06 Jun How To Deal With The Brick Wall At Work

We all hit brick walls from time-to-time in both our personal and professional lives, most of us can chalk it up to a bad day and, hopefully, start afresh tomorrow.
But what happens when this “brick wall” becomes a recurring issue at work and how do you deal with it?
Whilst I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that the next sentence will read, come and sign up at AD Offshore asap, it’s actually the polar opposite…

We all get those days “I’m done with this place, that’s it, I’m leaving”, you come home in a huff, nose out of joint because of a bad day and start browsing various job portals ready to jump ship. Sometimes it’s a fleeting moment that passes the next day but other times it can evolve and you end up getting quite far down the path of searching for a new career.

But it’s at this time which can actually be the worst time to be searching for a new job because you’ve been pushed to this stage when you’ve reached the end of your tether and it can lead to irrational decision-making. In fact, we have covered in a previous post on why you should be passively job-searching before you’re looking to make a move, read more about that, here.

If you’re faced with issues at work that are recurring, try and break them down and categorise them to do your best to identify what could be the source of the issue. Maybe you’re being micro-managed when you’re best left to your own devices or the opposite when best suited to being given direction. Discuss this with peers that are less likely to be biased towards you to give you an honest opinion and see if you can come to a conclusion about these work-based issues, identifying the problem is already half the battle.

Approaching Your Boss

If you have a good rapport with your boss, which we hope you do as this is crucial to career happiness, then book a private meeting with them to talk through issues you’re having at work. Rehearse this first and make sure you’ve got a good structure for the points you want to cover, you don’t want to be walking out of there dwelling on things you hadn’t said and you don’t want them to take control of the conversation because you can’t get your points across properly. Try to suggest solutions to the problems as well, that way you’re pointing the conversation in a direction that best suits you.

Speaking with HR

Depending on the situation it may be better to speak directly with HR, we’d recommend speaking to your boss first but if for whatever reason this might not be appropriate then book in a meeting with HR and take a similar approach to above. A competent HR professional will talk you through the process that follows and give you structured advice on outcomes and next steps.

Seek Free External Advice

If you need to discuss this with a professional outside of your place of work, you can speak to Skills Jersey or Employment Relations in Guernsey, both part of the Islands’ States. Alternatively, Citizen’s Advice in both Guernsey and Jersey are options too.

Have A Chat With Us

We see hundreds of people every month across both of our offices, so we’re well-versed in spotting patterns and having real-life experience of what solutions work and what don’t. If you need an informal and confidential discussion about problems that you’re having at work, come in for a chat with us or we can meet you off-site somewhere. We’ll happily talk you through your options, provide best-case scenarios and get you back on the right track – most importantly we won’t try and shoe-horn you into looking for a new career if we can help you solve your current issues, it’s more important to us that wherever you go that you remain happy and that when the time does come to move jobs, that you’re truly ready and really want to.