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Asian Business School (ABS) organized a Live Interactive WEBINAR on ‘Managing Careers’ by Dr. Thor Indridason, Senior Professor, Said Business School (Ranked #4 in the world) of the Oxford University (Ranked #1 in the world) on Saturday, 9th May 2020 at 4:00 pm. The webinar was for all PGDM/MBA students and aspirants. As it unfolded, the webinar turned out to be a highly enlightening session on how the would-be managers should effectively manage their careers in the modern times.

A word about the distinguished guest will not be out-of-place here:

Dr. Thor Indridason gained his doctorate from the University of Oxford and has spent the past 30 years in research, writing and teaching. His teaching and research areas include employment relations, operations management and strategy. He has published several books and articles on Scandinavian employment relations, labour market history and industrial and social policy. He has also worked as a consultant to public and private organisations.

Since this WEBINAR was a closed session, students were required to register for the same. As it turned out, there was an overwhelming response and participation by the PGDM/MBA students and aspirants.

Dr. Thor Indridason began his talk by first thanking the management of Asian Business School for granting him this wonderful opportunity to share his thoughts with this young audience of PGDM/MBA students on the threshold of their dream management careers. He then congratulated all the students for choosing to pursue a course of study that opened the doors to some great career options.

Starting his talk on the proposed webinar topic of ‘Managing Careers’, the erudite speaker outlined the current career scenario worldwide which was undergoing a paradigm change. Spelling out this change, Dr. Thor Indridason said, “In the new career setting, the traditional long-term employment replete with features like stability, good pay and job-security was getting out-of-favour with modern employers. Instead, the employers of today just promise good and fair treatment, a good pay packet, but a lot of opportunities to develop your employability skills.” “Organisations today promises you will be more employable, but they can’t promise job for life; their only promise is that you will be a better professional working with them,” he added.

Dr. Thor then went on to explain how & why we moved from traditional employment to this modern employment trend. He said that there were several reasons for this shift, but that can be condensed into one-word answer – viz., “Globalisation”! According to him, “In the 1980s & 1990s, when national markets opened to international competitions leading to low-cost competitions, it resulted in big economic upheavals whereby organisations had to rethink their business models and meet the challenge with new strategies. And the two major components of this new strategy was to reduce the cost and increase the flexibility of business operations by way of assigning new roles to current employees, lay-offs, and options of re-employment.”

He further explained that “it is not good for employees to be in that situation.” If the organization doesn’t take care of them, they should say that “I will have to take care of my career.” This can be achieved by employees being more responsible for their own development through the inculcation of more and more skill-sets pertinent to their jobs and also by being more flexible and mobile about their career progressions.

Summarizing his enlightening talk, the illustrious speaker put forth three key points as takeaways of the session:

The first point he stated was, “No matter what job you have, you always have to take the responsibility of your own career. You cannot depend upon the organization and you need to select the job you want to take.”

The second point he stressed upon was that the students should keep developing their skills and knowledge. They should keep reading good books for new ideas, keep training and developing new skills and knowledge and never stop learning. They should also document their achievements, which would help them in their job interviews. And, they should always try to learn from colleagues by seeing and asking.

The third key point Dr. Thor stated was the importance of “Professional Network”. He exhorted students to “create relationships that are mutually beneficial.” “Stay always in touch with people you have studied with and have worked with,” he said.

Dr. Thor then opened the session for questions from the participants. Several questions relating to business and employment were put up by the students to which the learned speaker answered most convincingly.

Before he concluded his enriching talk, Dr. Thor had an important message for the ABS students that they would treasure for life! Wishing them all the very best in life, he said, “It’s a tough world outside, but never be disheartened. In the end, it will all work out. The most important thing to think about is where you would like to see yourself in future. Think strategically, be patient and resilient, continue to read and learn. Never let down your professional competencies. Study, learn and develop yourself competently.”