Managing Human Resources, Cascio, 7th Edition

Chapter 10
Managing Careers

CHAPTER LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Questions this chapter will help managers answer:
1.

What strategies might be used to help employees self-manage their careers?

2.

What can supervisors do to improve their management of dual-career couples?

3.

Why are the characteristics and environment of an employees first job so important?

4.

What strategies are available for dealing with plateaued workers?

5.

What steps can managers take to do a better job of responding to the special needs of
workers in their early, middle, and late career stages?

KEY TERMS
Career

Promotions

Career Success

Demotions

Organizational entry

Blended life course

Socialization

Impulsive quitters

Mentor

Comparison quitters

Reverse mentoring

Preplanned quitters

Plateaued worker

Conditional quitters

Career paths

Self-assessment

Managing Human Resources, Cascio, 7th Edition

CHAPTER 10 OUTLINE
SELF-RELIANCE: KEY TO CAREER MANAGEMENT

In todays corporate environment, you are likely to crash into the ranks of the
unemployed with no safety net, and it could happen over and over again.

Career survival is up to younot the company. Consider yourself to be selfemployed, responsible for your own career development.

Working as a self-employed contractor, changing jobs frequently, learning cuttingedge skills, and working as a roving gun-for-hire over the long term can be a
detriment because it does not show loyalty or stability.

Acquisitions, divestitures, rapid growth, and downsizing have left many companies
unable to deliver on the implicit career promises made to their employees.

At the same time, there was been a massive realization that work isnt everything.
People in every industry are passing up opportunities for promotions so that they can
have a life.

DIRI-KETERGANTUNGAN: KUNCI MANAJEMEN KARIR

Dalam lingkungan perusahaan saat ini, Anda cenderung masuk ke dalam rangking
atau masuk tahapan pengangguran tanpa net yang pengaman, dan itu bisa terjadi
berulang-ulang.

survival Karir terserah Anda-bukan perusahaan. Menganggap diri Anda untuk

menjadi wiraswasta, bertanggung jawab untuk pengembangan karir Anda sendiri.

Bekerja sebagai kontraktor wiraswasta, mengubah pekerjaan sering, belajar

keterampilan mutakhir, dan bekerja sebagai senjata-untuk-menyewa keliling dalam
jangka panjang dapat merugikan karena tidak menunjukkan loyalitas atau stabilitas.

Akuisisi, divestasi, pertumbuhan yang cepat, dan perampingan telah meninggalkan

banyak perusahaan tidak dapat memenuhi janji-janji karir implisit dibuat untuk
karyawan mereka.

Pada saat yang sama, ada menjadi realisasi besar yang bekerja bukanlah segalanya.
Orang-orang di setiap industri lewat peluang untuk promosi sehingga mereka dapat
memiliki kehidupan.

Managing Human Resources, Cascio, 7th Edition

Characteristics of the New Approach

Although the primary and final responsibility for career development rests with each
employee, the company has complementary responsibilities.

The company is responsible for:

Communicating to employees where it wants to go and how it plans to get there
(the corporate strategy)
Providing employees with as much information about the business as possible
Responding to the career initiatives of employees with candid, complete
information.

One of the most important contributions a company can make to each employees
development is to provide honest performance feedback about current job
performance.

Employees, in turn, are responsible for:

Knowing what their skills and capabilities are
Knowing what assistance they need from their employers
Asking for that assistance
Preparing themselves to assume new responsibilities.

Career self-reliance (career resilience) does not mean free agency. Rather, each
individual needs to become an informed opportunist, combining accurate
information with a flexible, opportunistic approach to his or her career.

This approach to career management can be summed up as follows:

Assign employees the responsibility for managing their own careers, and then provide
the support they need to do it.

Karakteristik Pendekatan Baru

Meskipun tanggung jawab utama dan akhir untuk pengembangan karir terletak dengan
setiap karyawan, perusahaan memiliki tanggung jawab yang saling melengkapi.
Perusahaan ini bertanggung jawab untuk:
Berkomunikasi dengan karyawan di mana ia ingin pergi dan bagaimana rencana ke sana
(strategi perusahaan)
Memberikan karyawan dengan sebanyak mungkin informasi tentang bisnis mungkin
Menanggapi inisiatif karir karyawan dengan candid, informasi lengkap.

Managing Human Resources, Cascio, 7th Edition

Salah satu kontribusi paling penting sebuah perusahaan dapat membuat pembangunan
setiap karyawan adalah untuk memberikan umpan balik kinerja yang jujur tentang kinerja
pekerjaan saat ini.
Karyawan, pada gilirannya, bertanggung jawab untuk:
Mengetahui apa keterampilan dan kemampuan mereka
Mengetahui bantuan apa yang mereka butuhkan dari majikan mereka
Meminta bantuan yang
Mempersiapkan diri untuk memikul tanggung jawab baru.
Karir kemandirian (ketahanan karir) tidak berarti agen bebas. Sebaliknya, setiap individu
perlu menjadi "oportunis informasi," menggabungkan informasi yang akurat dengan
fleksibel, pendekatan oportunistik untuk kariernya.
Pendekatan untuk manajemen karir dapat disimpulkan sebagai berikut:
Menetapkan karyawan tanggung jawab untuk mengelola karir mereka sendiri, dan kemudian
memberikan dukungan yang mereka perlu lakukan itu.

Managing Human Resources, Cascio, 7th Edition

CHALLENGE QUESTIONS
1.

Should employees be responsible for their own career development?

Employee initiative in career planning and development is indeed desirable. The
employee is perhaps the best judge of personal desires, needs, values, and aspirations,
which determine career directions, and needs for advancement. However, career
development must be a joint responsibility of the employee and the organization, for
it makes no sense for a worker to establish grandiose career plans that are unrealistic
in terms of the organization's human resource needs.

