CHAPTER 12
SPECIAL CHALLENGES IN CAREER MANAGEMENT
Chapter 12 continues the discussion of career management from Chapter 11 with
coverage of employee socialization and orientation; career paths, namely dual career
paths; the implications of plateauing and how to address them; skill obsolescence and
how to avoid it; balancing work and life, including the three types of work-life conflict;
policies and various arrangements to accommodate work and nonwork demands; how to
help employees cope with job loss; and dealing with the issues of older workers and the
preparation for retirement. These are issues very important to anyone who works or plans
to work, regardless of whether they pursue a career in training or some other field.
Objectives
After reading and discussing this chapter, students should be able to
1. Design an effective socialization program for employees.
2. Discuss why a dual-career path is necessary for professional and managerial
employees.
3. Provide advice on how to help plateaued employees.
4. Develop policies to help employees and the company avoid technical obsolescence.
5. Develop policies to help employees deal with work-and-life conflict.
6. Select and design outplacement strategies that minimize the negative effects on
displaced employees and “survivors.”
7. Discuss why retirees may be valuable as part-time employees.
I. Introduction
A. Work-life balance is important because it affects the company’s ability to retain
employees and attract new talent.
B. A supportive work-life culture is a company culture that acknowledges and
respects family and life responsibilities and obligations and encourages managers
and employees to work together to meet personal and work needs
II. Socialization and Orientation
A. Organizational socialization refers to the process of transforming new
employees into the members of the company, including being prepared to perform
effectively, learning about the company, and establishing work relationships.
Employees should learn and develop six specific items through socialization.
These are shown in Table 12-1 (p. 437). They are: history, company goals,
language, politics, people, and performance proficiency. There are three phases of
organizational socialization:
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1. Anticipatory socialization is the development of expectations about the
company, the job, working conditions, and coworkers, before the individual
joins the company. The expectations emerge from interactions with
representatives of the company during the recruitment and selection process
and from previous work experiences.
a. Realistic job preview provides the potential employee with accurate
information, both attractive and unattractive, about the job, the company,
working conditions, and location. This approach prevents dissatisfaction
from unmet expectations when an individual takes a new job.
2. The encounter phase is the point at which the individual begins the new job
and, inevitably, experiences some shock and surprises.
a. This is the time that employees need to become familiar with job tasks and
responsibilities, to engage in training, and to acquire and understanding of
company practices and procedures.
b. The nature and quality of the employee’s relationship with his/her manager
influences the quality of socialization.
3. In the settling-in-phase, employees begin to feel comfortable with the
company and their jobs and to resolve any work conflicts or work-nonwork
conflicts.
B. Socialization and orientation programs, which familiarize new employees with
company rules, policies, and procedures, are an important part of the socialization
process. Information covered includes (see Table 12-2, p. 439):
1. Company-level information, including the company’s history, values, mission,
policies and procedures, compensation system, employee benefits and
services, and facilities.
2. Department-level information, including the department’s functions and
philosophy, job duties and responsibilities, performance expectations, policies
and procedures, and rules and regulations.
3. Miscellaneous information, including information about housing, the
community, and family adjustment.
4. Effective orientation programs (see Table 12-3, p. 440):
a. Encourage employees to ask questions and to get actively involved.
b. Include both technical and social information about jobs.
c. Are the responsibility of the manager.
d. Avoid embarrassing new employees.
e. Allow formal and informal interactions with managers and peers.
f. Involve relocation assistance.
g. Provide information about the company’s products, services, and
customers.
5. Onboarding refers to the orientation process for newly hired managers.
III. Dual-Career Paths
A. A career path is a sequence of job positions through which employees move in
the company, involving similar types of work and skills.
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1. Advancement in technical and scientific career paths may be limited, often
culminating in a managerial position.
2. A dual career path allows for the employee to remain on the technical path
or to move into a managerial path (see Figure 12-2, p. 442).
