Career Management

In the introductory chapter I outlined the broader economic, technical and social changes that have occurred over the past twenty years and the effect that this is having on work, employment and careers.

The career landscape does appear to be changing, partly as a result of structural change within organisations, and partly through individual choice. Work–Life balance has risen up the political, corporate and personal agenda for individuals.

Providing ways of helping employees achieve the Work–Life balance that they are looking for is seen as a key way of attracting and retaining skilled employees, particularly women, who are still very much under-represented in some business sectors.

However, from my own research (Evans, 2001), the policies that organisation have introduced are not yet hitting the spot for some individuals. They are considered too inflexible and are oftenbased on a narrow definition of Work–Life balance. These are individuals who have chosen to develop an independent career. A career choice that enables them to ‘blend’, as opposed to balance, the different aspects of their lives, e.g. work, family, learning, health, and community work.

Irrespective of whether individuals choose to develop an organisational career, or an independent career, one of the areas that they need to address is how in knowledge economy the halflife of an individual’s skills is now a few years, not a few decades. It is crucial then that employers and employees develop plans for keeping their knowledge and skills up-to-date.

In the opening presentation of a Women in Management conference, Valerie Hammond, the Chief Executive of Roffey Park Institute, spoke of how, in the world of the free agent, we need to regularly review our skills, identifying which ones are currently in demand, which ones are likely to be in demand in the future, and which ones to let go of^[5]. However, as we have seen a lot of evidence in the knowledge economy of old skills being dusted down and applied in different contexts, e.g. storytelling and social network analysis, perhaps there is a need to consider archiving these skills, rather than abandoning than for good.

^[5]21st Century Women’s Voices. Women in Management Conference. London. November 1998.