Harus karyawan bertanggung jawab untuk pengembangan karir mereka sendiri?

inisiatif karyawan dalam perencanaan dan pengembangan karir memang diinginkan.
Karyawan mungkin hakim terbaik dari keinginan pribadi, kebutuhan, nilai-nilai, dan aspirasi,
yang menentukan arah karir, dan kebutuhan untuk kemajuan. Namun, pengembangan karir
harus menjadi tanggung jawab bersama karyawan dan organisasi, untuk itu tidak masuk akal
bagi seorang pekerja untuk membangun rencana karir muluk yang tidak realistis dalam hal
kebutuhan sumber daya manusia organisasi.
2.

Is the new approach to corporate career management likely to be a fad or is it

here to stay?
To the extent that this new approach is a cooperative venture that integrates individual
desires and organizational needs, it is probably here to stay. Certainly, we are unlikely
to return to the corporate paternalism of the past where individuals relied exclusively
on the good intentions of corporate planners to take care of their career interests.

Adalah pendekatan baru untuk manajemen karir perusahaan cenderung mode atau itu di sini
untuk tinggal?
Sejauh pendekatan baru ini adalah usaha koperasi yang mengintegrasikan keinginan individu
dan kebutuhan organisasi, mungkin di sini untuk tinggal. Tentu saja, kita tidak mungkin
untuk kembali ke paternalisme perusahaan dari masa lalu di mana individu mengandalkan
secara eksklusif pada niat baik dari perencana perusahaan untuk mengurus kepentingan karir
mereka.

3.

What kinds of support mechanisms are necessary to make career

self-management work?
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Managing Human Resources, Cascio, 7th Edition

This question is answered partially in the conclusion to the case. The mechanisms
include self-assessment, career planning workshops, supervisory training in how to
"career path" employees, and succession planning to identify likely replacement
candidates for managerial positions. In addition, the organization needs an effective
performance appraisal system to provide candid feedback on the employee's current
performance and potential for advancement. Further, the organization needs a
strategic planning process and a means for communicating to employees the types of
KSAs that it will be needing in future workers based on the strategic direction the
firm is heading.
Apa jenis mekanisme dukungan yang diperlukan untuk membuat pekerjaan manajemen karir
diri?
Pertanyaan ini dijawab sebagian dalam kesimpulan untuk kasus ini. Mekanisme termasuk
self assessment, lokakarya perencanaan karir, pelatihan pengawasan bagaimana "jalur karir"
karyawan, dan perencanaan suksesi untuk mengidentifikasi calon pengganti mungkin untuk
posisi manajerial. Selain itu, organisasi membutuhkan sistem penilaian kinerja yang efektif
untuk memberikan umpan balik yang jujur pada kinerja saat karyawan dan potensi untuk
kemajuan. Selanjutnya, organisasi perlu proses perencanaan strategis dan sarana untuk
berkomunikasi dengan karyawan jenis ksas bahwa hal itu akan membutuhkan pekerja masa
depan berdasarkan arah strategis perusahaan sedang menuju

Managing Human Resources, Cascio, 7th Edition

TOWARD A DEFINITION OF CAREER

The word career is used in a number of different ways:

People speak of pursuing a career
Career-planning workshops are common
Colleges and universities hold career days and offer career counseling.
A person may be characterized as a career woman or man who shops in a store
that specializes in career clothing.
A person may be characterized as a career military officer.
We may overhear a person say, That movie made his career (i.e., it enhanced
his reputation) or in a derogatory tone, after a subordinate has insulted the CEO,
She can kiss her career good-bye (i.e., she has tarnished her reputation).
An angry supervisor may remark to a dawdling subordinate, Are you going to
make a career out of changing that light bulb?

From an objective perspective, a career is a sequence of positions occupied by a

person during the course of a lifetime.

From a subjective perspective, a career consists of a sense of where one is going in

ones work life.
It is held together by a self-concept that consists of (1) perceived talents and
abilities, (2) basic values, and (3) career motives and needs.

Both of these perspectives, objective and subjective, focus on the individual and
assume that people have control over their destinies and that they can manipulate
opportunities in order to maximize the success and satisfaction derived from their
careers.

Both perspectives assume that HR activities should recognize career stages and assist
employees with the development tasks they face at each stage.

Career planning is important because the consequences of career success or failure

are linked closely to each individuals self-concept, identity, and satisfaction with
career and life.

Career development and planning have been de-emphasized in some firms as

employees wondered whether they would even have jobs, much less careers. Here are
some reasons:
Rising concerns for quality of work life and for personal life planning.
Pressures to expand workforce diversity throughout all levels of an organization.
Rising educational levels and occupational aspirations, coupled with
Slow economic growth and reduced opportunities for advancement.

Managing Human Resources, Cascio, 7th Edition

MENUJU DEFINISI "KARIR"