3. Effective career paths:
a. Have salary, status and incentives for technical employees that are
competitive with those of managers.
b. Allow individual contributors (e.g., scientists) opportunities to increase
their total compensation through bonuses, e.g., for developing new
products or obtaining patents.
c. Treat the individual contributor career path as one for employees with
outstanding technical skills, not for those with no managerial potential.
d. Allow individual contributors the opportunity to choose their career path
through assessment resources made available by the company.
e. May utilize skill-based pay to reward employees who are unlikely to move
into managerial positions in order to motivate employees to increase their
skills as well as to reduce the pay differential between managerial and
nonmanagerial positions.
IV. Plateauing
A. Plateauing refers to a low likelihood that an employee will receive future job
assignments, e.g., promotions. This is most likely to happen to midcareer
employees.
B. Plateauing becomes dysfunctional when the employee feels stuck in a job that
offers no personal growth opportunities, often resulting in poor attitudes and/or
performance.
C. Employees can plateau due to:
a. Discrimination based on, for example, age, gender, or race
b. Lack of skill or ability
c. Lack of training
d. Low need for achievement
e. Unfair or dissatisfying pay decisions
f. Confusion about job responsibilities
g. Slow company growth allowing fewer developmental opportunities
D. Possible remedies for plateaued employees include (see Table 12-4, p. 445):
a. Ensuring that the employee understands the reasons for the plateau.
b. Encouraging the employee to participate in developmental activities.
c. Encouraging the employee to seek career counseling.
d. Helping the employee to reality-test his solutions.
e. It may even be in the best interest of all parties to encourage the employee to
move on from the company.
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V. Skills Obsolescence
A. Obsolescence refers to a reduction in an employee’s competence due to a lack of
knowledge of new processes, techniques, or technologies that have emerged since
the employee completed his/her education.
1. This has traditionally been a concern for those in technical and professional
occupations, but rapidly advancing technology today makes this a concern for
all employees.
2. Obsolescence must be avoided for a company to be a learning organization.
B. Obsolescence can be avoided by (see Figure 12-3, p. 446):
1. Having managers provide challenging work assignments and encourage
employees to acquire new skills through various means.
2. Having the company climate emphasize continuous learning.
3. Encouraging peers to discuss ideas and problems and share information.
4. Having a reward system that allows for sabbaticals, pays for new ideas, and
pays for employee development.
a. A sabbatical is a leave of absence from the company, with full or partial
pay, for the purpose of renew skills or developing new ones.
b. Sabbaticals can also be used to pursue personal pursuits, such as writing a
book or raising children.
VI. Coping with Career Breaks
People usually face major problems in trying to return to work after taking several
months or years off for family or other reasons.
A. Reservists are not given much advance warning of their mobilizations, which can
last for a few weeks or several years. Peers are often asked to take over the work
load of the reservists. Such disruptions are worse for small companies than for
large companies because the loss of a few employees can have a greater impact on
the other employees. Some companies do have plans for coping with sudden
absences.
B. Reservists who return to work after active duty have to prove themselves all over
again.
C. Companies must ensure that returning reservists are provided with career
counseling and information on jobs and career opportunities in order to minimize
the negative career influence of having to leave their job.
VII. Balancing Work and Life
A. The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) allows for up to 12 weeks of
unpaid leave, with benefits required to be continued by the employer, to care for a
new infant, personal illness, or the illness of a dependent family member.
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B. Company work-family policies are being expanded to work-life programs to allow
more flexibility in when and where work is performed and to provide support
services for dealing with work-life conflicts. Training has two roles:
1. Trainers and managers may be responsible for developing policies and
procedures of work-life programs.
2. Trainers may be responsible for providing training programs to prepare
managers to oversee the use of work-life policies.
C. Types of Work-Life Conflict, all of which emerge for conflict related to the
various roles an individual plays:
1. Time-based conflict arises when the demands of work and nonwork activities
interfere with each other, e.g., when work involves nights and weekend time
that interferes with family activities.
