Career Management & Work-Life Integration

Using Self-Assessment to Navigate Contemporary Careers

Brad Harrington, Douglas T. Hall

• Editore: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Anno: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781452278940
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Business
• Categoria: Human Resource Management

Career Management & Work/Life Integration: Using Self-Assessment to Navigate Contemporary Careers is a comprehensive, easy-to-follow guide to managing contemporary careers. Although grounded in theory, the book also provides an extensive set of exercises and activities that can guide career management over the lifespan. Authors Brad Harrington and Douglas T. Hall offer a highly useful self-assessment guide for students and other individuals who want to deal with the challenge of succeeding in a meaningful career while living a happy, well-balanced life.

Understanding the New Career

1

Three Career Cases

THE BARNES FAMILY

John and Nancy Barnes have been married for 14 years, have two preteen children, and live in the Midwest. John is a 37-year-old executive at a high-technology company with a demanding job requiring frequent travel. Over the past year, he has traveled often to the West Coast corporate headquarters, and he has recently been offered a transfer to that location. The job prospect is exciting, and it would offer John high visibility and greater promotional opportunities.

In the meantime, Nancy, 38, holds a senior-level position with one of the area’s largest hospitals. Nancy has been with her employer since she earned her graduate degree in healthcare administration 15 years ago. She has had some interrupted periods of employment over the years, taking leaves when the children were born. She also worked a reduced schedule for a short period of time when the children were very young but generally has stayed on the career track.

In the past few years, John and Nancy have discussed the possibility of one or both of them scaling back their work to be more available to their children, particularly after school. As their children approach the teenage years, they have come to realize that spending time with them is more necessary than ever. They have often discussed how quickly time is flying by and remarked that “the kids will be gone off to college before we know it.”

Although John is excited about the position he has been offered, Nancy does not share his enthusiasm. She does not see how pursuing this promotion fits with their overall life plan (which, in fact, they have never clearly articulated). If scaling back is a priority, then this promotion and move seem to be leading the Barneses in the wrong direction. Housing prices at the West Coast location are extremely high, and even with a promotion their overall financial picture would not improve. In addition, Nancy’s career has finally reached a stage where she thinks she could ask for reduced hours without compromising her position at the hospital. Starting over in a new location may mean great things for John’s career, but it will certainly change Nancy’s situation, and it will mean that plans for scaling back are put on hold or perhaps even permanently altered.

How the situation will be resolved is unclear. At this point, the Barneses are having a difficult time sorting through their options. This dilemma is causing a high level of stress as John feels pressure to give his management team an answer to the exciting prospect they have offered him.

HELEN CASEY

Helen is a 41-year-old executive in a consulting firm. For the past 16 years, her life has focused primarily on her work. Always stimulating and demanding, Helen’s job has been a source of enormous gratification and learning. She has traveled extensively, worked on challenging problems with world-class organizations, and even had the opportunity to spend 4 years living in Europe in a dream assignment. She thinks that professionally, since she graduated from a top-tier business school, her career has gone according to plan and has even exceeded her expectations.

However, for the past 4 or 5 years Helen has become increasingly dissatisfied with her life as a whole. While her career has flourished, her life outside work has not. Constant travel has made it difficult for Helen to develop her social life. She was married once, but when that marriage ended, she increased her focus on work. The transfer to Europe for 4 years was a great life experience, but it disrupted her life in ways she had not fully anticipated. When she was moved to Europe she was in her early 30s, and time still seemed to be on her side. By the time she returned, bought a home, and resettled into a stable pattern in the United States, she was in her late 30s and realized that her chances of becoming a parent were increasingly remote. Helen found this realization difficult to accept.

After reaching a high level in the firm, Helen finds herself with little drive to go further in the hierarchy. She has begun to dream of changing her life and career. She thinks about doing work that would focus her skills on a new adventure, perhaps starting her own business or working in a not-for-profit organization. Helen’s success had made her financially secure, and now seems a good time to refocus her energies on something that would bring her greater joy and allow her to help others. Perhaps working with children would allow her to develop her nurturing side, even if she never has children of her own.

Helen has also decided to try to change her personal situation. She has begun the process for adoption and is looking forward, with some trepidation, to the possibility of being a mother. She has some concerns that making a career change while taking on the responsibilities of being a single parent might be unwise. On the other hand, staying in her present role will make parenting very challenging because of her long work hours and extensive travel. She thinks that the time to make a decision is now.