Karir kata digunakan dalam sejumlah cara yang berbeda:
orang berbicara tentang "mengejar karir"
"career-perencanaan" lokakarya yang umum
perguruan tinggi dan universitas terus "karir hari" dan menawarkan "konseling karir."
seseorang dapat dicirikan sebagai "karir" wanita atau pria yang toko-toko di sebuah toko
yang mengkhususkan diri dalam "pakaian karir."
seseorang dapat dicirikan sebagai "perwira militer karier."
kita mungkin mendengar seseorang mengatakan, "film itu membuat 'karirnya" (yaitu,
meningkatkan reputasinya) atau dengan nada menghina, setelah seorang bawahan telah
menghina ceo, "dia bisa mencium karirnya selamat tinggal" ( yaitu, dia telah menodai
reputasinya).
sebuah pengawas marah mungkin berkomentar untuk bawahan lamban, "apakah anda
akan membuat karier dari perubahan yang bola lampu?"
Dari perspektif objektif, karir adalah urutan posisi yang diduduki oleh seseorang selama
seumur hidup.
Dari perspektif subjektif, karir terdiri dari rasa mana satu akan dalam kehidupan kerja
seseorang.
Hal ini diselenggarakan bersama oleh-konsep diri yang terdiri dari (1) bakat dan
kemampuan yang dirasakan, (2) nilai-nilai dasar, dan (3) motif karir dan kebutuhan.
Kedua perspektif ini, obyektif dan subyektif, fokus pada individu dan menganggap bahwa
orang memiliki kendali atas nasib mereka dan bahwa mereka dapat memanipulasi peluang
untuk memaksimalkan keberhasilan dan kepuasan yang berasal dari karir mereka.
Kedua perspektif menganggap bahwa kegiatan HR harus mengakui tahap karir dan
membantu karyawan dengan tugas-tugas pembangunan yang mereka hadapi pada setiap
tahap.
Perencanaan karir adalah penting karena konsekuensi dari kesuksesan karir atau kegagalan
terkait erat dengan konsep diri masing-masing individu, identitas, dan kepuasan dengan karir
dan kehidupan.
Pengembangan karir dan perencanaan telah de-menekankan di beberapa perusahaan sebagai
karyawan bertanya-tanya apakah mereka bahkan akan memiliki pekerjaan, apalagi karir.
Berikut adalah beberapa alasan:
kekhawatiran Meningkatnya kualitas kehidupan kerja dan untuk perencanaan kehidupan
pribadi.
Tekanan untuk memperluas keragaman tenaga kerja di seluruh tingkat organisasi.
Meningkatnya tingkat pendidikan dan aspirasi pekerjaan, ditambah dengan
pertumbuhan ekonomi lambat dan mengurangi kesempatan untuk kemajuan.
pertumbuhan ekonomi lambat dan mengurangi kesempatan untuk kemajuan

Managing Human Resources, Cascio, 7th Edition

Proactive Career Management

A career is not something that should be left to chance.

Traditionally, careers tended to evolve in the context of one or two firms and to
progress in linear stages, as one moved upward through the hierarchy of positions in
an organization.

Downsizing, restructuring, technological advancements, and global competition,

careers span multiple organizations and are distinctly nonlinear.

They are boundaryless, and tend to be characterized by features such as:

Portable knowledge, skills, and abilities across multiple firms.
Personal identification with meaningful work.
On-the-job action learning.
Development of multiple networks of associates and peer-learning
relationships.
Responsibility for managing ones own career.

Manajemen Karir Proaktif

karir A bukanlah sesuatu yang harus diserahkan kepada kesempatan.
Secara tradisional, karir cenderung berkembang dalam konteks satu atau dua
perusahaan dan untuk kemajuan dalam tahap linear, sebagai salah satu bergerak ke
atas melalui hirarki posisi dalam sebuah organisasi.
Perampingan, restrukturisasi, kemajuan teknologi, dan persaingan global, karir
mencakup beberapa organisasi dan jelas nonlinear.
Mereka berbatas, dan cenderung ditandai dengan fitur seperti:
pengetahuan Portable, keterampilan, dan kemampuan di beberapa perusahaan.
Identifikasi Pribadi dengan pekerjaan yang berarti.
On-the-job tindakan pembelajaran.
Pengembangan beberapa jaringan perusahaan asosiasi dan peer-learning
hubungan.
Tanggung jawab untuk mengelola karir sendiri.

Managing Human Resources, Cascio, 7th Edition

Toward a Definition of Career Success

The tradition-oriented organization man of the 1950s had a clear definition of

success and a stable model for achieving it.

Today, however, it seems appropriate to consider a new model, as more careers tend
to be cyclical in nature. That is, they involve periodic cycles of skill apprenticeship,
mastery, and reskilling.

Lateral, rather than upward movement, often constitutes career development, and
cross-functional experience is essential to multiskilling and continued employability.

In this new world, the ultimate goal is psychological success, the feeling of pride and
personal accomplishment that comes from achieving ones most important goals in
life, be they achievement, family happiness, inner peace, or something else.

Menuju Definisi "Karir Sukses"

Tradisi-berorientasi "organisasi manusia" dari tahun 1950-an memiliki definisi yang jelas
tentang kesuksesan dan model stabil untuk mencapainya.
Hari ini, Namun, tampaknya tepat untuk mempertimbangkan model baru, karena lebih
banyak karir cenderung siklus di alam. Artinya, mereka melibatkan siklus periodik magang
keterampilan, penguasaan, dan pelatihan ulang.
Lateral, bukan gerakan ke atas, seringkali merupakan pengembangan karir, dan pengalaman
lintas-fungsional adalah penting untuk multiskilling dan terus kerja.
Dalam dunia baru ini, tujuan utamanya adalah kesuksesan psikologis, perasaan kebanggaan
dan prestasi pribadi yang datang dari mencapai tujuan satu yang paling penting dalam hidup,
baik itu prestasi, kebahagiaan keluarga, kedamaian batin, atau sesuatu yang lain.
Adult Life-Cycle Stages

There is little, if any, agreement about whether career stages are linked to age or not.

A career clock begins at different points for different individuals, based on their
backgrounds and experiences.

The lesson for managers is that all models of adult life-cycle stages should be viewed
as broad guidelines rather than as exact representations of reality.

Tahapan Hidup-Cycle dewasa

Ada sedikit, jika ada, kesepakatan tentang apakah tahapan karir terkait dengan usia atau
tidak.
A "Jam karir" dimulai pada titik yang berbeda untuk individu yang berbeda, berdasarkan
latar belakang dan pengalaman mereka.
Pelajaran bagi manajer adalah bahwa semua model tahap siklus hidup dewasa harus dilihat
sebagai pedoman luas daripada representasi sebagai yang tepat dari realitas

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Career Management: Individuals Focusing on Themselves

In thinking about career management, it is important to emphasize the increasingly

temporary relationships between individuals and organizations.

The fact is that responsibility for career development ultimately belongs to each
individual.

Unfortunately, few individuals are technically prepared (and willing) to handle this
assignment.

