Scott:** Yeah. So I think to counter what we said earlier about reasons to leave in terms of, well actually, are you still growing in the job? So are you learning something new? And if not, before you maybe take that jump. Something I'm a big fan of is intrapreneurship, which is I. The internal version of entrepreneurship.

Actually, can you pivot internally? Can you, you mentioned earlier, take on a new role or can you get involved with a project that maybe is slightly outside of your comfort zone? You know, put your hand up and say, actually I'd like to get involved in that. Um, I wanna work with another team for a bit. And I do a secondment.

So actually disrupting things from within can be really effective. And I found in my career, because of the nature of the work I was doing in digital, I got asked to come and help some other teams around HR and Estates even, and Facilities to, to try and get involved. So I was kind of being a bit of intrapreneur in the organization there.

And I think that's. An opportunity for people to consider. You don't have to, but again, it depends on the organization and if they're willing to support that for you and that growth. And there's always then a challenge of what happens to the work that you are meant to be doing. I think there's a balance there, but if you've got a supportive organization that encourages growth and wants people to stay, ' cause let's face it, the cost of somebody leaving an organization, I think is 1.5 times the annual salary in terms of lost cost and productivity to replace them.

So it's in the organization's interest to keep good people, to keep people that want to develop and grow. And if you haven't necessarily got the career hierarchy structure to do that, 'cause your boss maybe is never going to leave, actually, there may be a way to pivot and take on more of that intrapreneur role.

So that would be one of the things I say is actually, is there a way for you to still grow? Are you still growing? That for me would be a good reason. One of the reasons to stay.

[00:10:28] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Yeah, absolutely. I agree with you. I think if you have this sense that you're not happy, you're dissatisfied, you're suffering from burnout, the first step should be perhaps to talk to your manager, talk to the leader, talk to the boss, people around you. What else can I do? I don't feel that I'm growing. I don't feel I'm learning new skills. Are there any new challenges, opportunities for me? Within the job itself or within the organization itself, because before we start talking about making that change and making that leap, 'cause it, it's scary. It can be very, very scary to, you know, feel this way, but feel trapped. Maybe you should turn to the organization and say, help me, you know, what else can I do here? And, and things like you mentioned, things like intrapreneurship. Perhaps going with new ideas, going to the, the boss, to the manager and saying, I've got a new idea for a new revenue stream. Are there different ways we can do things internally? Can we think about a reorganization? So, yeah, I think being proactive internally, first, I.

Often makes a lot of sense because you know, there is a value in stability, there's a value in having that job that you've already got, the salary that you've already got. Now we can talk about in a moment, about when you make that decision, but I think the first step is to acknowledge that feeling you've got, if you're trapped, perhaps feel dissatisfied, but can you improve things where you are?

[00:11:44] **Scott:** Yeah.

[00:11:44] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Things like having a promotion. I mean, maybe you are due a promotion. Maybe it's time that you moved on to that next level of management. That promotion going up that, that career ladder. I, I certainly found when I was more junior that I got to a sort of ceiling of, knowledge and, and expertise. I think there's also a, a deepening of your expertise, taking on qualifications, you know, doing, um, MBA if your organization would, would support that. Becoming more expert in your field can actually sort of scratch that itch of dissatisfaction.

[00:12:16] **Scott:** Yeah, and I think even if there isn't that. Career path for you. And let's be honest, not everybody wants that. I think there's also an expectation. Well, you're not progressing unless you become a manager of a certain level. Some people may be perfectly happy at the level they're at and don't necessarily want to, to go in that direction, and the job is satisfying.

I think the test, in terms of one of the big questions is to stay or go is do people dread work?

Do they long for the weekend? Because let's face it, the weekend is much shorter than the week. and you spend most of your time in the week doing your work? Generally, if you're in a, you know, nine to five, Monday to Friday job. So I think one telltale sign is "I can't wait for the weekend". And then the, the Sunday night dread where this, certainly when I was having tough times at work, I would stay up quite late on the Sunday night almost because I just, I was just passing the time, messing around on the internet, playing games on the Xbox, whatever it was to avoid, "ah, I've got another difficult week at work". So actually, if that's happening regularly for you, that would be another telltale sign I think, to say, as we've said, "let's delve into what is actually the reason that I'm dreading work".

