Sustainable Career ManagementMatching organizational and individual needs in the new career era

Ans De Vosans.devos@ams.ac.be@AnsDeVos

A changing career context

1. Changing time perspective

Relatively short careers

Long periods in the same job

Predictable career sequences

Increasing career length

Shorter periods in the same job

Unpredictable career sequences

2. Changes in the social space

Work as ‘something you go to’

Change of employers is more an exception than a rule

Work as ‘something you do’

Increase in career mobility

Transitional careers

Importance of social capital

Kovalenko & Mortelmans, 2013, Steunpunt WSE report

3. Changes in agency

A career as driven by the organization

Pre-defined career paths

Mutual expectations about loyalty and performance career progress

Career management = retention management

A career as driven by the individual

Creating your own career path

Investing in employability as prerequisite for career security

“Ask and you will be given”

4. Changes in the meaning of career success

Objective career success:

- Common understandings

- Limited number of dimensions: security, income prestige

- Visible, tangible

Subjective career success

- Dependent upon personal values: individual differences

- Multiple dimensions: pluriformity

- Subjective, intangible (even for the individual himself)

Organizational challenges of a changing career landscape

WorkComplexity

Shift to knowledge workUnpredictabilityCost savings

CHALLENGES FOR MANAGEMENT

Creating a high performance and a high commitment climate in which employees feel motivated to contribute to

organizational goals

EmployeesDiversity

The new loyaltyFeedback junkies

Sustainable Career Management: A balancing act

Implication: who “owns” the career?

Career eco-

system

Individual in the driver seat – broader

lifecourse perspective

Organisation context in which

careers unfold

Policy makers create labour

market context

Managing careers“It takes two to tango”

Career management can only address the needs of the organization through responding to employees’ needs

Ultimately the career is controlled by the employee, as far as they can leave…

... but it is the employer who largely controls the context, i.e. work and career opportunities, that affect an employee’s career decision

As a manager you need to understand this context and the HR-strategy and practices shaping it

Sustainable Career Management: A working definition

“An organizational approach and bundle of career processes and practices that manage the development of individuals along a path of

experiences and jobs (Hall, 2002), thereby enabling longer careers characterized by continuous employability and engagement, for all

parts of the workforce, in view of sustained organizational performance and continuity”

Proactive

Reactive

Comfort & competence

Growth & potential

Support

Self-management

Tailored

Inclusive

Employability

Workability

sustainable career management: A

balancing act

Building Blocks of Sustainable Career Management

1) Focus on processes rather than structures

2) Conceive careers as learning cycles

3) Use a broad frame of reference when considering career options – look further than organizational boundaries

4) Formulate a clear “career value proposition”

5) Consider individuals as owners of their careers

6) Provide a growth perspective through performancedevelopment rather than management

7) Turn around the reasoning: what if we would not invest in the careers of our people: implications for engagement, for employability, for retention...?

Leveraging Opportunities for Career Development through a Network Approach

Foundation: defining commonalities en complementarities in career needs

1) Creating a job market at the network level through job postings

2) Internships

3) Talent pools

4) Outsourcing for temporary projects / assignments / replacements

5) Co-sourcing

Mutual gains for individual and organization

Example of career development in a network

Proactive

Reactive

Comfort & competence

Growth & potential

Support

Self-management

Tailored

Inclusive

Employability

Workability

sustainable career management: A

balancing act

1. Balancing between reactive and proactive actionsCareer management implies a window on a future which is difficult to predict, but also requires responding to current needs

Recognize the inherent unpredictability of careers - for organizations as well as individuals,

But unpredictability is not an excuse for not anticipating

Faciliate thinking about the future rather than trying to capture it with (complex) systems: which scenarios are possible?

What do you know today about tomorrow’s needs?

What are future implications of (career)management, career choices made today ?

2. Balancing between employability and workability

Employees’ career potential depends on their competencies (employability) as well as their mental fitness (workability)

Workability• Through qualitative jobs• Through facilitating employees in “job crafting”

Employability:• More employable employees have more opportunities on the external labour

market – make clear what is possible internally• Think more broadly about potential than only potential as vertical growth• Think in terms of talents: where do people want to grow themselves?

3. Balancing between comfort, competence and growth, potential

Potential = what has not come to the surface yet, and what can be further developed and employed depending on organizational needs

• Career management needs to focus on potential but is often concerned with retaining employees for their current competences

• Potential assessment should be more than assessing the likelihood of high performance in a higher-level job.

• The “progress principle”: everyone needs a growth perspective

• Create a broad frame of reference to make the tradeoff between “risk of loss” and “possible gains” more clear

4. Balancing between an inclusive and a tailor-made approach

Everyone has a career, so career management should be in place for all employees, not only target groups

... But in practice often only for those who fall within the focus of attention, or who actively ask for it

A broad focus of career management implies flexibility in what is possible, but inclusiveness ≠ uniformity:

- Formulate a clear “career value proposition”

- Consider relevant criteria for segmentation

- I-deals

5. Balancing between support and self-management

The employee owns the career, not the organisation.

With ownership comes responsibility

But this implies “career-competent” employees

Importance of career insight: who am I, what can I do, what do I want to do?

Self-management: netwerking, participation in development activities, asking for feedback, ...

Ownership is no excuse to let employees remain passive: risic for the “Matthew-effect”

Career support as the heart of career management

Sustainable Career Management in Practice?Dimension Findings from the career management surveyFocus on employability and work ability

Employability is number one goal of career management Work ability is least frequently mentioned as a goal of career management (exception: small companies and social profit sector)Low frequency of practices focused on detecting employees’ career potential

Anticipating for the future

41% says to react to current needs rather than anticipate future needs36% describes its career management as being ‘planned rather than ad hoc’

Inclusive About 1/3 organizations only allows I-deals for specific target groups Most frequently mentioned group: high potentials

Tailor-made and individualized

I-Deals: Individual arrangements are possible...94% to follow training 85% in competency development48% in career paths

Self-management

70% “employee is responsible for their own career”91% “in the first place, employees should feel good about their career”52% “employees have to search their own way to attain what they aim for”

Career support 10% career development plan for everyone38% career counselling by professional coaches15% workshops about career development25% career conversations

Source: Antwerp Management School and SD Worx Career Management Survey, 2012, n = 782 respondents (HR-managers or directors from 782 Belgian organizations)

There are three kinds of people in this world:

Those who MAKE things happenThose who WATCH what

happensThose who WONDER what

happened

ans.devos@ams.ac.be@AnsDeVos