Bringing Work to Life: Career Development in Organizations

Reprinted from the Career Planning and Adult Development Journal

Volume 14, Number 3,  Fall 1998 with permission

Ronald Elsdon

Bringing Work to Life: Career Development in Organizations

Introduction

We approach the next millennium facing a working environment that is shifting fundamentally. We are moving from a manufacturing base within national boundaries, operated by sizeable corporations having ready access to a pool of permanent employees. We are moving to service delivery on an international scale, through a wide range of organizational settings, aided by extensive communication and information technology (Pritchett, 1994), and conducted by a work force of contingent and permanent employees, many of whose talents are in short supply.

With these changes it is not surprising to see questions raised about the nature of future careers and the environment in which they will unfold. Hall in The Career is Dead (1996) argues that the protean career, owned by the individual, is upon us, and that "driving questions are now more about meaning than money, purpose than power, identity than ego, and learning than attainments". Rifkin in The End of Work (1995) questions the stability of our social order stating that as "the commodity value of human labor is becoming increasingly tangential and irrelevant in an ever more automated world, new ways of defining human worth and social relationships will need to be explored". Conversely, Schwartz (1997) projects that "we are watching the beginnings of a global economic boom on a scale never experienced before". He expects that "two megatrends - fundamental technological change and a new ethos of openness - will transform our world into the beginnings of a global civilization … that will blossom through the coming century".

It is not surprising that, given these divergent views of the future, and amidst great workplace transformation, there is much confusion about how to navigate the rapids ahead. It is perhaps surprising, that with titles such as The Career is Dead and The End of Work in vogue, I have chosen to call this piece "Bringing Work to Life". It is because today, this is a primary challenge for us as career counselors, and for our individual and organizational clients.

There is a limited, but growing, body of work examining how human resource interventions impact organizational performance. Delery (1996) outlines three ways of thinking about such interventions: universalistic which suggests that universal best practices can be identified, contingency which suggests that preferred practices are specific to a given business situation, and configurational, which suggests that it is the total pattern of a set of interventions that is key. Delery finds strong support for the impact of human resource interventions on business performance, and support for each of the three approaches. The universalistic, or best practices, approach shows the strongest relationship to business performance. We have focused in this area in our recent work with organizations.

Waterman et al (1994) and the Career Action Center first outlined the concepts of Career Self-Reliance™, where individuals take ownership of their own careers, resulting in a benefit to them, and to their organizations' ability to build a resilient workforce that can readily respond to changing conditions. These ideas were further elaborated by The Career Action Center in a 1996 paper by Collard et al. These concepts imply a fundamental rethinking of the implied contract between employer and employee from a paternalistic model to an adult/adult relationship. They imply that responsibility for career development resides with the individual, and the organization provides a supportive environment for individual development, aligned with business needs. The Career Action Center first introduced these ideas to two organizations in 1993 in Silicon Valley, and they have recently been expanded to include ten organizations on a national scale. Based on benchmarking these organizations, most recently through a participative forum, best practices and needs for the future have been identified. This paper focuses on the understanding developed of lessons learned about best practices and future needs and challenges.

Lessons Learned: Best Practices

The reviews of best practices and future needs can be considered from the following perspectives: content, process, organization and individual since these categories reflect well the issues.

Content

Content refers to the specific material and ideas that are introduced to individuals and organizations. An example would be the curriculum associated with a given program delivery. The primary lessons learned about best content practices are as follows:

Process

Process refers to the delivery approaches used to provide career services. Lessons learned about best process practices are as follows:

Organization

The organization category refers to those issues that are specifically applicable at the organization level. Lessons learned about best organizational practices are as follows:

Individual

Lessons learned about best practices for individuals are as follows:

Future Needs and Challenges

In looking to the future a number of needs and challenges emerge.

Content

Content needs identified for the future are as follows:

Process

Key process needs are as follows:

Organization

Key organization needs are as follows:

Individual

Key individual needs are as follows:

Example

These general principles can be illustrated with a particular example. While each organization is unique, bringing its own culture and business needs, there are common elements that cross organizational boundaries. The example is career services at Sun Microsystems. Sun is a highly successful company that designs, manufactures, markets and services client server computing solutions, including networked workstations and servers. Sun's most recent fiscal year (year ended June 30,1997) sales were $8.6 billion, an increase of 21% over the previous year. Sun operates in more than 150 countries, has headquarters in Palo Alto, California and a large employee population in the San Francisco Bay area. The Career Action Center has operated career centers at Sun facilities for more than five years and delivers Career Self-Reliance ™ workshops through SunU, Sun's employee development organization. The career centers and associated career counseling are provided as a benefit to Sun employees. Carol Guterman, Sun's manager of career services, provided the following insights into Sun's learnings and needs.

Sun's primary goals are to ensure that the organization has the right people, with the right skills, in the right place, at the right time, and to retain valuable talent. Sun recognizes that in our changing work world, continuous learning is critical to enable employees to maintain currency in evolving skill needs. Sun's organizational objective is simple: to help employees find other jobs within Sun. The Career Action Center counselors support Sun in helping employees develop a process that builds self understanding and the basis for continuous learning. This process has tangible benefits for Sun in terms of business efficiency resulting from enhanced employee retention and motivation. It provides Sun with a more flexible and resilient workforce. The employees benefit from their increased marketability and enhanced fulfillment.

Sun observed that two keys to success are making sure that the program serves employee needs, and that the organizational benefits are clear and are supported by top management. This encourages managers throughout the organization to commit needed resources to employee development, and support employees spending time on their development. For example Sun provides a generous tuition reimbursement program for its employees. Development of clear metrics demonstrating results is important to securing on-going organization support. Sun also learned that a proactive, rather than a transition oriented approach meets employee needs well, and that administering the program from central funding rather than using a charge-back approach is effective. Sun now provides, as a benefit to employees, up to four counseling sessions per year.

The key needs identified by employees were that the services be comfortable to use, confidential and accessible. Sun provides office facilities for the counseling sessions, and confidentiality is maintained by the involvement of the Career Action Center. Accessibility was accomplished by locating counselors at different Sun sites and providing telephone counseling. Employees report finding this service valuable and they return for multiple sessions. Sun observes that different employee populations access the service in different ways, for example providing e-mail sign-up capability for counseling sessions proved appealing to employees for whom calling to make an appointment was either inconvenient or uncomfortable. Sun has also learned that it is critical to publicize the services that are available. It is not sufficient to "build it and they will come". Sun anticipates greater emphasis on the virtual concept in the future, as the need to enhance workforce resiliency grows.

Implications for the Future

There are common themes emerging. These include the importance of building linkages to form an extended team of practitioners, the need to enhance connections between employees and their organizations to develop a stronger sense of community, the need to enhance measurement of success to guide future work, and the importance of recognizing the differences of specific employee populations and tailoring career work accordingly.

The concepts of Career Self-Reliance ™ are becoming well established. The opportunity for the future is to continue to express new models that strengthen the links between individuals and organizations, enhancing mutual benefits, and securing the individual energy, commitment, fulfillment and organizational success that result.

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to the stimulating ideas from participants in a forum convened by the Career Action Center for corporate clients, without which this paper would not have been possible. I also appreciate the input from many colleagues at the Career Action Center, in particular Betsy Collard and John Epperheimer, who continue to stimulate my thinking, and Cynthia Brinkmann and her team of counselors at Sun Microsystems. I am particularly grateful to Carol Guterman of Sun Microsystems for her insights into career services at Sun which formed the basis for the example quoted.

References

Collard, B. et al. (1996). Career Resilience in a Changing Workplace. ERIC