Very few college programs specifically address the problems of managing ones own
career.

As long as it remains difficult for organizations to match the career expectations of

their employees, one option for employees will be to switch organizations.

Selecting a Field of Employment and an Employer

You cannot manage your career unless you have a macro, long-range objective.

View every potential employer and position in terms of your long-range career goal.

Accept short-term trade-offs for long-term benefits.

Consider carefully whether to accept highly specialized jobs or isolated job

assignments that might restrict or impede your visibility and career development.

Knowing Where You Are

Always be aware of opportunities available to you in your current position.

Carefully and honestly assess your current performance.

Try to recognize when you and your organization have outlived your utility for each
other.

Here are five important symptoms:

Youre not excited by what you are doing.
Advancement is blocked.
Your organization is poorly managed and is losing market share.
You feel you are not adequately rewarded for your work.
You are not fulfilling your dreams.

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Planning Your Exit

Try to leave at your convenience, not the organizations.

Leave your current organization on good terms and not under questionable
circumstances.

Dont leave your current job until youve landed another one.

The Role of the Organization

Up to this point it may sound as though managing your career is all one-sided. This is
not true; the organization should be a proactive force in this process.

Organizations must think and plan in terms of shorter employment relationships. This
can be done, as it often is in professional sports, through fixed-term employment
contracts with options for renegotiation and extension.

A second strategy for organizations is to invest adequate time and energy in job
design and equipment.

The most persuasive reason for helping employees manage their own careers is the
need to remain competitive. Such efforts can enhance a companys stability by
developing more purposeful, self-assured employees.

Todays employees are more difficult to manage.

Companies that recognize the need to provide employees with satisfying

opportunities will have the decided advantage of a loyal and industrious workforce.

One of the most challenging career management problems organizations face today is
that of the dual-career couple.

Dual-Career Couples: Problems and Opportunities

Families in which both parents are working have become the majority among married
couples with children.

Dual-career couples now compose 45 percent of the workforce.

There may be an interaction effect that compounds the problems and stresses of each
separate career. This implies that career planning and development may be
meaningless unless an employees role as a family member also is considered,
particularly when this role conflicts with work activities.

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If dual-career couples are to manage their family responsibilities successfully, they

(and their managers) must:
Be flexible
Be mutually committed to both careers
Develop the competencies to manage their careers through planning, goal setting,
and problem solving.

From an organizational perspective, successful management of the dual-career couple

includes:
Flexible work schedules
Company-supported child care
Customized career paths that include the ability to:

Turn down advancement and be offered it again in the future

Move laterally for development

Turn down relocation and be asked again in the future

Specialize in one area of the organization.

Firms are more likely to offer such benefits when work and family issues are
important to senior HR executives and when the executives believe that failure to
offer the benefits will detract from the ability of the organization to perform well in
the marketplace.

Although demand for such services has never been greater:

Only 11 percent of large employers provide child-care
Only 20 percent offer resources and referrals
Less than 1 percent offer child care for parents working outside regular hours.

Families nationwide pay an average of about 7.5 percent of their annual pretax
income for child care.

Here are some reasons why employer-supported child care will continue to grow:
Dual-career couples now compose a preponderance of the workforce.
There has been a significant rise in the number of single parents, over half of
whom use child-care facilities.
More career-oriented women are arranging their lives to include motherhood and
professional goals.

Employer-sponsored dependent care has expanded to include elder care,

intergenerational care, sick-child care, and programs for school-age children (before
and after school, as well as holiday programs).
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Other variations include centers located in office and industrial parks for use by all
tenants, and centers sponsored by networks of businesses.

Providing family benefits promotes a dedicated, loyal workforce among people who
benefit directly from the policies, as well as from those who do not.

However, dont expect that a day-care center or a flexible schedule will keep women
managers from leaving corporations. They may be quite willing to throw corporate
loyalty to the wind if they arent getting adequate opportunities for career growth and
job satisfaction.

Managing dual-career couples, from an individual as well as from an organizational

perspective, is difficult, but it is not going to go away.

CAREER MANAGEMENT: ORGANIZATIONS FOCUSING ON INDIVIDUALS

Organizational Entry

Organizational entry refers to the process of moving inside, or becoming more

involved in a particular organization.

Socialization refers to the mutual adaptation of the new employee and the new
employer to one another.

This enhances the newcomers commitment, job satisfaction, job performance, and
desire for personal control.

Because most turnover occurs early in a persons tenure with an organization,

programs that accelerate socialization will tend also to reduce early turnover and
therefore reduce a companys overall turnover rate.

The most effective methods for doing this are:

Realistic job previews
New-employee orientation
Mentoring

Mentoring

A mentor is a teacher, an advisor, a sponsor, and a confidant.

To overcome the potential problems associated with one-on-one, male-female

mentoring relationships, some firms have established quad squads that consist of a
mentor plus three new hires: a male, a female, and one other member of a protected
group.

Boosted self-esteem is a central goal of any mentoring effort.

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Organizations should actively promote such relationships and provide sufficient time
for mentors and new hires (or promising young executives) to meet on a regularly
scheduled basis.

Evidence indicates that a new employees satisfaction with the mentoring relationship
has a greater impact on job and career attitudes than whether the mentoring is formal
or informal.

Conversely, bad mentoring may be destructive, and worse than no mentoring at all.

The mentors role is to be a culture carrier, to teach new hires the ropes, to
provide candid feedback on how they are being perceived by others, and to serve as a
confidential sounding board for dealing with work-related problems.

If successful, mentor relationships can help reduce the inflated expectations that
newcomers often have about organizations; can relieve the stress experienced by all
new hires; and improve the newcomers chances for survival and growth in the
organization.

General Electric uses reverse mentoring, in which older managers meet with
younger subordinates to learn about the Internet and electronic commerce (ecommerce).

Rapidly changing technology, shifting organizational structures, and global

marketplace dynamics have transformed mentoring into a process that often extends
beyond the services of a single mentor.