THE SMITH FAMILY

Stan and Ellen Smith have been married for 10 years. In their first years of marriage, both worked in the public sector, Ellen as a teacher and Stan as a social worker. They had both always loved the out of doors. They enjoyed hiking, camping, and skiing. However, when it came time to buy a home, they settled in the town where Stan grew up, a beautiful, upscale suburb of Washington, D.C. They purchased a small cottage, and although both were employed, they were able to enjoy their home, travel, and pursue their interest in the outdoors. They even put aside money for future home improvements. Life was busy but uncomplicated.

Ten years later, things are not so simple. The Smiths now have three children, and Ellen decided to stop working when her second child, Hannah, was born. Initially the loss of income, though noticeable, did not seem to be unmanageable. But as the family grew, so did expenses. Soon the small cottage wasn’t big enough for their growing family. In preparation for the third child’s arrival, the Smiths put an addition on their home. This decision gave them some much-needed space, but soon the new baby and the other growing children made the house again seem too small for their needs. Finances became an increasing challenge, and living on one income seemed no longer just difficult but nearly impossible. Both Stan and Ellen had agreed that for one of them to stay home while the kids were young was a priority, but they hadn’t fully realized all the expenses and needs that went with having a family of five. The town where they live compounded the problem. With an average income in the upper 10% of the state, expectations were high. Even young children were involved in skiing, ballet, tennis, and gymnastics, often at an early age. Continuing on the present path became increasingly difficult in the short term, and the Smiths were equally worried about the long term. Saving for their children’s education and their own retirement became greater concerns as they reached their late 30s. In addition, they both yearned to be in a more rural, less pressured environment.

There are a few obvious alternatives that the Smiths could consider. Ellen could return to work. Although many see teaching as an ideal career for parents of young children, teachers’ schedules often are idealized by those not in the profession. When one includes prep work and time for correcting papers, teachers work longer days than most people assume. Also, teaching offers little flexibility. A teacher cannot simply go in late or leave for an hour in the middle of the day to attend children’s school events, go to the doctor, or deal with small emergencies. In addition, the relatively low salary for teachers, coupled with the high cost of daycare and after-school care, means returning to teaching would create significantly more hassle without greatly improving their financial situation much.

Another option is to sell their house, which has appreciated dramatically, and move to a less expensive area. To make this move worthwhile, the Smiths will need to go a long distance from suburban Washington. This move may solve the financial situation but could create a number of other problems. First, Stan has been in his job for many years and would like to continue, but a move could mean that commuting time to his job would increase from 20 minutes each way to more than 2 hours a day, decreasing the time Stan can spend with his family. Second, they worry that the schools in rural areas will not be as good as those in their current location, raising the possibility of paying for private schools. Third, Stan’s father, a widower who lives nearby, is getting older and increasingly relies on the Smiths for support. Finally, Ellen and Stan will be losing important support networks that include many close friends and Ellen and Stan’s extended families.

The Smiths could also simply try cutting back and making it on one salary. But attempts to do so have proven difficult. And they believe there is not enough slack in their spending to allow these cuts to make a difference. Although both Stan and Ellen are committed to coming up with a solution, there are some difficulties. One is that each believes there is a better option, but their preferred options are not the same. For Ellen, the answer is clear: Sell the house and move to a lower-cost area. But for Stan the answer is to wait things out in their present home until Ellen can return to work when the youngest children are in school all day. It has been extremely difficult to find time to discuss this dilemma and come to consensus on the best option.

The Changing Landscape of Careers

These cases represent but a few of the many issues experienced by people who are several years into their careers. We start with these cases to give you a flavor of some of the topics we will be covering in this book. The challenges that these people face are hardly unusual. Integrating work and family is one of the most difficult challenges people face as they think about their current and future career options.

Today, the changing nature of work and the workplace and the changing nature of families have profoundly affected the nature and structure of careers. The forces that must be factored in include globalization; working parents; breakdown of the nuclear family; lack of extended family support due to geographic mobility; lack of high-quality daycare; burdensome costs of education, housing, and retirement; and caring for elderly parents who are living longer. All these forces, coupled with an unrealistic sense that we can have it all (or should try to do it all), seem to have come together to form a perfect storm of stress and confusion.

