chapter 12

Career Management and Development

Question 1: What comes to mind when you think about the term "career"?
Question 2: What is meant by the idea of a "new" employment relationship?
Question 3: Does it make sense to speak of careers and career planning in today’s business environment?
Question 4: What are the typical issues employees face as they progress through their careers?
Question 5: What types of career development activities are actually used?

HRD involves:
- Understanding employee careers
- Influencing those careers
- Changing Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Other characteristics (KSAOs) to reflect changes in the environment
- Assisting employees in preparing for new work and enhancing their employability

Old Employment Relationship Characteristics:
- Job security if competent and reliable (job for life)
- Employees have an “entitlement” mentality
- Paternalistic company environments
- Loyalty expected both from employees and employers
New Employment Relationship Characteristics:
- No guarantees regarding job security
- No promise of promotion or a lifelong career
- Employees are responsible for their own development
- Must demonstrate added value to the company
- Must understand business nuances

Employers should:
- Provide development opportunities
- Allow employee participation in decision making, career management, and performance-based compensation

Career:
- The property of an organization or occupation
- A progression characterized by increasing success or status in a profession
- Involvement in one’s work and the stability of work patterns
Definition:
- "The pattern of work-related experiences that spans the course of a person’s life."
- Includes both objective and subjective views of work, incorporating elements of satisfaction and achievement.

Consideration of all personal skills, abilities, interests
Acknowledgment of family and societal influences on career choices and development

Career Development Definition:
- “An ongoing process by which individuals progress through a series of stages, each characterized by unique issues, themes, and tasks.”

Career Planning Definition:
- A deliberate process involving:
- Awareness of self, opportunities, constraints, choices, and consequences
- Career-related goal identification
- Working toward the attainment of those goals

Career Management Definition:
- “The process of preparing, implementing, and monitoring career plans undertaken by the individual alone or in cooperation with the organization’s career systems.”

Employee-Centered Activities:
- Individual career planning
Mutual Focus Activities:
- Manager-employee planning
Organization-Centered Activities:
- Corporate career management, including seminars, developmental workshops, and assessment centers

Stage Views of Adult Development:
- Erikson’s Stages of Life:
- Basic trust vs. mistrust
- Autonomy vs. shame and doubt
- Initiative vs. guilt
- Industry vs. inferiority
- Identity vs. role confusion
- Intimacy vs. isolation
- Generativity vs. stagnation
- Ego integrity vs. despair
- Levinson’s Eras or Seasons of Life:
- Preadulthood: Childhood and adolescence
- Early Adulthood: Age 17-30 (Entering the Adult World, Early Adult Transition)
- Middle Adulthood: Age 30-65 (Settling down, Entering middle adulthood)
- Late Adulthood: Age 65+
Traditional Model of Career Development:
- Five Stages (Greenhaus et al.):
- Preparation for Work: Ages 0-25
- Organizational Entry: Ages 18-25
- Early Career: Ages 25-40
- Midcareer: Ages 40-55
- Late Career: Ages 55-retirement

Protean Career: Concept where individuals must reinvent their career paths over time (Hall & Mirvis)
Multiple Career Concepts:
- Linear: Steady upward movement in the hierarchy
- Expert: Deep expertise within a specific occupation
- Spiral: Periodic moves across related occupations
- Transitory: Frequent movement across different jobs or fields

Essential components include:
- Aware of self and environment
- Need to evaluate opportunities and decide
- Goal setting and strategy implementation
- Feedback from work and nonwork environments

Approaches:
- Pluralistic approach: Aligning individual and organizational interests (Brousseau et al.)
- Systems view: Encompassing people system, job market system, and management/information system (Nicholson)
- Team-based career development (Cianni & Wnuck)

Individual Responsibilities:
- Knowledge of self, purpose, direction, connections, timing, and methodology
Manager Responsibilities:
- Coaching, appraising performance, advising on career paths, referring employees to resources
HRD Professionals' Responsibilities:
- Recognizing individual’s ownership of their career
- Brokering development opportunities
- Creating supportive environments and promoting continuous learning

Self-Assessment Activities:
- Tools like Self-Directed Search (Holland), "What Color is Your Parachute?" (Bolles)
Individual Counseling:
- Career planning, outplacement, preretirement counseling
Labor Market Information:
- Job postings and skills inventories
Developmental Programs:
- Job rotation, mentoring, assessment centers

Career Motivation Development: Concepts of resilience, insight, and identity
Career Plateaus: Understanding perceptions of career stagnation
Development for Nonexempt Employees: A broader focus beyond salaried positions
Career Enrichment: Developing expertise without formal advancement
Work/Life Balance Issues: Addressing conflicts between work and personal life, consider implications on values and relationships

A systems approach includes:
- Identifying development needs
- Developing a vision for change
- Creating actionable plans
- Implementing for sustained impact and evaluating results

Effective career development is a collaborative endeavor between individuals, managers, and HR professionals. It requires proactivity and an integrated approach to be successful in a rapidly changing work environment.