How to get authority over another department of the company?
My company is fairly small (~100 people) and only does outsourcing. Finding another job is certainly an option. However, I work with my boss on a daily basis and he’s actually very open to hearing ideas on what his employees want to do with their careers. I think he’s an ENFJ. Still, it seems crazy to just ask him to give me a project to manage completely out of the blue.
I’d greatly appreciate any advice you could give me. My job is so full of excruciatingly boring details, tedious and unchallenging that even thinking about it makes me want to slit my wrists.
You should look for something that no one is noticing. There are a lot of things in a company that are too small or too annoying for people to fix, so they pretend the problem is not there. Find one of those.
Like, maybe employee turnover is really high in customer service, and no one is doing anything about it.
So, if customer service turnover is really high, you could quantify the costs – using industry metrics (HR industry or employee benefits industry would have these metrics) and then propose a solution that you can implement to decrease turnover. Make the solution tied to metrics and deliverables and based on solid data and best practices.
That makes it almost impossible for someone to say no. Your proposal shows that you are competent to implement the plan because you’ve thought it through so well. And there is no risk to letting you do this when you are not even charging the company to do the extra work.
Once you do that project then you look for another. Soon people will see you are ready to get a promotion into some other line besides the one you’re in. The projects you pick will help steer peoples’ growing perception of you, so they put you into the department you want to be in.
Penelope
This is A+ perfect advice. You can quantify solving any business problem. The real trick is to figure out which problems you love to solve, so you feel fulfilled by work.