Anyone who works needs no expert to state the obvious: The world of work is in a state of unprecedented change. In today’s organizations, change is a fact of life. Even organizations that for many years were static today change at a speed never before experienced. In very short periods of time, organizations are created, experience dramatic growth, merge or are acquired, downsize dramatically, reinvent themselves, or simply cease to exist.

Additionally, organizations have never before dealt with such a high degree of complexity. The impact of globalization, new technologies, joint ventures and strategic alliances, changing workforce demographics, and changing employee, customer, stockholder, and societal expectations are all making organizational management increasingly challenging. One of the major challenges for any organization is to better understand how to manage its changing workforce in the context of the changing organization.

The Changing Employment Contract: A Case Study

One of the most profound changes in the workplace that has occurred in recent years is the end of the old employment contract. Beginning in the mid-1980s, a fundamental shift has occurred in the employer–employee contract (sometimes also called the psychological contract). For a host of reasons, organizations have changed their stance regarding their commitment to maintain, or even try to maintain, the ongoing employment security of their workers. Brad’s 20-year experience with Hewlett-Packard, which for many years was seen as one of the leading proponents of employment security in the United States, illustrates how much this foundational aspect of human resource practice has changed in the past 20 years.

Brad worked for Hewlett-Packard from 1980 to 2000. During much of this time, HP was viewed as one of the world’s top companies, a leader in developing both top-notch products and highly skilled employees by offering progressive human resource practices and highly stable employment, especially for a high-technology firm. But beginning in the mid-1980s, business developments occurred that mirror how the employment contract was changing for many major employers in the United States and abroad.

HP enjoyed more than 40 years of highly stable employment. With very few exceptions, HP had promised employees job security based on job performance. In effect, if an employee met his or her job expectations, he or she was implicitly guaranteed a job for life. By the mid-1980s, senior management saw a need to revise this contract. The growing impact of computers, new technology, and automation in manufacturing and the consolidation and centralization of operations made the promise of a job for life increasingly unrealistic. HP changed its stance from providing job security to providing employment security, the first sign that things were changing. Employment security still implied that HP would provide a job; it simply meant that any particular job might change or be eliminated (e.g., if technology rendered it obsolete). Soon it became apparent that even this promise would constrain the options available to the company to contain costs and remain more competitive.

Within a very short period in the 1980s more formal measures were put in place to address the changing workforce dynamics. At first, these initiatives reflected HP’s paternalistic stance toward its employees: The company will take care of you. Extensive retraining programs were introduced to help displaced workers retool their skills from production jobs to administrative and clerical positions. New programs gave managers greater flexibility and financial support to move displaced employees to other divisions or geographic areas where jobs were in greater supply (assuming the employees were interested in moving). And for the first time, employees were offered generous severance or early retirement packages if they left voluntarily. Later, strategies aimed at getting employees to play a stronger role in the process began to emerge. Career management programs based on the work of Brad and his colleagues began cropping up across the company to ensure that employees played a more active role in planning and managing their careers.

Each change in HR policy was well articulated by the company as being both necessary in the changing economic landscape and consistent with the organization’s core values. HP’s management team was effective in communicating to employees that the change in employment practices was consistent with the “HP Way,” HP’s legendary corporate culture. Although cutting jobs was undesirable, management stressed that the approach demonstrated attention to the business’s bottom line and respect for employees’ needs. The company’s efforts to balance these two sets of needs typified the company’s culture and approach to doing business.

From that time until the end of the 1990s, HP’s employment contract continued to evolve. Programs became increasingly nonvoluntary and aggressive. A host of new terms became a part of the company’s human resource lexicon: downsizing, outsourcing, flex force, and contingency workers. At the same time, other new initiatives—flexible work options, telecommuting, alternative work schedules, job sharing, and voluntary leave programs—reflected responses to employee-driven needs for greater balance and control. Many of these changes were driven by employees looking for new alternatives to manage their careers (in the long term) and their day-to-day work–life balance (in the short term). It seemed that both the company and the employees were looking for the same thing: flexibility.

In addition to the changing employment relationship, profound changes in how people worked were driving this change in HP workforce management. The 24-7 economy, movement of jobs overseas, and expansion of global business organizati...