Employee training and development 5th chapter 12

Chapter 12
Special Challenges in Career
Management
McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Copyright © 2010 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.


Introduction
 Supportive work-life culture
Acknowledges and respects family and life
responsibilities and obligations.
Encourages managers and employees to work
together to meet personal and work needs.

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Socialization and Orientation
 Organizational socialization – the
process by which new employees are
transformed into effective members of
the company; has three phases:
Anticipatory socialization - employees
develop expectations about the company, job,
working conditions, and interpersonal
relationships.

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Socialization and Orientation
(cont.)
Encounter phase - employee begins a new
job; they experience shock and surprise and
need to become familiar with job tasks,
company practices, procedures, etc.
Settling-in phase - employees begin to feel
comfortable with their job demands and social
relationships.

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Table 12.1 - What Employees Should Learn
and Develop Through Socialization

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Table 12.2 - Content of
Orientation Programs

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Table 12.3 - Characteristics of
Effective Orientation Programs

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Career Paths, Developing DualCareer Paths and Career Portfolios
 Career path - a sequence of job
positions involving similar types of work
and skills that employees move through
in the company; it involves analyzing:
work and information flows.
important development experiences.
qualifications and tasks performed across
jobs.
similarities and differences in working
environments.
historical movement patterns of employees in
and out of jobs.
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Career Paths, Developing Dual-Career
Paths and Career Portfolios (cont.)
 Dual-career path system - enables
employees to remain in a technical career
path or move into a management career
path. Its characteristics are:
Salary, status, and incentives for technical
employees compare favorably with those of
managers.
Individual contributors’ base salary may be
lower than that of managers, but they are
given opportunities to increase their total
compensation through bonuses.

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Career Paths, Developing Dual-Career
Paths and Career Portfolios (cont.)
The individual contributor career path is not
used to satisfy poor performers who have no
managerial potential. The career path is for
employees with outstanding technical skills.
Individual contributors are given the
opportunity to choose their career path.

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Figure 12.3 - Example of DualCareer-Path System

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Career Paths, Developing Dual-Career
Paths and Career Portfolios (cont.)
 Career portfolio - multiple part-time
jobs that together make up a full-time
position.
Advantages:
Increases job satisfaction and provides flexibility.

Disadvantages:
Stalled earnings and trouble maintaining companysponsored health care.

Readjustment each time the employee moves from
one job to the other.
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Plateauing
 The likelihood of the employee receiving
future job assignments with increased
responsibility is low.
Mid-career employees are most likely to
plateau.
It becomes dysfunctional when the employee
feels stuck in a job that offers no potential for
personal growth resulting in poor job attitude,
increased absenteeism, and poor job
performance.
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Plateauing (cont.)
 Reasons for employees to plateau:
Discrimination based on age, gender, or race.
Lack of ability and 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.
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Table 12.4 - Possible Remedies for
Plateaued Employees

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Skills Obsolescence
 It is 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
his or her education.

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Figure 12.4 - Factors Related to
Updating Skills

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Coping With Career Breaks
 Uniformed Services Employment and
Reemployment Rights Act - deployed
employees’ rights, such as guaranteeing
reservists’ jobs when they return, except

under special circumstance.
 Companies must ensure that returning
reservists are provided with career
counseling and information on jobs and
career opportunities.
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Balancing Work and Life
 Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
- a federal law that provides for up to 12
weeks of unpaid leave for parents with
new infants or newly adopted children.
Also covers employees who must take a leave
of absence to care for a family member or to
deal with a personal illness.
Companies are required to provide health care
benefits.
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Balancing Work and Life (cont.)
 Role of training in balancing work and
nonwork:
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.

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Balancing Work and Life (cont.)
 Types of work-life conflict
Time-based conflict - occurs when the
demands of work and nonwork interfere with
each other.
Strain-based conflict - results from the
stress of work and nonwork roles.
Behavior-based conflict - occurs when
employees’ behavior in work roles is not
appropriate for their behavior in nonwork
roles.
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Company Policies to
Accommodate Work and Nonwork
 Identifying work and life needs and
communicating information about work
and non-work policies and job demands
Companies have to understand employees’
needs, solicit their input, and make work-life
benefits accessible to everyone.
Providing information regarding the nature of
jobs helps employees choose career
opportunities that match the importance they
place on work.

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Company Policies to Accommodate
Work and Nonwork (cont.)
 Flexibility in work arrangements and work
schedules
Reduce pressure on employees to work long
hours.
Telecommuting - a work arrangement that
provides flexibility in both location and hours.
Job sharing - two employees divide the hours,
responsibilities, and benefits of a full-time job.

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Table 12.6 - Alternative Work
Schedules and Work Arrangements

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Company Policies to Accommodate
Work and Nonwork (cont.)
 Redesigning jobs
 Managerial support for work-life policies
 Dependent care support: child and elder
care and adoption support

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