What I’ve learned from switching jobs

Published by HRMblogs, on 05/05/2021

By Sandra Wilikens (Chief Human Resources Officer and Member of the Executive Committee of BNP Paribas Fortis)

In recent years there has been a growing awareness of the importance of well-being at work. Employees have different goals than let’s say 40 years ago. They no longer want to have a job just to pay their mortgage but find it important to develop themselves and find true meaning in the work they do.

I fully agree. Along my career path, I changed jobs every three years. For me, this was a chance to start over, challenge myself and jump into the unknown every single time. I had to really get out of my comfort zone.

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The first months are never easy, but every new job opens your horizon and gives you the chance to develop new skills. The best part is that the bank gives every employee the opportunity to grow and supports us along the road so I can only recommend it.

BNP Paribas Fortis aims to be an employer that stands for ‘The Place to Grow’ where our employees feel fulfilled and that’s why I love working here. As Chief of our Human Resources division, I find it vital that every employee working at the bank receives the opportunity to further develop their talents. This fits with our commitment to enable our people to grow, enhance their knowledge and let them develop their own personalised and increasingly digital development path. The opportunities are endless in a large organisation like ours and we are there to help along the way.

Today, the working world is moving at an incredible speed. To keep pace, we need to have the right reflexes at the right moment, be flexible and adapt rapidly. Our secret? Continuously grow and develop. That’s what we offer all our employees so that they can develop professionally day after day and regularly improve their skills. They can choose from a wide range of learning programmes in varied and innovative formats. We also want them to be proactive: they decide which courses they want to take and when.

That’s why we organise the ‘Mobility Days’, an inspiring week filled with a variety of initiatives and activities around internal mobility. There are presentations, roundtables and interactive workshops to inspire and guide our colleagues in their career project. All participants get the chance to inform themselves and discover perhaps slightly lesser-known jobs or vacancies within the bank. Because personal insights always work, everyone also has the chance to exchange views and ideas with colleagues who have recently made a career switch.

Next to that, Cédric Dumont, extreme athlete and performance coach, shares his own experience in a keynote speech where he shows how going beyond your fears helps you get out of your comfort zone and discover new talents and skills. In other words, to be the architect of your life. I hope that this session inspires our colleagues to think ahead and see in which direction their career path may be going. Our aim is to be a future-proof bank, committed to making positive change happen. I am convinced that our people are our biggest asset in succeeding in our transformation. That’s why we strive to cultivate a thriving work environment where people love and engage in what they do and together we commit to a better society, as the trusted financial companion, at all moments of our client’s life.

(This article was originally published on linkedin.com)