2. Definitions
Organizational careers can be defined as “a sequence of
promotions and other upward moves in a work-related
hierarchy during the course of the person’s working life”
(Hall, 1976)
“A career is the sequence of employment-related positions,
roles, activities and experiences encountered by a person”
(Arnold, 1997)
Career management is an attempt to influence and shape the
career of others
3. Career Management Activities
• Establishing internal labour markets
• Identifying people to move into, within and out of
internal labour markets
- through selection, appraisal, assessment and
development centres
- through counselling, coaching and outplacement
• Organising succession planning
• Management of graduate entry and high potential
staff schemes
4. Career Management Activities
(continued)
• Providing planned experience
• Providing development programmes
• Linking reward systems e.g. to avoid losing high
fliers
• Providing information about job openings and
development opportunities e.g. Career Resource
Centres
• Managing careers of backbone managers
5. Challenges to Traditional Organizational
Career Management 1. Structural Change
• Rapid organizational change: e.g. re-structuring;
takeovers; technological change; internationalisation:
migration; professionalisation
– loss of traditional exchange around the ‘career promise’
and violation of psychological contract
• Flatter organizations – loss of traditional career hierarchy
• Challenge of search organisations and head-hunters
seeking talent
6. Challenges to Traditional Organizational
Career Management 2. Values Change
• Challenge of breaking the glass ceiling
• Dual-career families and family-friendly practices
• Changing values – Baby boomers, Generations X and Y
and implied need for a flexible career exchange. This
includes:
– Search for work-life balance
– Disaffection with work-demands, stress and career
tournament/rat race
• Concern about ‘career regret’ linked to lengthy
professional training and vocational immaturity
7. The New Career?
• The view that all organizational life is temporary and
flexible (and insecure) (e.g.Cappelli)
• Interest in the “protean career” (Hall), reflected in career
self-management and subjectively defined career success
• Growth of (interest in) the boundaryless career
• Linked to possession of distinctive (managerial or
professional) knowledge and skills and importance of
updating/refreshing knowledge
8. Implications of the New Career
“I don’t think anyone under 30 truly believes they
work for anyone any more. They think of
themselves as their own profit and loss account,
their own brand, their own business”.
Julie Meyer: Managing Partner, Ariadne Capital
9. The Protean Career and Career SelfManagement (Hall)
• Growing focus on subjective career success – implies
rejection of organizational criteria and associated priorities
• Focus on individual rather than organizational
responsibility for career self-management
• Elements of career self-management include seeking
development opportunities, networking, self-promotion,
readiness (up-to-date CV), scanning opportunities
• Focus on concept of employability
10. Employability Definitions
Employability is the probability of obtaining and
retaining a job in the internal or external labour
market.
It can be objective – an analysis of actual movement
across organizations but also jobs and occupations
(the mobility of capital)
Subjective – perception/belief that you can easily find
another job at least as good as your present job.
11. Analysing Components of Employability: a
competency profile of highly employable people.
Also known as “movement capital”
Human capital - KSAs affecting career opps. Knowing how
Social capital - Social networks; politics
Knowing whom
Self-awareness - career identity
Knowing why
Adaptability - willingness to adjust to
Knowing when
circumstances
Self-awareness and adaptability can be viewed as metaskills
12. The Boundaryless Career
(Arthur, Rousseau and others)
• Logic of protean career and retained employability –
individuals ‘manage’ across organizational boundaries
• Organizational mobility as the route to career advancement
• In a knowledge society, human capital is valuable, often
rare and highly transferable
• Places a new emphasis on organizations to manage talent
and organizational (versus career) commitment
13. Implications for Organizations Wishing to Attract and
retain Highly Employable Graduates/Professionals
• Recognise that you want highly employable people but they are
the most marketable – so the challenge is to keep them
• Recognise that they will constantly network and explore the
opportunities – live in a career tournament
• Goal is to enhance employability (general and specific skills)
and commitment – well-treated staff only leave if there is a
clearly better opportunity
• So what generates commitment?
– Keep your promises – on opportunities, development & responsibility.
So provide organizational career management but also
encourage/develop career self-management
– Generate embeddedness – social and job ties
– Provide consistent organizational support – show you care
– Maintain a positive exchange – get more out of staying than leaving
14. Whose Careers Should HR Be Managing?
Careers in Routine Jobs
(Guest and Sturges)
Within one
organization
Beyond one
organization
Work as
Central
traditional
tourism
constrained career
achievement
self-employment
Work as
Marginal
variety and control
opted out
out
disengagement
locked
15. Broadening Career Management
• CIPD Careers Survey: 79% agree career
development should be available to all staff but it
is usually restricted to a minority (often identified
as high potential)
• Reflects neglect of careers of non-managerial/nongraduate staff. They probably need to engage in
more career self-management but may be less
capable of doing so (though may have strong
networks)
16. Changing Career Patterns - an
Assessment
• Career disaffection is not new
• Many graduates still aspire to traditional careers in
large organizations
• Average tenure has altered little over the past 30
years
• Over three-quarters of CIPD respondents judge
their career management to be effective or very
effective in the face of change but firms usually
have limited evidence to support this claim
• Career management remains a key HR activity
17. Reading
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Guest & King*** – covers several career management topics
Sullivan & Arthur*** – case for boundaryless career
Rodrigues & Guest*** – case against boundaryless career
Sturges, Guest, Conway and Mackenzie Davey* – study of how
graduates get committed to a career
Hall & Moss* - outline of the protean career concept
Guest & Sturges* - non-managerial careers in context
Arnold – a book providing a good background overview of
career issues