2. Strain-based conflict is due to the stress of work and nonwork roles, e.g.,
being deprived of sleep as a parent of a newborn baby affects one’s
performance at work.
3. Behavior-based conflict arises when employees’ behavior at work is not
appropriate for their personal life and vice versa, e.g., the work role may
require individuals to be logical, impartial and authoritarian while nonwork
roles may require them to be warm and emotional.
VII. Company Policies to Accommodate Work and Nonwork:
A. Communicate information about work and nonwork policies and job demands so
that employees can better choose work situations that are consistent with their
values and their nonwork lives and so that they know what options they have.
B. Provide flexibility in work arrangements and work schedules, which is key to
dealing with work-life conflict because it gives the employee more control over
his/her demands. The various work arrangements include (see Table 12-6, p.
453):
1. Traditional, involving 5 days and 40 hours of work per week in the office.
2. Flextime, involving 40 hours of work at the office with choice in terms of
when those 40 hours are performed.
3. Compressed workweek, involving 4 10-hour workdays at the office.
4. Temporary work, involving working at the office as needed.
5. Job sharing, involving splitting a 5 day, 40 hour workweek with another
employee.
6. Part-time work, less than 8 hours a day, or 5 days a week
7. Shift work, involving morning, afternoon, or overnight shifts, perhaps on a
rotating basis, at the workplace.
8. Work at home, involving varied hours of work done at home.
9. Reduced work hours, could include reduced meetings, no weekend work,
work maximum of eight hours per day.
C. Technology has made telecommuting a more realistic work arrangement for
employees in many different jobs. Telecommuting, or telework, refers to a work
arrangement that gives employees flexibility in both location and hours.
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D. The main problems with alternative work arrangements and schedules are
inadequate communication of employees working at different times or locations; a
lack of the necessary supplies and equipment; and family interruptions when
working at home.
1. Job sharing involves two employees dividing the hours, responsibilities and
pay and benefits of a full-time job. For job sharing to be effective:
a. The affects of job sharing on clients and customers must be determined.
b. The interested employee must find another employee who desires the same
arrangement.
c. The two employees sharing the job need to have similar work values and
motivations and compatible work habits.
d. The manager must communicate with the sharing partners frequently and
accept that they may not always be immediately available for consultation.
e. Meeting schedules, assignments, and vacation schedules need to be
carefully coordinated, with some overlap in schedules for the sharing
partners to meet.
f. Performance evaluation needs to be both individual and joint.
g. A job-sharing agreement should be written that clearly spells out
performance expectations, work schedules for each employee, and any
other management concerns.
E. There are three support services for employers to consider offering:
1. Training managers to understand and be supportive in work-life issues and to
avoid negative attitudes toward those who utilize work-family policy.
2. Child care services, ranging from providing child care referral to benefit plans
that allow employees to pay for child care with pretax wages to on-site child
care facilities. These services are provided by only 5% of midsize to large
companies.
3. Elder care services. Elder care, or caring for elderly parents, presents similar
needs and stresses as childcare. At least 20 percent of all employees currently
care for a parent.
4. Dependent care (i.e., child or elder care) assistance programs should involve
(Table 12-7 p. 358):
a. Determining need via surveys or focus groups.
b. Developing a philosophy or position related to business objectives.
c. Soliciting employees’ participation in designing and implementing the
program.
d. Providing resources for making employees and managers aware of the
program and what it offers.
e. Requesting feedback from users to do ongoing evaluation of how the
program is doing in meeting its objectives.
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VIII. Coping with Job Loss is an issue of increasing importance in an environment of
downsizing, corporate restructuring, mergers, acquisitions and takeovers.
A. Lay-offs cause reduced job commitment, distrust of management, and
disillusionment among current employees, and difficulty recruiting new
employees.
B. Job loss causes stress and personal life disruption for those laid off. Alternative
solutions to downsizing, such as working fewer hours, not filling open positions,
early retirement, and delayed wage increases, should be attempted.
