“There is no rest for the striver,” thus concludes the writer Daniel Klein as he decides, at 73 years of age, not to pursue more work experience, but to gather some life experience—sailing off for the Grecian island with a backpack full of philosophical tomes and a mind to enjoy the simpler things in life. 

Klein spent his youth striving for one thing and then another and didn’t want to miss out on “the rest of old age”—so he took a break. He sat at pubs along the Aegean sea and watched old men tuck lavender behind their ears. Then he wrote a book about it. Travels with Epicurus was published by Penguin Books in 2014, a piece of work experience that came from a breadth of life experience. 

Life experience > work experience

Most of us are aware that life experience goes hand-in-hand with work experience. In fact, many employees quit their jobs, not for better pay or vacation time, but to pursue a personal life goal. According to Harvard Business Revue, job hunting jumps 12 percent just before birthdays and 16 percent after reunions, a nod to the role personal milestones play in our professional lives.

But if meeting personal goals is an important aspect of personal development, it can also contribute to a richer satisfaction of their work life as well. Take remote working, for example. During the pandemic, many employees got a taste of what it would be like to not have to go into the office everyday. 

Despite closures at the city level, Airbnb experienced a regional travel boom as employees picked up their laptops and relocated wherever they felt like living. Some experienced a new city every month. Some moved to Hawaii for a year. Others moved closer to family to get help with child care.

The travel bug fully intact, companies are left to ponder whether they can enforce a full return to the office or risk losing their employees to companies who won’t. Life is short, and employees are also people who have dreams they want to accomplish and goals they want to achieve. If work can contribute to that greater sense of personal development, all the better.

Personal development = professional development

Not only do employees want more freedom to live the lives they want to live, but they also want to feel fulfilled in the work that they do. According to the American Psychological Association, fulfillment is less a product of the job itself—or even the benefits that job provides—and more a product of feeling a certain craftsmanship for it. 

The APA points to zookeepers as an example, who earn less than $25,000 a year on average, and yet feel a certain satisfaction in their work. They trained for it, they are skilled at it, they are knowledgeable about animals and passionate about them. Even though the bulk of their work could be considered janitorial in nature—scooping waste being one of their primary responsibilities—zookeepers feel a certain ideological dedication to their work. 

As humans, it feels good to work hard at something and then accomplish it. It’s the reason why people in highly skilled trades—firefighters, educators, surgeons—often feel more fulfilled in their work than those who answered emails all day. If an employee is actively learning and growing, developing a skill they can use, they feel more connected to their work and they want to do well at it. 

If not, they become one of the 70 percent of employees who are disengaged from their work. 

This is where Makosi really shines. We invest in our auditors, provide them opportunities for learning and growth and personal development, and then step back and let them thrive.

This is altogether separate from what the Zen Buddhist perspective calls “the emptiness of striving.” Work for work’s sake is inherently unfulfilling. It means being disconnected from the day, and feeling that all that was accomplished was a shuffling of papers or a barrage of conference calls. There needs to be some ultimate accomplishment. 

But how does Makosi balance life experiences with work experiences?

Makosi provides personal development opportunities

We don’t just throw our auditors into the fire and hope it’s a good fit. We want to ensure our auditors are equipped for a sustainable career with great pay and paid accommodations as well as flexible work environments that suit their needs. Auditors have the ability to work on-site, at home, or from the road, however it fits their lifestyle.

Not only that, but provide coaching and mentoring that changes the way our candidates see themselves and their potential. By shifting the mindset, we create a framework for success that our auditors can apply to both their personal and professional lives. Some might consider these life changing opportunities nothing more than bells and whistles. But we consider them part of our DNA, and pass the benefits on to our clients. 

Makosi provides professional development opportunities

And we help equip our auditors with the skills they need both during and after the job. During their time with Makosi, our auditors get access to hands-on experience with our clients while, behind the scenes, we provide all the training, resources, and events they need to be successful at it. 

We accomplish this by pairing our auditors with a Journey Advocate. Together they create a customised learning and development plan, aligned with each recruits goals. As an engagement manager, the Journey Advocate serves as a mentor throughout each candidate’s engagement. They work with candidates on audits, accelerate their learning in new industries, methodologies, and technologies, and help give our auditors the confidence they need to shine. 

Makosi creates purpose by giving back

Finally, every candidate completes a global community project while they’re with us. For every project we run, we fund the building or renovation of a school in a developing country, and our auditors take part in building it—our most recent team built a school in Malaysia. 

By serving something bigger than themselves, we’re instilling a sense of purpose in each candidate who passes through our doors. 

Conclusion

At Makosi, we want to create an environment that nurtures the entire person. That doesn’t see work and life as antithetical to one another. We want our team to be able to sail off to the Grecian isles with purpose. Not just to strive for another goal, but to be satisfied both at work and in life. Because, as we well know, personal development is just as important, if not more, than professional development. Interested in starting an audit career like no other? Get in touch!