[00:13:26] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** I think all of us have had that experience of I just do not want to go back into work on Monday. and that can be, of course, you, you sometimes distinguish that from the boss. It might be not the job, it might be individuals within that organization. It might be the manager you report to. But yeah, if you are really feeling that. You know, this is not what I wanna do with my life. But I think one thing I would just want to clarify as well, we're talking about careers and jobs and I dunno if you had much careers advice at school, but I had zero careers advice. And I think many of us, we don't really know what the problem is.

'cause we don't really know what we want to do. I don't, we don't have that sort of maybe passion. So my niece for example, she's training to be a vet. She's at, um, university, uh, training to be a vet and she's wanted to know. What she's wanted to be. She's wanted to be a vet since she was about five. Now that ex, that sort of passion is very rare in my experience. you wanna be like an astronaut or something when you grew up? Did you have like a as a kid or did you wanna be, when you, when you grew up,

[00:14:29] **Scott:** I wanted to be a soldier. That was what I wanted to be.

[00:14:32] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** you

[00:14:32] **Scott:** Yeah. And, uh, it got, I, I went to boarding school and I was seeing, we had, uh, they had a, they did have a careers department. It was quite small, but they had people coming in and I was regularly meeting with the army leaders, liaison officer who would come in to try and help recruit new officers into the army.

I know you had a military career, but. I got very close to joining, but at the time I had really bad hay fever and that was a concern. I did get some careers advice, but again, that was a passion of, I just wanted to play, grew up playing toy soldiers and wanted to be a real one. And then I thought when I grew up, I was like, actually, do I want to get killed and do I want, actually, I wanna settle down with a family.

So yeah, that helped me make the decision.

[00:15:14] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** there's no such thing as the perfect career is there, but there's no such thing as the perfect job. So I say I think we need to be clear that you may have never had any career advice. So I think we should start perhaps thinking about, let's, let's talk around, if you are clear that you do need to move, you need to change.

What sort of things would you suggest that person should do first if they, they are feeling as, yeah, I'm gonna have to change careers or something.

[00:15:34] **Scott:** So I think part of the, what we talked about is the self-awareness in terms of, actually, I think a skills audit would be quite helpful to say actually, and I'm sure people probably haven't dusted off their, depending on how long they've been in the job, the CV might be , gathering dust. So actually make sure that's up to date, but also just sit down.

Spend some time thinking, what am I good at? What am I not so good at? What are my areas for improvement? What do I enjoy doing? . Looking back at the career you've, you've had so far. Thinking about what interests me. 'cause the natural thing to do maybe would be to just roll into the same kind of job in another organization because that's comfortable.

That's what you know, and that may be absolutely the right thing for you to do, but you may be also missing out on a, on an opportunity here. So, yeah, I think a skills ought to be helpful. You know, strengths, weaknesses, almost a swot analysis of, of your, your current position and then thinking about what you might want to do next.

So actually in those areas of. Weakness or development As we know, there's so many resources online now. Lots of them are free. You know, do some personal development, get some books. Uh, think about getting, uh, a career coach. Uh, we've, we probably wanna mention the sites like Fiverr, where you can do that, where you can log on and, and hire a career coach to do that for you.

[00:16:49] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** I think depends on who we're talking about. If you are a very young person, you're listening to this and you're in your early twenties, you probably haven't got quite enough time yet to work out what you want to do. Maybe you're still learning, you're still still growing. we've all got something that we were passionate about from maybe being a child. Now you talked about, you know, being in the military, I was very, very into, uh, flying. Airplanes. I wanted to be a pilot. I didn't actually achieve that part, uh, mainly 'cause I, I'd got a heart murmur, so I couldn't do pilot training. So I, I've always been interested in, in flying, but sometimes, you know, you might have a passion for. I dunno, basketball or painting and drawing, you know, you, you think, how could I build a career out that? So I think it's about that self-awareness of what drives me, what am I enthusiastic about, what I'm drawn to.

