How To Use Year-End To Reassess Job Satisfaction 

The end of the year is full of advice on how to plan for the new year, but you can’t plan properly without a thorough and comprehensive assessment of the past year.

It’s normal to reflect at year’s end about the most important aspects of our lives, from our careers to our relationships. However, it’s essential to do this intentionally, especially since we spend the majority of our time at our jobs. 

An annual review of your job status and satisfaction is a good way to reflect on how fulfilling your job is and the next steps, depending on the results of your assessment. It’s about taking a step back to see how far you’ve come and where you might like to go. It’s also a chance to make sense of your journey and shape the path ahead.

An annual job review can cut across an array of career concepts: self-development, personal well-being, work relationships, and innovation. When you conduct a job review, you’re not just reflecting; you’re equipping yourself with insights and tools to create an intentional and improved future.

Job satisfaction is typically accompanied by having an immense sense of fulfillment and enjoying your work. Being happy in your role is important for ensuring you stay motivated and continue developing your career.

In order to fully assess your satisfaction with your job, you should approach it from an objective and subjective standpoint. Combine your intuition with empirical evidence when reviewing your job satisfaction. 

Reflect on your responsibilities and refer to email threads and work documents to refresh your memory. A refresher of these records will help establish key moments, lessons learned, and patterns you’ve noticed.

Your gut feelings are also important; re-explore how you felt in the past year as you go through your notes.

After this research, there are different aspects to explore to find out if you are satisfied with your current role. They include: 

It’s important to recognise everything you have achieved, no matter how small they might seem. Make a list of at least five or six accomplishments. Did you solve a problem that allowed a project to be executed better?  Consider the core deliverables you produced and the goals you achieved.

Reviewing the past year in your job helps you process your experiences, both positive and negative, and how you felt during the past year in your job.  Aside from decluttering your mind, it also helps you pinpoint if your job is largely a negative or positive experience. 

Assess if there are opportunities for growth in your current position. Are you being challenged? Are there chances to take on new responsibilities? Stagnating in a role long-term can breed dissatisfaction.

You can’t work efficiently without cultivating interpersonal relationships. Evaluate your relationships with your co-workers and leader. Are they cordial or filled with conflict? How have they influenced your job satisfaction, and what can you do differently?

Reflect on any training courses, certifications, or knowledge domains you invested time in mastering. Did you teach yourself new abilities or specific knowledge? How has this development, or lack thereof, influenced your job satisfaction?

After assessing your level of job satisfaction, think about how you can change any sources of negativity, whether that’s through upskilling, having an honest conversation with your employer, or even looking for a new opportunity.

Reflecting on the past year can inspire fresh ideas for approaching the coming year. Patterns might emerge that weren’t visible when you were in the thick of things.

In a situation where you’ve decided you need to improve your satisfaction level, there are some steps you can apply:

• Decide what’s next: angling for a promotion or looking for a new job.
• Explore what skillsets and passions you would like to use more regularly and take the next steps towards that.
• Research typical responsibilities and qualifications for the next-level role you want to pursue and identify any experience or skill gaps you need to fill. What additional skills could help you in this potential new role? Develop a plan to close these gaps through training, mentoring, or self-study.
• Do you want to continue on your current career path or make a pivot to something new? Consider which types of roles excite you most right now.

Use your reflections from answering these questions to set new career goals and plan your new future.