If you’re feeling overworked and underpaid, this article is for you. These future-proof skills can help you make more money while experiencing less stress.

Last week I was nominated by my employer to join a panel of experts for a Forbes event in Slovakia focused on Mental health and new ways how to prevent or overcome burnout. We were sharing our personal experience with burnout, how we got out of it and about the impact it had on our life. The feedback from the event was really great but it made me wonder.

Are we women able to earn more money without burning out?

Here is my take on it. One of the outcomes from my burnout experience was re-designing my working life. I wanted to work less (think of the 4 day week) and earn more. Who wouldn’t want that, right? But to achieve that I had to learn a new set of skills. And I foresee developing these three future-proof skills, that helped me, will become critical in the future for many women:

1.     Building resilience and stress coping skills

Burnout, counts towards the top reasons why women leave their jobs and high stress levels associated with more responsibilities are often seen as a barrier why women hesitate to take on a more senior role with better pay.

According to Delloite’s survey, which interviewed 5000 women across 10 EU countries, 53% of survey women disclosed that their stress levels were higher in 2022 than in 2021 but only 33 % took the time off due to mental health. 38 % of women gave burnout as the top reason for wanting to leave the employer. If you want to check out this survey, I attached the link below.

 

Stress effects our health, work performance and career prospects. That’s clear. The question is, what can we do to address it? Organisations, employers and managers play an important role in preventing burnout but do you want to rely on that?

What if wellbeing doesn’t make it to the top business priorities of your employer?

Developing your own stress coping skills pays off. The good news is (as I discovered years ago) that building resilience is a skill everyone can learn. My recommendation is to focus on 3 main aspects:

  • prevention to burnout and developing stress coping skills,
  • recognising symptoms and stages of burnout,
  • recovering from burnout.

There are different methods that can help you build this skill from cognitive-behavioural methods such as stress management coaching to meditations. As we are all different, you have to do some research and choose what methods would suit best for your personality, work environment and lifestyle.

 

2. Negotiation

Whether it’s asking for more money, flexible work or reduced working hours, negotiation is what will make the difference. Let’s look at the salaries for instance. The gender pay gap in 2022 was at almost 13 % in EU. In other words, women earn 13 % less for the same work as men or they need to work 13 % longer (more weeks) to earn the same amount of money. This percentage is even worse in some countries such as Austria, Finland or Germany.

But why should you care about the gender pay gap?

This impacts everyone – it could impact you, your sister and daughter, your wife – your family budget.  Organisations are starting to build their policies and implementing steps to close the gap, but is that enough?

I see negotiation as one of the critical skills every woman should learn. For employed women it starts with negotiating their salary when entering an organisation. Once you work for the organisation, it continues with negotiating your pay increase or pay for reduced working hours. These situations are not easy for women, as indicated by interesting research from Resumebuilder.

Learning how to negotiate your salary is a key to earning more money in any economic climate, even during difficult times such as the recession or spiking inflation impacting your costs of living.

 

3. Purpose-driven business development

Never forget you don’t get paid for your skills or time (even if your contract says so), but for the contribution you make to the business, your employer and the world. It’s simple. Your job should either make money or save money. Or your job was created for its contribution in the society. It has a purpose.

Understanding how the world changes and what it needs is the key to building a career that is sustainable. The impact of these changes on employment and the pace at which jobs are starting to disappear, change and evolve is incredible. Just think about the disappeared cashiers in supermarkets, customer assistants replaced by chatboxes or accountants and admin clerks replaced by scanning softwares.

Another factor to consider are wages. McKinsey already shared in their report five years ago that wages may stagnate or fall in declining occupations. Interestingly enough McKinsey also claimed that some occupations that are currently low wage, such as nursing assistants and teaching assistants, will also increase in the future, while a wide range of middle-income occupations will have the largest employment declines.

What can you do to unlock interesting career prospects with purpose?

If you’d like to be prepared for your future and discover financially interesting career prospects, think about what the world needs or will need. What opportunities does the 4th industrial revolution bring? How does it impact your job now and in five, ten years? These sound like big questions but it’s worth investing time in discovering your answers. Knowing which business areas and opportunities are generating new lucrative job prospects will help you stay one or two steps ahead in the employment game.

Our free Ikigai guide offers some interesting insights into the future of work. Do you want to learn how the 4th industrial revolution impacts the employment and how to make money in a career that has a purpose and makes this world a better place at the same time?

You can download the guide [ HERE ]

That’s it! I believe these three skills will help you future-proof your career so you are well rewarded for the expertise, energy and contribution you make. What’s your view? Can you think of any other important skills that can help you make more money and prevent burnout?

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Author: AdriAna Kosovska

I work with women in 30s and 40s to help them to find and thrive in their dream career so their career not only looks good on the outside but also feels great inside.

Certified coach,  founder of ZERO TO DREAM JOB and TALENTED WOMAN