You know, the books that you've got on your bookshelf, the documentaries that you always wanna watch, or the films you wanna watch, what is it that. That lights you up ignites you. And I think again, if you've got a lot of careers experience, you might say, there are these parts of the job that I really enjoy.

I love working with the customers. You know, you're very keen on, on customers and customer value. I love that face to face thing, but I don't like admin and paperwork and there'll be somebody else's the other way around. I love. Diving into admin. I love diving into paperwork and getting things sorted, but I'm not that, you know, maybe I'm a bit of an introvert I don't like dealing with, with customers face to face.

So I think you're right. I think a self-assessment is really important. Your strengths, your weaknesses, your interests, your passions, but usually you need some help with that. Have you ever had a, like a career coach then you talked about career coach, was something that you had in internal, like a mentor or or career coach, was that ever provided for you?

[00:18:33] **Scott:** Not, yeah, not officially. I did have people that I looked up to that I respected, and yeah, I had, internal mentors. I also had some outside people that I, I spoke to regularly and checked in with. So yeah, that was definitely worth doing. People who've maybe been on a, on a journey that you admire or, you know, are willing to share their experience with you and, and give you that coaching.

So I definitely, from personal experience, would recommend that as well.

[00:18:58] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** I would, if you can, and you, that you, many organizations don't offer this if you've got a, an internal mentor to, to talk to them clearly. If you are thinking about leaving your job, your boss, your manager, your leader, that may, that may not be the right person to, to mention or it might be. It might be, you know, going back to our first uh, point, really, that they might be surprised that you're feeling dissatisfied. But if you can talk to somebody, you can get this stuff out. One of the challenges, I think, for all of us is if we're feeling a bit lost, we're feeling a bit confused. You know, the thoughts go round and round in our own heads and we never move forward. So I think it's valuable if you can afford it. Because of course not everybody can afford this is perhaps getting a career coach and there are lots of career coaches out there. You can search 'em on the, on the web. Local authorities actually often have a careers counseling service. My daughter went to a a, a college that had a career counseling and they also offered help for adults. Would you believe so there might be career coaching. Services out that you can tap into. There are books, there are guides that you can use, but I think that first step is that self-assessment,

[00:20:00] **Scott:** Hmm.

[00:20:01] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** but also talking to somebody.

So let's imagine then you've, you've, you've done that self-assessment, you've got the SWOT analysis, you've talked to your mentor, talked to a career coach. What, what's the next thing you would advise anybody to do if they do think they need to, to switch after that self-assessment phase?

[00:20:16] **Scott:** So personally, what I found helpful and what many people may find helpful, they may be interested in doing is actually testing the water. Whilst you're still in your current employment. So actually, if you've, if let's say you pivoted or you want to pivot to something completely different, this, you've almost had that dream to, to be an entrepreneur.

Um, maybe we're talking for people who are largely in, in full-time employed employment here, but maybe people have always had the dream to run their own business. Is it possible, and it may not be with your time and capacity and the rules around your current employment, but potentially to. Set up a side gig on the side to try it out.

You know, maybe do a bit of work in the evenings, at weekends. Again, be very careful of burnout. But maybe start to test the water and see if that is exciting. If it's interesting you, if it's something you think could take over your full-time job, and of course you may want to pivot to doing that part-time and then a new job part-time.

So I think trying to map out those options, don't rule out those options, is what I would say there. It isn't a case of I just must find another full-time job straight away. Actually, now I know what my skills are. Now I know what I'm interested in. Can I test the water? Can I pivot? Can I try something on the side?

Would be something definitely worth exploring.

[00:21:31] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** Completely agree with that. I think the thing is, if you're feeling overwhelmed. And you want to move, you sometimes will jump ship. You'll try and take another job just to get outta where you are now, if you can take a breath, if you can be patient with yourself, be kind to yourself and say, look, I'm gonna do that research. I'm gonna look at myself. Maybe get some mentoring. The other thing I would also suggest, and I think you have some brilliant suggestions there, is talk to people already doing that thing. If you are thinking about changing careers, changing jobs, connect to people on LinkedIn in the area that you're interested in, and just ask them, would you go into this?