Dont be afraid to seek out different mentors at different career stages and levels in an
effort to build a diverse portfolio of mentors.

Early Career: The Impact of the First Job

The positive impact of initial job challenge upon later career success and retention
has been found many times in a wide variety of settings.

Challenging initial job assignments are an antidote to career obsolescence.

The characteristics of the first supervisor are critical. He or she must be personally
secure; unthreatened by the new subordinates training, ambition, and energy; and
able to communicate company norms and values.

Beyond that, the supervisor should ideally be able to play the roles of coach, feedback
provider, trainer, role model, and protector in an accepting, esteem-building manner.

Because many Internet entrepreneurs averaged 70 to 80-hour weeks, everything but

work got put on hold.

By reassessing their priorities so early in life, this generation could ultimately lead far
more balanced lives than their parents did.

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Managing Men and Women in Midcareer

Myths about psychological landmarks of midlife, such as the empty-nest syndrome,

the midlife crisis, and the menopausal change of life have little scientific basis.

Nevertheless, the following issues may arise at some point between the ages of 35
and 55:
An awareness of advancing age and an awareness of death
An awareness of bodily changes related to aging
Knowing how many career goals have been or will be attained
A search for new life goals
A marked change in family relationships
A change in work relationships (one is now more of a coach than a novice or
rookie)
A growing sense of obsolescence at work
A feeling of decreased job mobility and increased concern for job security

Everyone experiences career transitions, but such transitions need not morph into full
blown crises. The key is to recognize the warning signs, such as:
Depression
A stagnant marriage
An unsatisfying career
Heavy emotional baggage from years past

While career success traditionally has been defined in terms of upward mobility, more
and more leading corporations are encouraging employees to step off the fast track
and convincing them that they can find rewards and happiness in lateral mobility.

Companies are trying to convince employees that becoming a plateaued worker is

a fact of life, not a measure of personal failure, and that success depends on lateral
integration of the business.

While there are fewer middle managers at medium and large companies, their jobs are
more important because they focus less on supervision and more on decision making.

>From 2002 to 2012, many firms will face shortages of managers with leadership and
technical knowledge (such as engineers with MBA degrees) and those with expertise
in management and computer matters.

The rapid growth of technology and the accelerating development of new knowledge
require that a person in midlife make some sort of change for her or his own survival.

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Not everyone who goes through this period in life experiences problems, but
everyone does go through the transition. Some are better equipped to cope than are
others.

The older people are, the more control they feel in their work, finances, and
marriages, but the less control they feel over health, children, and sex.

Life planning and career planning exercises encourage employees to face up to

feelings of restlessness and insecurity, to reexamine their values and life goals, and to
set new ones or to recommit themselves to old ones.

Onestrategyistotrainmidcareeremployeestodevelopyoungeremployees.

Animportantpsychologicalneedatmidcareeristobuildsomethinglasting,
somethingthatwillbeapermanentcontributiontoonesorganizationorprofession.

Anotherstrategyforcopingwithmidcareerproblemsistodealwithorprevent
obsolescence.Thiscanbedonethrough:
Challenging initial jobs
Periodic changes in assignments, projects, or jobs
Work climates that contain frequent, relevant communications
Rewards that are closely tied to performance
Participative styles of leadership.

Threepersonalcharacteristicstendtobeassociatedwithlowobsolescence:
High intellectual ability
High self-motivation
Personal flexibility (lack of rigidity)

Thebrightsideofallthis?
Because of increased competition for fewer jobs, the quality of middle managers
should increase.
Those unwilling to wait for promotions in large corporations may become
entrepreneurs and start their own businesses.
Others may readjust their life and career goals, and attempt to satisfy their needs
for achievement, recognition, and personal growth off the job.

After20yearsonthejob,mostmanagershadgivenuptheirearlydreams,andmany
couldnotevenrememberhowhightheyhadaspiredinthefirstplace.

Midlifewasindeedacrisistosomeofthemanagers,butnottothemajority.

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Itispossibletomovethroughthemiddleyearsoflifewithoutreevaluationofones
goalsandlife.Butitisprobablyhealthiertodevelopaneworrevisedgameplan
duringthisperiod.

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Managing the Older Worker

Longevityincreasedby27yearsinthe20thcentury.Theresult:anarmyofhealthy,
over65,unemployedadults.

Legally,theeliminationofmandatoryretirementatanyagehasmadethisissueeven
moresignificant.

Managerscanexpectfeweryoungerworkersandmoreolderworkers.

Inshort,thebabyboomofthepostwarperiodwillbecometherockingchairboom
oftheearly21stcentury.

Myths versus Facts about Older Workers

Agestereotypesareanunfortunateimpedimenttothecontinuedgrowthand
developmentofworkersovertheageof55.

Herearesomecommonmythsaboutage,alongwiththefacts:
Myth. Older workers are less productive than younger workers.
Fact. Age and job performance are generally unrelated.
Myth. It costs more to prepare older workers for a job.
Fact. Studies show that mental abilities, such as verbal, numerical, and reasoning
skills, remain stable into the seventies.
Myth. Older workers are absent more often because of age-related infirmities
and above-average rates of illness.
Fact. Older workers tend to be absent less frequently, at least in non-illness
situations, but the duration of the absences that do take place tends to be longer.
Myth. Older workers have an unacceptably high rate of accidents on the job.
Fact. Persons aged 55 and over had only 9.7 percent of all workplace injuries;
among healthy workers aged 2375, age was not associated with increased
accidents and illnesses at work; regardless of length of experience, the younger
the employee, the higher the accident rate.
Myth. Older workers do not get along well with other employees.
Fact. Owners of small and large businesses alike agree that older employees
bring stability and relate well.

