1. Special Challenges in Career Management12
Chapter
Special Challenges in Career Management

2. Objectives After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
Design an effective socialization program for employees.
Discuss why a dual-career path is necessary for professional and managerial employees.
Provide advice on how to help a plateaued employee.
Develop policies to help employees and the company avoid technical obsolescence.

3. Objectives (continued)
Develop policies to help employees deal with work-and-life conflict.
Select and design outplacement strategies that minimize the negative effects on displaced employees and “survivors.”
Explain why retirees may be valuable as part-time employees.

4. Introduction
Many companies in Silicon Valley face serious career management challenges.
These companies are now paying more attention to career management issues because their work force is starting to age and pay more attention to work-life balance.
Many employees face long commutes because they can not afford to live close to where they work.

5. Introduction (continued)
If companies do not help their employees with their personal lives, they may leave for jobs with other companies in other areas that do.

6. Special Challenges in Career Management
Socialization and Orientation
Dealing With Older Workers
Coping With Job Loss
Dual-Career Paths
Balancing Work and Life
Plateauing
Skills Obsolescence
Work and Non-work Policies

7. Socialization and Orientation
Organizational socialization is the process by which new employees are transformed into effective members of the company.
The purpose of orientation is to:
Prepare employees to perform their jobs effectively
Learn about the organization
Establish work relationships

8. Phases of the Socialization Process
Anticipatory Socialization
Encounter
Settling In

9. What Employees Should Learn and Develop Through Socialization:
History
Company Goals
Language
Politics
People
Performance Proficiency

10. Socialization and Orientation Programs
Play an important role in socializing employees.
Effective socialization programs result in employees having a strong commitment and loyalty to the company.
This reduces turnover.
Effective orientation programs include active involvement of the new employee.
Effective programs have peers, managers, and senior co-workers actively involved.

11. Content of Orientation Programs
Company-Level Information
Company overview
Key policies and procedures
Compensation
Employee benefits & services
Safety & accident protection
Employee & union relations
Physical facilities
Economic factors
Customer relations
Department-Level Information
Department functions
Job duties & responsibilities
Policies, procedures, rules
Performance expectations
Tour of department
Introduction to co-workers
Miscellaneous
Community
Housing
Family adjustment

12. Characteristics of Effective Orientation Programs
Employees are encouraged to ask questions.
Program includes information on both technical and social aspects of the job.
Orientation is the responsibility of the new employee’s manager.
Debasing and embarrassing new employees is avoided.
Formal and informal interactions with managers and peers occur.
Programs involve relocation assistance.
Employees receive information about the company’s products, services, and customers.

13. Dual-Career Paths
A career path is a sequence of job positions involving similar types of work and skills that employees move through in the company.
For companies with professional employees, a key issue is how to ensure that they feel they are valued.
The traditional career path model has limited advancement opportunities for those in the technical career path.

14. Traditional career path for scientists and managers:
Assistant Director
Assistant Director
Principal Research Scientist
Department Manager
Research Scientist
Manager
Scientist
Assistant Manager
Individual Contributor Career Path
Management Career Path

15. A dual-career-path system enables employees to remain in a technical career path or move into a management career path.

16. Functional Management
Example of a dual-career-path system
Executives
Fellow
Functional Management
Senior Technical Staff Member
Senior
Senior
Development
Advisory
Project
Staff
See Exhibit 14.8, page 504
MANAGEMENT LADDER
TECHNICAL LADDER
Senior Associate
Associate
Engineers, Programmers, Scientists

17. Characteristics of Effective Career Paths
Salary, status, and incentives for technical employees compare favorably with those of managers.
Individual contributors’ base salary may be lower than managers’, but they are given opportunities to increase their total compensation through bonuses.
The individual contributor career path is not used to satisfy poor performers who have no managerial potential.

18. Characteristics of Effective Career Paths (continued)
The career path is for employees with outstanding technical skills.
Individual contributors are given the opportunity to choose their career path.
The company provides assessment resources.
Assessment information enables employees to make comparisons between their interests and abilities with those of employees in technical and managerial positions.

