A cursory glance at the HR textbooks, a wander through the halls of any HR conference or spending time talking with people at work quickly reveals a fundamental truth…  people care a lot about their careers and their employment pathways.  However, despite the popularity and importance of career  management (CM) from the academic or grass-roots perspective – most organisations don’t appear to have in place the strategy, process or procedures to actively supervise the ongoing management of people’s careers.  Similarly, individuals rarely set aside the time, space and structure to examine their career trajectories.

Time for a little soul-searching…  Does your organisation take Career Management seriously and invest appropriately?  Are you being creative in how careers are approached and managed?  Is your organisation scared that investment in CM will result in employees leaving?

By way of example take this brief case study from Deloitte, a leading accountancy firm..

Deloitte have a strong desire to manage their talent.  They have found that CM helps them retain staff particularly post-qualification.  Over the past 5 years, they have provided education on career paths inside and outside of Deloitte so their employees can make reasoned decisions on their future careers.  This honesty and transparency strengthens the bond of trust between employer and employee which last long in their career lives.  Further, staff can now make a far more reasoned decision to stay (or leave, should they wish to).

From an economic point of view, this programme saved Deloitte over £640,000 in year one through reduced recruitment. Whilst the market place and conditions have changed over the past 5 years, Deloitte have continued to invest in CM and feel confident they are in a great place to retain their top graduates when the market picks up in 2010 and can confidently call themselves an employer of choice.

Still think Career Management fails to provide a decent return on investment?  Still perceive Career Management to be an option rather than mandatory?  Still believe that Career Management encourages people to leave?

In an effort to tackle some of the disparities between what CAN be done with CM and what IS done, we have conducted some research.  We surveyed HR Directors via questionnaire and ran semi-structured focus groups to lift the lid of this important area.

We found that there are some powerful reasons driving the adoption of CM strategies and also investigated several key themes.  Our results make for interesting reading and could make a difference to how you appeal to, develop and retain your staff.

What is Career Management?

Before we move on to a consideration of the reasons behind the utilisation of Career Management, we ought to take a moment to consider what CM is… and as is important for any well-delineated definition… what CM is not!

In the last CIPD survey on careers in June 2003, CM was defined as…

“Planning and shaping the progression or movement of individuals within an organisation by aligning employee preferences and potential with organisational resourcing needs” (p.i)

Our research reinforced the themes of mutuality and reciprocity inherent in the CIPD definition.  However, our participants suggested that CM is still poorly understood and rarely put into practice effectively or strategically.

In line with this, one participant spoke of the tension to be found when providing a definition that is short and simple (and therefore easily understood) with one that is complex and nuanced (that picks up on the key themes and issues).

With that in mind the simplest definition that proved popular was that CM is about helping employees… “understand what gets them out of bed in the morning and to appreciate what their career path might be”.

A fuller definition echoed the themes of the CIPD definition… “A compact between employer and employee to take a strategic view of the employee’s career focus for the benefit of both parties”.

We also discussed in our focus groups what CM is not.  Here, there was consensus that CM “isn’t training and development, there might be a bit of overlap… neither is it outplacement nor exiting”.  The theme that emerged was that CM is not a single approach nor a set of tools and techniques.  Rather, it is an overarching strategy employed by organisations to segue the corporate strategy with individual employee needs – as such, CM can call upon all of the different HRD “tools” (training, coaching, mentoring, performance appraisal, succession planning, etc.,) but is not a tool in itself.

Why Career Management?

The rationale for using CM can be viewed from both the individual and organisational perspective.

i)              Individual Rationale

There are numerous reasons for individuals to engage with CM.  First, CM, when linked with training and development can ensure that individuals stay employable, especially important given the rapid speed at which jobs can change.  Second, many people are turning to CM to help them manage their changing values with regards to work.  CM offers people an opportunity to see how they can map out different career pathways that may involve part time working or the development of a portfolio career.

ii)            Organisational Rationale

The most obvious reason, is that organisations can receive great ROI (as demonstrated tangibly in the Deloitte example above) in terms of increased retention as suggested in one of our focus groups … “if you’re enabling people to leave, they’re more likely to stay – if you don’t, they think ‘I don’t want to work here’ and they leave”.  However, there are also other benefits to be had for organisations.  First, organisations that offer CM practices can quickly become employers of choice, especially important when trying to attract and retain people of the highest calibre.  Second, there is an organisational imperative for developing staff “employability” in that “…employability cuts both ways.  Organisations want to retain people who are employable too for the future state of the organisation… a form of ‘future-proofing’ if you will”.  Third, although there is a strong argument (and proof!) that CM increases employee retention, CM can help make more porous the boundaries and allow for some staff churn.  The circulation and movement of staff will help keep things fresh and improve creativity and innovation – “Organisations can become paralysed by inertia.  Some churn is good, you can bring in new people with fresh perspective”.  Lastly, CM was seen as an important approach to keep costs down following redundancies – “they make people redundant, then spend money on recruiting people for other areas of the business”.  Effectively, CM can save money by helping to redeploy staff.

Underlying many of the reasons for the use of CM, is that it helps build the psychological contract between the organisation and employee – the unwritten rules of emotional engagement between company and worker.

Who is Responsible?