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Myth. The cost of employee benefits outweighs any other possible benefits from
hiring older workers.
Fact. True, when older people get sick, the illness is often chronic and requires
repeated doctors visits and hospitalization. However, the costs of health care for
an older worker are lower than those for a younger, married worker with several
children.
Myth. Older people are inflexible about the type of work they will perform.
Fact. A study found that 55 percent of those under age 50, 63 percent of those
aged 5059, and 78 percent of those over age 60 changed industries.
Myth. Older people do not function well if constantly interrupted.
Fact. Neither do younger people.
Implications of the Aging Workforce for HRM

Not all older workers are model employees, just as not all older workers fit traditional
stereotypes.

We know what the future labor market will look like in general terms:
Both the demand for and the supply of older workers will continue to expand.

To capitalize on these trends, one approach is to recruit workers from among those
individuals who would otherwise retire.
Make the job more attractive than retirement in order to keep the employee who
would otherwise need replacing.

A second approach is to survey the needs of older workers and, where feasible, adjust
HRM practices and policies to accommodate these needs:
Keep records on why employees retire and on why they continue to work.
Implement flexible work patterns and options.
Where possible, redesign jobs to match the physical capabilities of the aging
worker.
Develop career paths that consider the physical capabilities of workers at various
stages of their careers.
Provide opportunities for retraining in technical and managerial skills.
Examine the suitability of performance appraisal systems as bases for
employment decisions affecting older workers.

Despite the encouraging findings presented earlier, research has indicated no overall
improvement in attitudes toward older workers over a 40-year period.

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For their part, older workers say their biggest problem is discrimination by would-be
employers who underestimate their skills.

To change this trend, workers and managers alike need to know the facts about older
workers, so that they do not continue to espouse myths.

CAREER MANAGEMENT:
ORGANIZATIONS FOCUSING ON THEIR OWN MAINTENANCE AND GROWTH

Ultimately, it is top managements responsibility to develop and implement a costeffective career planning program.

The program must fit the nature of the business, its competitive employment
practices, and the current (or desired) organizational structure.

Organizational career management combines areas that previously have been

regarded as individual issues: performance appraisal, development, transfer, and
promotion.

Before coaching and counseling take place, however, it is important to identify

characteristic career paths that employees tend to follow.

Career paths represent logical and possible sequences of positions that could be
held, based on an analysis of what people actually do in an organization.

Career paths should:

Represent real progression possibilities, whether lateral or upward, without
implied normal rates of progress or forced specialization in a technical area.
Be tentative and responsive to changes in job content, work priorities,
organizational patterns, and management needs.
Be flexible, taking into consideration the compensating qualities of a particular
employee, managers, subordinates, or others who influence the way that work is
performed.
Specify the skills, knowledge, and other attributes required to perform effectively
at each position along the paths and specify how they can be acquired.

Data derived from HRM research are needed to define career paths in this manner.

Once this is done, the next task is to identify career paths within an among the job
families and to integrate the overall network of these paths into a single career
system.

Federal guidelines on employee selection require a job-related basis for all

employment decisions.

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In practice, organizational career management systems sometimes fail for the

following reasons:
Employees believe that supervisors do not care about their career development
Neither the employee nor the organization is fully aware of the employees needs
and organizational constraints
Career plans are developed without regard for the support systems necessary to
fulfill the plans.

Internal Staffing Decisions: Patterns of Career Change

From the organizations point of view, there are four broad types of internal moves:
Up
Down
Over
Out
Promotions

Promoted employees usually assume greater responsibility and authority in return for
higher pay, benefits, and privileges.

Psychologically, promotions help satisfy employees needs for security, belonging,

and personal growth.

Promotions are more likely to be successful to the extent that firms:

Conduct an extensive search for candidates.
Make standardized, clearly understandable information available on all
candidates.

Organizations must continue to live with those who are bypassed for promotion.
Research indicates that these individuals often feel they have not been treated
fairly, their commitment decreases, and their absenteeism increases.

Conversely, promoted individuals tend to increase their commitment.

To minimize defensive behavior, it is critical that the procedures used for promotion
decisions be acceptable, valid, and fair to the unsuccessful candidates. Further,
emphasize the greater merits of the promoted candidates, relative to those who were
not promoted.

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In unionized situations, the collective bargaining contract will determine the relative
importance given to seniority and ability in promotion decisions.
Management tends to emphasize ability, while unions favor seniority.
If one candidate is clearly a superior performer relative to others, many contracts
will permit promotion on this basis regardless of seniority.

A further issue concerns promotion from within versus outside the organization.

PROFESSIONAL SERVICE FIRMS

Professional Service Firms (PSFs) trade mainly on the knowledge of their human
capitalemployees and producer-ownersto develop and deliver solutions to client
problems.

Conventionally, PSFs use up-or-out promotion policies, excluding from permanent

tenure all except those offered partnership. If employees fail to obtain promotion
within a certain time period, they are expected to quit or are dismissed.

It creates a strong incentive for aspiring juniors to perform, reducing supervision or

monitoring costs.

It also leaves career paths inside the firm relatively clear by exiting those not elected
to the top jobs, thereby helping to attract ambitious entrants who do not want to be
stuck in a promotion logjam.

However, up-or-out also involves losing talented and knowledgeable staff in whom
the firm will have invested not only formal training (and possibly signing bonuses),
but also the time and effort associated with mentoring and developing them.

In general, the more that firms value their knowledge base and see it as a source of
competitive advantage, or where the knowledge loss represents a competitive threat,
the greater the costs of losing that knowledge that exiting unsuccessful candidates
take with them.

In such cases, firms may adapt by creating permanent career positions.

There are costs to this strategy as well, in the form of the need for higher-powered
incentives linked to the performance of the firm for those in permanent career
positions (to reduce the risk of shirking or loafing) and higher compensation to attract
and retain good-quality staff.

Where firms perceive their knowledge base as distinctive and a source of competitive
advantage, a promotion system like up-or-out may be less appropriate.

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Demotions

Employee demotions usually involve a cut in pay, status, privilege, or opportunity.