What would you advise somebody like me? Would you gimme tips and advice? And if you contact a hundred people or 50 people, you'd get a couple of three good conversations that could literally open your eyes and give you some new insight. So I'd definitely go and talk to people. 

[00:22:16] **Scott:** There's also, a website called meetup.com, which some people may not have heard of. So there are many free. Events that people run in all sorts of different industries. So that's an opportunity to go along just have a search for the areas of interest and go along to one of these meetings and speak to people as you've suggested in those careers.

And it's, it's about those networking, uh, opportunities.

[00:22:38] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** That's right and you might find that's a great suggestion, meetup. You might find that there's a trade show that's going on in your local exhibition. If, if you live near Manchester for example, or Edinburgh or somewhere, there might be a trade show. You could go along and just say, Hey, I'm not here to buy anything. I'm interested in working in this industry. In my experience, people are really keen to support people that want to move across different industries, but I think you're right. If you can. Think about that transition you mentioned. Could you do a side hustle? Could you start doing something at the weekend, taking some extra work in the evenings, just to test it out. You also mentioned something really important. Of course, your existing terms and conditions may not allow that. So, yeah, you have to be really careful, but dip your toe in the water. Try out your new future role. Take a sabbatical for, you know, if you can avoid it, you know, take some leave, go and do the thing you think you want to do, and then try those.

If you like those clothes on, it could be so important that you try this out first and you realize it's not for me. as we're sort of wrapping this up, really I think life is so short. Life is so precious that within the constraints you might have a job that you know you need to pay the mortgage and so on. Whatever you can do, you wanna move yourself forward to that newer existence and, and new experiences and new jobs because you don't get to the end of your life and regret you didn't try. That's my philosophy in life. You don't wanna get to the end of this time that we all have on this planet and think, why didn't I explore X, Y, Z?

Why didn't I, you know, think about becoming a, I don't know, personal trainer, or I retrained as a, a plumber. You know, there's, there's, there's

[00:24:16] **Scott:** Hmm.

[00:24:16] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** out there for all of us if we're willing to at least put that, um, put that effort in.

[00:24:21] **Scott:** Yeah. And I think that the fear of change is more often than not. Much worse than the reality. And, and some people need that nudge, don't they? So, you know, you hear so many times people who get made redundant, who actually the decision is made for them. They look back and go, "actually that was the best thing that ever happened to me".

It sounds a bit cliched now, but, um, but certainly in, in. My experience and the experience of people I've spoken to, that nudge was really, really powerful. So yeah, I would say just don't, don't be frightened. Actually do it safely. Test the water. If you, you know, you're, you're decide looking to do that on your own back rather than be pushed.

[00:24:57] **Andrew Lloyd Gordon:** I think we've talked about a lot of different things, but I think really this, this frustration, this dissatisfaction is very common. So if you are feeling that way, just be reassured that it's, it's unfortunately quite normal, which is a sad thing to say, but you're definitely not alone.

But that choice is certainly a personal choice, and it starts with that introspection. It starts with that self-reflection, uh, and then some careful planning.

Like we've said, if you're gonna stay that job, if you're gonna stay in that role, there's no shame in that. That stability, you're bringing that salary in for yourself, for your family, for your, your dependence. There's no shame in that, but perhaps what you need to do if you are still feeling dissatisfied, you decided to stay, is what else can you do? The intrapreneurship, like you talked about, taking on new roles, getting training courses, so yeah, you sometimes staying is as good as changing.

Thank you for listening to the Work Unraveled podcast. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to subscribe to the show so you don't miss the next one. 

[00:25:56] **Scott:** If you'd like Andrew or me to help you or your business, whether it is for team productivity, leadership, coaching, or communication skills, our website addresses are in the show notes.

Thanks, and until the next time.