C. In the event of downsizing, companies and managers have two responsibilities:
1. Helping employees who lose their jobs.
2. Take action to ensure that the “survivors” who aren’t laid off remain
productive, committed to the organization and satisfied with their work
situation.
D. Outplacement services, provided by companies to help laid-off employees prepare
for and deal with the lay-off, should include:
1. Advance warning and explanation for the layoff.
2. Psychological, financial, and career counseling.
3. Assessment of skills and interests.
4. Job search services, including resume-writing assistance and interviewing
skills training.
5. Job banks containing job postings, newspaper listings, phones and other
resources.
6. Electronic delivery of job openings, self-directed career management guides,
and interest and values inventories.
E. For employees who remain with the company following a downsizing (the
survivors), uncertainty about their future remains.
1. Survivors may feel a sense of gratification, but not know how safe their
current job is nor know the direction the company is heading.
2. Survivors may be expected to perform the work of the laid-off employees as
well as their own, resulting in considerable anxiety, anger toward top-level
managers, cynicism toward reorganization and new business plans,
resentment, and resignation.
3. Survivors need to be trained to deal with increased work loads and job
responsibilities due to the consolidation and loss of jobs, and be provided
realistic information about their future with the company.
IX. Dealing with Older Workers
A. Meeting the needs of older workers:
1. Flexibility in scheduling allows older employees to take care of sick spouses,
travel, study, or work fewer hours.
2. Ensure that older employees receive the training they need to avoid
obsolescence and keep up with new technology.
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3. Older employees need resources and referral addressing long-term health care
and elder care.
4. Assessment and counseling are necessary to assist older employees to
potentially recycle to new jobs or careers.
5. Ensure that there are not false stereotypes about older workers within the
company.
B. Preretirement socialization is the process of helping employees prepare for exit
from employment. These programs typically involve:
1. Addressing the psychological aspects of retirement, including developing
interests and activities.
2. Addressing housing considerations, transportation, living expenses, and
proximity to healthcare.
3. Health during retirement, including nutrition and exercise.
4. Financial planning, insurance, and investments.
5. Addressing health care plans.
6. Addressing estate planning.
7. Addressing the collection of benefits from Social Security and company
pension plans.
C. Retirement refers to leaving a job and work role and transitioning into a life
without employment or, perhaps, recycling into another career or job.
1. Recent changes in the Social Security system and the increase in the
mandatory retirement age to 70 indicate that many employees are working
longer. Still, over half of employees retire before age 63.
2. The aging workforce and early retirement programs have three implications:
a. Companies must meet the needs of older workers.
b. Companies must assist employees in planning for retirement.
c. Companies must ensure that older employees are not discriminate against
by early retirement programs.
D. Early retirement programs offer employees financial incentives to leave the
company before the traditional retirement age, usually as part of a company’s
strategy to reduce labor costs without laying anyone off. Eligibility is usually
based on age and years with the company.
1. Early retirement programs have two main problems:
a. Employees who will be difficult to replace may opt to retire early.
b. Older employees may feel that they are being pushed out of the company.
2. Effective early retirement programs:
a. Are part of the employee benefit package.
b. Justify age-related distinctions for early retirement eligibility.
c. Ensure that early retirement is voluntary
d. Involve training employees to understand the financial and other
implications of early retirement and the process of retiring early.
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CHAPTER 12 SUMMARY
Chapter 12 is a continuation of the discussion of careers, career management and career
management issues from the previous chapter. The particular issues addressed here were
1.) socialization and orientation; 2.) dual-career paths; 3.) plateauing and how to remedy
it; 4.) skill obsolescence and how to avoid it; 5.) balancing work and life and the various
conflicts that must be alleviated; 6.) policies and arrangements to accommodate work and
nonwork demands; 7.) helping employees deal with downsizing; 8.) and accommodating
the needs of older workers. Interesting new approaches to the arrangement of work were
described, as was the larger issue of work and life conflict in general. This is extremely
salient for many individuals and is a chapter full of information that is critical for training
and development students to be familiar with.
