Tips For Maintaining Workplace Flexibility While Advancing Your BA Career

Flexibility is an essential aspect of any career. 87% of professionals say that holding a flexible job would lower their stress levels overall. In an era of global pandemics and economic uncertainty, professionals must cultivate flexibility in their careers to secure their well-being.

But what does flexibility in your career look like? What skills contribute to a greater range of career mobility, and how can you better guarantee your upward climb?

This article explores some details to help you maintain flexibility in your career.

What Flexibility Means In Your Career

Flexibility is a broadly defined quality in any career. It can mean everything from transformative workflow processes like work-from-home (WFH) options to various workplace-related opportunities. Little has emphasized the need for flexibility in any career quite like the coronavirus pandemic. With changing work structures and business needs, business and data analysts require practices and policies that can be adapted accordingly.

This starts with flexibility in the work process.

Where & When You Work

Most businesses shifted to WFH and hybrid working options to keep workers safe and productive during the pandemic. Meanwhile, flexibility in work hours led to increased job satisfaction among 73% of workers, as reported by Compare Camp.

The flexibility in where and when work gets done is being increasingly recognized as an essential aspect of the modern workforce. Securing this level of flexibility can mean greater job satisfaction and productivity in your career.

But where and when you work isn't your only guarantor of success.

How You Work

Business is adapting to the world of big data and increasing insight generation through a highly connected consumer base. Data is generated through online interactions and Internet of Things (IoT) devices to allow for analytical insights at unprecedented levels.

Flexibility in how you work is dependent on the tools at your disposal. Software platforms, artificial intelligence assistance, and data visualization applications can offer greater flexibility in analyzing and communicating business needs. The use of these tools can also signify mobility in different job roles.

How You Advance

Changing tools and markets mean changing responsibilities. Increasingly, data drives our business decisions by providing evidence into customer and industry behavior. Business analysts are often transitioning into the role of a data scientist as a result. Learning new skills like data science can mean ample and lucrative advancement opportunities for analysts. Exploring these avenues for development can be a great way to secure career flexibility.

Developing New Skills

Developing new skills for a flexible career takes careful practice and industry research, however. Understanding where you can support your team will inform how you adapt your skillset for greater adaptability.

As a business analyst, you can't go wrong developing new skills in the following three areas:

Customer Analytics

Customer analytics is the process and technology used to generate data-driven insights into every step of the customer journey. Expanding your skillset into this area can better ensure the flexibility of your career.

Customer data like demographics, shopping habits, and online behaviors can help inform all kinds of business processes. These data points can bring greater value to products and marketing from review to predictive analysis. Analysts with these skills have greater power to secure their advancement than those that don't.

Data Science

Business analytics and data science are two fields that are often confused. While similar, experts in these fields typically fulfill different roles. Data scientists deal more with analyzing raw data and categorizing it using algorithms and software. On the other hand, business analysts focus more on generating actionable information from that data.

Analysts can increase their capabilities and opportunities with skills in data science. Organization and technical proficiencies allow analysts to structure raw data sets to produce insights without relying on others. In turn, they can maximize their productivity and opportunities for mobility within an organization.

Communication

Communication skills are crucial to success in virtually any position. Your ability to communicate insights will determine the flexibility you have within your position.

One effective method of improving this skill is maintaining an empathetic outlook towards customers and colleagues. Placing yourself in the role of others allows you to examine their needs and challenges. In turn, you can craft a more informative narrative regarding how your organization can meet these needs.

Upward Mobility In Your Career

Maintaining flexibility in your career requires an adaptable work process alongside valuable skill sets. Whether you're working from home or in the office, you can better ensure your career's flexibility by studying market trends and advancing the skills necessary to analyze and communicate data effectively.

Expand your experience into customer analytics, data science, and communication while exploring a flexible work environment. By doing so, you stand to not only increase your job satisfaction but your payscale and available opportunities as well.