19. Plateauing
Plateauing means that the likelihood of the employee receiving future job assignments with increased responsibility is low.
Mid-career employees are most likely to plateau.
Plateauing becomes dysfunctional when the employee feels stuck in a job that offers no potential for personal growth.
Such frustration results in poor job attitude, increased absenteeism, and poor job performance.

20. Reasons Employees Can Plateau
Discrimination based on age, gender, or race.
Lack of ability.
Lack of training.
Low need for achievement.
Unfair pay decisions or dissatisfaction with pay raises.
Confusion about job responsibilities.
Slow company growth resulting in reduced development opportunities.

21. Possible Remedies for Plateaued Employees
Employee understands the reasons for plateau.
Employee is encouraged to participate in development activities.
Employee is encouraged to seek career counseling.
Employee reality-tests his solutions.

22. Skills Obsolescence
Obsolescence – a reduction in an employee’s competence resulting from a lack of knowledge of new work processes, techniques, and technologies that have developed since the employee completed her education.
Not just a concern of technical and professional occupations. All employees are at risk.
Obsolescence needs to be avoided if companies are trying to become learning organizations.

23. Factors Related to Updating Skills
Manager
Company Climate
Provide Challenging Work Assignments
Encourage Employees to Acquire New Skills
Emphasis on Continuous Learning
Updated Skills
Peers
Reward System
Sabbaticals
Pay for New Ideas
Pay for Employee Development
Discuss Ideas
Share Information

24. Balancing Work and Life
Families with a working husband, homemaker wife, and two or more children account for only 7 percent of American families.
The increasing number of two-career couples and single heads of households creates a challenge for companies.
Companies have to carefully consider how to manage employees who are simultaneously meeting the needs of both work and family.

25. Balancing Work and Life (continued)
There are two roles that training can play in balancing work and non-work.
Trainers and managers may be responsible for developing policies and procedures.
Trainers may be responsible for developing training programs to teach managers their role in administering and overseeing the use of work-life policies.

26. Types of Work-Life Conflict
Time-based Conflict
Strain-based Conflict
Behavior-based Conflict

27. Company Policies to Accommodate Work and Non-work:
Communicating information about work and non-work policies and job demands.
Flexibility in work arrangements and work schedules.
Redesigning jobs.
Support Services.

28. For job sharing to be effective:
The impact of job sharing on clients and customers must be determined.
The employee interested in job sharing must find another employee performing the same job who wants reduced work hours.
The two people sharing the job need to have similar work values and motivations.
The manager must actively communicate with the job-sharing employees.
All schedules and work assignments need coordination.
Performance measurement should be both team and individual.

29. Coping With Job Loss
Important career management issue because of the increased use of downsizing to deal with excess employees resulting from corporate restructuring, mergers, acquisitions, and takeovers.
Companies that lay off employees can experience lowered job commitment, distrust of management, and difficulties recruiting new employees.
Job loss causes stress and disrupts the personal lives of laid-off employees.

30. Coping With Job Loss (continued)
From a career management standpoint, companies and managers have two major responsibilities:
They are responsible for helping employees who will lose their jobs.
Steps must be taken to ensure that the “survivors” of the layoff (remaining employees) remain productive and committed to the organization.

31. Coping With Job Loss: Outplacement
Companies need to provide outplacement services to help prepare employees for layoffs:
Advance warning and explanation for a layoff.
Psychological, financial, and career counseling.
Assessment of skills and interests.
Job campaign services.
Job banks.
Electronic delivery of job openings.

32. Dealing With Older Workers
Meeting the needs of older workers.
Pre-retirement socialization.
Retirement.
Early retirement programs.

33. Meeting the Needs of Older Workers
Flexibility in scheduling to allow for care of sick spouses, return to school, travel, or reduced work hours.
Older workers should receive the training they need to avoid skill obsolescence.
Older employees need resources and referral help that addresses long-term care and elder care.
Companies need to ensure that employees do not hold inappropriate stereotypes about older employees.