Discussion Questions
1. Describe the stages of organizational socialization. What are the employees’ needs at
each stage?
Answer:
During the first stage, anticipatory socialization, employees need to get a realistic job
preview, so that they form realistic expectations. During the Encounter stage,
employees need challenging work and helpful managers and peers to enhance job
learning. In the settling-in phase, employees begin to feel comfortable with their job
and their relationships with co-workers. In all phases good working relationships
with others in the workplace are essential. (p. 437-438)
2. Why are content and process important in the design of the employee orientation
programs? What content should an effective orientation program include? What
process should be used?
Answer:
In effective orientation programs employees are encouraged to ask questions,
information about both technical and social aspects of the job are provided,
orientation is the responsibility of the new employee’s manager, new employees are
not debased or embarrassed, formal and informal interactions with co-workers occur,
there is relocation assistance, and employees are provided with information about the
company’s products, services, and customers, as well as policies, procedures,
benefits, services, employee relations, safety, facilities, and customer relations.
(Tables 12-2 and 12-3, p. 439-440)
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3. What is a dual-career path? What are the characteristics of an effective dual-career
path?
Answer:
A dual career path allows employees to remain in a technical career path or move into
a management career path. Effective career paths have similar salary, status and
incentives for both career paths, individual contributors may have lower base pay than
management, but can compensate through bonuses for product development and
patents, the technical path is not used for poor performers with no managerial talents,
but instead are given to employees with outstanding technical skills, and the path
choice is made by the employee. (p. 442-443)
4. Why do employees plateau? How could you help a plateaued employee? Discuss the
characteristics of a plateaued employee who might resist your help.
Answer:
Employees can plateau because of discrimination, lack of ability or training, low need
for achievement, unfair pay decisions, confusion about responsibilities, or slow
company growth. The employee can be helped by explaining why an employee has
plateaued, encouraging participation in development activities, or encouraging career
counseling. Many plateaued employees feel as though they have peaked in their
career s, but not in life. They have been caught unexpectedly by the erosion of the
relationship between natural talent, hard work, good morals, job security, and
stability. (p. 445)
5. Why should managers be trained as part of establishing supportive work-life policies?
Answer:
There is a risk that managers may view employees in flexible work arrangements as
uninterested in their careers and punish them through poor evaluation and refusal to
provide development opportunities. Training managers to be more supportive of
these employees can remedy this. (p. 456)
6. How could you help downsized survivors remain motivated and productive? Rank
your recommendations in order of importance. Provide a rationale for your ranking.
Answer:
Answers will vary but should include training employees to deal with increased
workloads and job responsibilities due to the consolidation and loss of jobs, and
providing survivors with realistic information about their future wit the company. (p.
460)
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7. What advantages and disadvantages might a company gain by rehiring retired
employees?
Answer:
Rehired retirees have the advantage that they are mature, responsible workers that
already know the job and the company. They do not require the training that new
employees would. There is however, often a need to work around the retirees’
schedule. (p. 464)
8. Are work-family programs the same as work-life programs? Explain.
Answer:
Although they perform similar functions, and both make balancing work and family
easier, work-life programs are not restricted to those employees with families. There
are many different programs that fall into these categories. (p. 449)
9. What are the advantages and potential disadvantages of telecommuting for
employees? for companies?
Answer:
Employees benefits of telecommuting provide employees with some control over their
work schedule by giving them time to deal with family demands, help employees
avoid the difficulties of commuting, and an overall flexibility to balance work and
life. Companies can reduce turnover rates, save on costs, and allows companies to
accurately track employees’ use of time.
Some of the difficulties posed by alternative work schedules and work arrangements
include communication problems, a lack of necessary supplies and equipment, and
family interruptions. (p. 453-454)
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