Career and Personnel Development

Introduction

The information revolution and globalization have affected the strategy and structures of larger organizations. They now engage in different forms of employment relationship with different groups of employees. For some employees, employers provide career assessment and manage their careers; for the majority, the onus is on them to assess themselves. Whilst employers use sophisticated tools such as assessment centres for the few, the majority use a variety of questionnaire and interactive methods. The exchange of career assessment information between organization and employee will aid subsequent necessary career dialogue.

Changes in the Context of Careers

Traditionally, career assessment has been carried out by employers in order to enable them to manage the careers of employees more effectively. However, the nature of the employment relationship, and hence of career management, has been changing over the last three decades (Herriot, 2001a). Consequently, the purposes of career assessment, the responsibility for its conduct, and the nature of what is being assessed have all changed too.

The changes in the nature of career have been profound. However, they have not been so radical as current managerial rhetoric alleges. The traditional organizational career is not at an end, as some argue (e.g. Bridges, 1995). Rather, in the USA and Europe at least, the length of time which an employee spends in each organizational employment has been gradually decreasing over a long period. Similarly, for the majority of employees, careers are not ‘boundaryless’ (Arthur & Rousseau, 1996). That is, employees are not free to move across or between organizations, or in and out of employment, as it suits them; the labour market power is more often with the employer than with the employee.

Nevertheless, fundamental changes have occurred. First, much restructuring of organizations has been undertaken. Downsizing, the removal of positions and their holders, has been a frequent managerial response to the perceived need to reduce costs to remain competitive; and delayering, the removal of levels of the organizational hierarchy, has also occurred. Delayering appears to be a consequence of information technology reducing the need for middle management; of work becoming more frequently organized into projects; and of [Page 156]responsibility being devolved further down the hierarchy. The second fundamental change to have occurred is that the variety of forms of employment contracts has increased. Management has sought to ensure flexibility in the supply of labour by offering temporary or part-time contracts; and it has aimed at increasing functional flexibility by designing work so as to break down craft and professional silos.

Implications for Careers

The consequences of these structural and contractual changes for careers have been considerable. Many employees have lost confidence in the possibility of progress in an upward direction within their organization, or indeed of retaining their present job. As a result, careers are more often subjectively than objectively defined (Ornstein & Isabella, 1993). That is, rather than concentrating upon a progressive sequence of positions held, employees construe their careers in a variety of ways. For example, they may view career as the acquisition over time of knowledge and skills and a consequent increase in employability; or as a narrative story, which makes some sort of sense of what may be chaotic past, present, and likely future experiences; or as a series of different forms of employment relationship.

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