HR and senior management, any kind of management is always looking for the mythical “Top Performer”. The rainmaker, the go getter, the person who is willing to work 60-70 hours a week.
Admittedly some people, a rare few, are in this category through out their career. But here is the key, life happens to everyone. This year your a ‘top performer’.. then next year your mother gets sick, or your spouse falls into a manic depression, or your third child has the cumulative impact on your life of complicating your ability to balance work and life to put in that 120%. These are issues that last years and years.
This means you can’t be as competitive as you once were, you can’t contribute at the level you once did. At that point a manager or company that’s focused on the end of the month or end of the quarter stops looking so fondly at you… Yes most companies are very flexible for that issue that lasts a month or two or even a year, like an illness. I’m sure half of that is human nature.. but the other half is the fear of getting sued into oblivion. But when life happens, then that’s a different story.
Move into a phase of your life that doesn’t allow you to live for the company anymore.. and you have just moved into the liability zone.. Best case you are pigeon holed and constantly nagged/pestered/micro-managed to put in more and more and more..
Worse case, your let go. then guess what.. you get to start all over again at another company trying to prove yourself and your path. And the PIC cycle continues.
Hey, it’s just life.
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