Navigating Modern Careers: Strategies for Success

1. Traditional Careers • Hierarchical progression • Long term career in return for loyalty, commitments and adequate performance • Managed on a planned basis by the organisation • Some evidence that this type of career still exists

2. Factors Influencing a Change in Careers • Flatter structures • Need for flexibility • Uncertainty and change

3. Managers Managing Their Careers Today • Managers must learn to manage themselves and their work independently • Managers must build portfolios of achievements and skills and develop networks • Managers must market themselves within their sector

4. Portfolio Career ‘Exchanging full time employment for independence’ (Handy, 1994)

5. Boundaryless Career Includes moves between organisations and non-hierarchical moves within organisations where there are no norms of progress or success (Arthur, 1994)

6. The Old Psychological Contract Table 19.1  The old psychological contract

7. Defining a Career • Pattern or sequence of work roles of an individual • Increasingly appropriate to everyone’s work roles • Implies upward movement and advancement • Individuals’ development in learning and work throughout life (Collins & Watts, 1996)

8. Career Development • Often referred to as the internal career • Responsibility rests with the individual • Purpose to meet the current and future needs of the organisation and the individual at work • Difficult to disentangle career development form general training and development

9. General Organisational Benefits in Career Development • Makes the organisation attractive to recruits • Recognition of employee needs • Likely to encourage employee commitment and reduce staff turnover • Encourage motivation and job performance • Exploits the full potential of the workforce

10. Career Development Stages (1 of 2) • Occupational choice – preparation for work • Organisational entry • Early career – establishment and achievement (Greenhaus & Callanan, 1994)

11. Career Development Stages (2 of 2) • Mid career • Late career (Greenhaus & Callanan, 1994)

12. What are Career Anchors? Items that explain the pattern of career decisions that each individual has taken Include the following: • Self-perceived talents and abilities • Self-perceived motives and needs • Self-perceived attitudes and values (Schein, 1978)

13. Types of Career Anchors? • Technical/functional competence • Managerial competence • Security and stability • Creativity • Autonomy and independence (Schein, 1978)

14. Additional Types of Career Anchors? • Basic identity • Service to others • Power, influence and control • Variety (Schein, 1978)

15. Career Balance • Evidence that racial minorities and women limit their career choices • Same impact with social class identity • Until recently there has been no place for family & other interference in career development stages • Attention turning to the concept of work life balance

16. Individual Career Management • Individual staff should identify career goals, adopt strategies to support them, and plan to achieve them • In reality many people fail to plan

17. Types of Career Management Strategies • Creating opportunities • Extended work involvement • Self nomination • Seeking career guidance • Networking • Interpersonal attraction

18. The Career Resilient Workforce Individuals need to: • Make themselves knowledgeable about market trends • Understand the skills & knowledge needed • Be aware of own strengths and weaknesses • Have a plan for increasing their performance and employability • Respond quickly to changing business needs • Move on when a win/win relationship is no longer possible

19. Career Management Competencies • Planning • Engaging in personal development • Balancing work and non-work • Optimising (Ball, 1979)

20. Organisational Support for Career Development • Organisations should support their staff • Line managers taking career management seriously • Commitment of senior managers • Formal career management strategy • Integration with overall HR and business strategy

21. How Organisations Can Help Individuals • Career exploration • Career goal setting • Career strategies and action planning • Career feedback

22. Organisational Activities That Can Assist Individuals Career Development (1 of 2) • Career strategy • Career pathways and grids • Fast track programmes • Career conversations • Managerial support • Career counselling

23. Organisational Activities That Can Assist Individuals Career Development (2 of 2) • Career workshops • Self-help workbooks • Career centres • Assessment and development centres

24. Summary • Context of careers is changing • Careers are owned and managed by individuals • Theories of careers development include career stage and career anchors • Individuals need to become career resilient • Organisations can support individuals by encouraging individual career management and having appropriate structures in place

25. Focus on Skills: Part IVTeaching Teaching a person to do something is different to teaching understanding Understanding something intellectually is different from understanding and changing how you interact with others

26. Bloom’s Approaches to Learning (CRAMP) • Comprehension • Reflex learning • Attitude development • Memory training • Procedural learning

27. Learning Stages • Novice • Advanced beginner • Competency • Proficiency • Expert (Quinn et al, 1990)

28. Job Instruction • Understand task • Understand what satisfactory performance is • Practice the performance – division of task • Gain feedback

29. Job Instruction Sequence • Preparation • Instruction • Presentation

30. Preparation • Establishing objectives • Select learning methods • Practice routine

31. Preparation  Objectives Organisational – contribution learner will make to the business Behavioural – what the learner should be able to do when training is complete

32. Alternative Job Instruction Methods • Progressive part • Simplification • Memory training • Deduction • Cumulative part • Discrimination • Magnification

33. Instruction • Mutual appraisal occurs • Exchanges are important • Demonstrations and explanations • Task presented in simplest form • Encourage questioning

34. Presentation Common methods of presentation includes: • Chronological sequence • Known to unknown • Simple to complex • Problem to solution • Comparison

35. Summary • CRAMP • Selecting the right approach to learning is helped by identifying stage of learner • Alternative methods in job instruction include progressive part, simplification, mnemonics, rules, deduction, cumulative part, discrimination and magnification