They occur infrequently since they tend to be accompanied by problems of employee

apathy, depression, and inefficiency that can undermine the morale of a work group.

Many managers prefer to discharge or to move employees laterally rather than

demote them.

In either case, careful planning, documentation, and concern for the employee should
precede such moves.

What causes a demotion? The cause could be:

A disciplinary action
The inability of an employee to handle the requirements of a higher-level job
Health problems
Changing interests
Organization structural changes

In many cases, demotion is mutually satisfactory to the organization and to the

affected employee.

Transfers and Relocations

Who is most likely to be transferred?

A married 37-year-old male with children
Female workers are less likely to be transferred, although this situation is
changing.

Reduced mobility, like leave of absence, tends to retard womens salary progression
relative to that of similarly situated men.

Fully 81 percent of all relocation refusals are due to family and spousal issues.

For the employee, relocation often means increased prestige and income. However,
the costs of moving and the complications resulting from upsetting routines, loss of
friends, and changing schools and jobs are borne by the family.

Uprooted families often suffer from loss of credentials as well. They do not enjoy the
built-in status that awaits the employee at the new job; they must start from scratch.

Wives now account for about 25 percent of corporate moves, up from 5 percent in
1980.

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Mobil Corporation finds that a man generally will follow his wife only if she earns at
least 25 percent to 40 percent a year more than he does.

Research has shown that transfers produce little short-term impact on the mental or
physical health of children.

Transferred employees who are promoted estimate that it will take them a full 9
months to get up to speed in their new posts. Lateral transfers take an average of 7.8
months.
The actual time taken to reach competency varies with (1) the degree of similarity
between the old and new jobs and (2) the amount of support from peers and
superiors at the new job.

To reduce this downtime, companies are taking some unusual steps, such as:
Replacing a relocated spouses income for 60 days
Installing a computerized job-posting system that tracks its managerial vacancies
nationwide
Developing frequency standards whereby no manager can be relocated more than
once in 2 years or three times in 10 years.
Setting up one-stop rotational programs at its larger facilities to replace what used
to be four stints of 6 months each at different plants over a 2-year training period.

The financial implications of relocation are another major consideration; the average
cost of moving a home-owning employee now exceeds $60,000.00.

Organizations are well aware of these social and financial problems and in many
cases they are responding by providing improved support systems, including:
Special online relocation programs
Intranets
House-hunting on the Internet
Electronic data interchange (EDI) that lets relocation professionals keep track of
every detail of every move.

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Layoffs, Retirements, and Resignations

These all involve employees moving out of the organization.

Layoffs

Its becoming clear that corporate cutbacks were not an oddity of the 1990s but rather
are likely to persist through this decade as well.

Management policies must consider the impacts on those who leave, on those who
stay, on the local community, and on the company.

For laid-off workers, efforts should be directed toward a rapid, successful, and orderly
career transition.

Psychological stages of career transition include anger, grief, depression, and family
stress.

How long does it take on average to find a new job? The older they were, the fewer
interviews they got, and the longer it took them to find a job.

How much longer? Compared to a 35- to 40-year-old job seeker, it took almost 25
percent longer for a 46- to 50-year-old, and 65 percent longer for a 50- to 60-year-old.

Termination is a traumatic experience. Egos are shattered, and employees may

become bitter and angry. Family problems may also occur because of the added
emotional and financial strain.

It is important that those who remain retain the highest level of loyalty, trust,
teamwork, motivation, and productivity possible; this requires a good deal of face-toface, candid, open communication between senior management and survivors.

Although layoffs are intended to reduce costs, some costs may in fact increase.
Direct costs include:

Severancepay,payinlieuofnotice

Accruedvacationandsickpay

Supplementalunemploymentbenefits

Outplacement

Pensionandbenefitpayoffs

Administrativeprocessingcosts

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Indirect costs include:

Recruitingandemploymentcostofnewhires

Trainingandretraining

Increaseinunemploymenttaxrate

Potentialchargesofunfairdiscrimination

Lowmoraleamongremainingemployees

Heightenedinsecurityandreducedproductivity

One option is to initiate a program of job sharing. While no one is laid off, everyones
workweek and pay are reduced.

Some of the benefits of job sharing are:

Twice as much talent and creativity is available.
Benefits continue.
Overtime is reduced.
Workers retain a career orientation and the potential for upward mobility.
It eliminates the need for training a temporary employee, for example, when one
employee is sick or is on vacation, because the other can take over.

Some of the drawbacks of job sharing include:

There is a lack of job continuity.
Supervision is inconsistent.
Accountability is not centered in one person.
Nonsalary expenses do not decrease, because many benefits are a function of the
employee, not the amount of pay.
When workers are represented by a union, seniority is bypassed, and senior
workers may resist sharing jobs.

Job sharing is more common among small employers.

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Retirements

For some employees, early retirement is a possible alternative to being laid off.

Early retirement programs are intended to provide incentives to terminate; they are
not intended to replace regular retirement benefits.

With respect to layoffs, generous benefits provided to victims tend to be associated

with lower intentions to quit on the part of survivors.

With an early retirement program, however, perceptions of overly generous benefits

to early retirees tends to be associated with higher intentions to quit on the part of
ineligible employees who remain.

The keys to success are to identify, before the incentives are offered, exactly which
jobs are targeted for attrition and to understand the needs of the employees targeted to
leave.

Because mandatory retirement at a specified age can no longer be required legally,

most employees will choose their own times to retire.
While many younger employees are leaving the workforce, older workers are
streaming back in, with labor force participation among workers 55 and older
rising to 36 percent in 2004.
Personally, individuals with Type A behavior patterns are less likely to prefer to
retire, while those with obsolete job skills, chronic health problems, and sufficient
financial resources are more likely to retire.
Situationally, employees are more likely to retire when they have reached their
occupational goals, their jobs have undesirable characteristics, home life is seen
as preferable to work life, and there are attractive alternative (leisure) activities.

Retirees are the fastest-growing part of the temporary workforce.

Among baby boomers, 80 percent say they plan to do at least some work after
they retire.

Many want in retirement what they dont currently have: balance.

They want a blended life coursean ongoing mix of work, leisure, and
education.

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Resignations

The National Quit Ratethe percentage of people currently unemployed who left
their jobs voluntarilyaveraged 1.7 percent per month in 2004.
Impulsive quitters quit on the spot.
Comparison quitters rationally evaluate alternative jobs and are relative free of
strong negative emotions toward their former employers.
Preplanned quitters plan in advance to quit at a specific time in the future.
Conditional quitters hold the view I will quit as soon as I get another job offer
that meets certain conditions.

While the motives for voluntary resignation may vary, the rules for how to do it have
not.
Leave gracefully and responsibly, stressing the value of your experience in the
company
Give plenty of notice
Work hard to complete all your outstanding obligations
Consider sending your former boss a thank-you note, focusing on the positive
aspects of your work there

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SELF-RELIANCE:
KEY TO CAREER MANAGEMENT

Corporate career management programs often include one or more of the following
support mechanisms:
Self-assessment
Career planning
Supervisory training
Succession planning

Some cautions for such support mechanisms:

Dont make the programs mandatory
Dont offer the programs as a one-time opportunity
Provide opportunities for employees to practice their self-management behaviors
in the workplace.

Make career self-management part of the corporate culture in order to build a

significant competitive advantage.

SUMMARY

A career is a sequence of positions occupied by a person during the course of a

lifetime.

Career planning is important because the consequences of career success or failure

are closely linked to an individuals self-concept and identity, as well as with career
and life satisfaction.

This chapter has addressed career management from three perspectives.

Individuals focusing on themselves
Organizations focusing on individuals
Organizations focusing on their own maintenance and growth.

This requires the development of career management systems based on career paths
defined in terms of employee behaviors.

It also involves the management of patterns of career movement up, down, over, and
out.

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ANSWERS TO DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

10-1. Why is the design of one's first permanent job so important?
Because it appears to have a significant effect on one's subsequent career, a
challenging initial assignment has been shown to be related to lower turnover and
higher performance in early years, and to performance and salary progress in later
years.
10-2. What practical steps can you suggest to minimize midcareer crises?
Most employees will need some efforts at personal renewal at several stages in their
careersand the midlife, or midcareer, crisis is one time specifically calling for such
efforts. New job assignments, mentoring or career pathing responsibilities for
younger employees, horizontal transfers, skill retooling, and participative leadership
styles may all help a "transitioning" employee weather such a crisis. Further, an
organization should provide information on midcareer crises because sometimes
simply the knowledge of what is happening can reduce the stress and pain involved.
10-3. How can an organization make the best possible use of older workers?
One strategy is to train older employees to mentor/develop younger employees.
Another is to retain their knowledge and expertise by offering them more flexible
(or part time) positions. A third is to rotate them into new positions in order to reduce
burnout and improve performance.
10-4. Discuss the special problems faced by dual-career couples.
Dual-career couples face potential role conflict and role overload as they attempt to
balance work and family roles. They must be flexible in adapting to role demands and
must develop mechanisms that will allow them to deal with the inevitable stresses and
strains. If the couple is employed by a single organization, other problems arise. The
discipline, firing, or outplacement of one spouse will likely affect the other. Further,
in matters of compensation and promotion, there is a possibility that the couple will
be viewed as a team and treated differently than two single individuals would be
treated.
Being part of a dual-career couple can also cause problems if one spouse is asked to
transfer to a new location.

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10-5. A friend of yours is considering accepting a new job offer but cant figure out
how to tell his current boss hes leaving, or what steps to take. What advice
would you give him?
I would advise him/her to plan a graceful exit. First, meet with the immediate
supervisor and explain that while you have enjoyed your current position and the
opportunities it presented, youve decided to pursue a new opportunity with another
company. Do this at least two weeks before you plan to depart, and assure him/her
that you plan to complete your obligations before you leave. Also offer to train your
replacement, should they arrive before you leave. After youve left, send the
supervisor a note thanking them for the opportunity to work with them.
10-6. What does the concept of loyalty mean in todays world of work?
Student answers will vary, depending on their viewpoint. Sample answer:
The concept of loyalty depends on which viewpoint you are taking. From the
companys viewpoint, they want employees who have a solid and stable track record
with other companies. They are often not willing to invest time and money in people
who frequently switch jobs.
From an employee viewpoint, workers are often most loyal to companies that are
known for not laying off workers with every dip in market share. Further, they want
to work for companies that invest time and money in training their employees and in
promoting from within.
10-7. Identify some telltale signs that its time to quit your current job.
The primary signs are depression, a stagnant marriage, an unsatisfying career, and
emotional baggage from years past. Although not mentioned in the text, other signs
can include boredom, restlessness, disturbed sleep patterns, frequent headaches,
changes in temperament, and weight fluctuations.
10-8. Working in small groups, develop a corporate policy that specifies how training,
performance appraisal, and reward systems might integrate career-planning
considerations.
Shorter employment relationships imply that training will have to be more effective
more quickly, performance feedback will have to be more focused, and reward
systems will have to be short-run oriented. All of these steps may create long-run
problems, and career planning tends to be longer run in its orientation. Therefore, if
organizations want to focus on the long run, they will need to treat employees as if
theyre going to be around awhile (i.e., train, appraise, and reward them
appropriately).

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APPLYING YOUR KNOWLEDGE

Self-Assessment and Career Planning
Awareness of both the job market and your own strengths, weaknesses, needs, and desires is
required to make an effective career choice. This exercise focuses on the second part of the
equation: personal traits, interests, needs, and aspirations as they relate to the choice of a
career.
The three exercises are designed to help students discover how their personal characteristics
relate to their career choices.

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