Career Management - The New Economy Careeists

1. Knowledge Worker & Knowledge Careers.¹ Who would be the career employee of tomorrow and what are the trends is the issue addressed through this part. The respondents have indicated a consistent top priority to the knowledge-focused employee. One who works through knowledge and competencies relevant to his/her job role and is in a position to work without supervision. Boss's role in turn has become coaching, counseling, mentoring and adding material value to the colleague's work content. While knowledge workers become a reality so would knowledge careers. As employees gain more knowledge they would in turn seek learning and knowledge enhancing work life and companies. When learning ceases employees depart to pursue their careers, elsewhere. Intellectually inclined professionals demonstrate loyalty only to themselves and their profession. Loyalty to their corporate would come a late last preference, a third. This is contextually significant for our interpretation and would entail no value judgment whether this is right or wrong. This is the way it is. While individuals seek knowledge paths their personal endeavor would transform towards becoming an ongoing learner. Something that training departments have been attempting to instill in people for last many decades. The employee at large than ever before now better understands learning and its criticality. Capitalizing on this trend would be a corporate advantage as corporate management continues to emphasize the changing economy and the likely demands of the 21st century and the corporate would need to do no further selling. Employees would volunteer to join in training programs, would seek time off for off duty courses, would invest their savings in obtaining a university degree and would like working in teams to enable them to learn from others. In contrast some amount of knowledge hoarding would continue, if not in the short run increase. At the initial stage of knowledge enhancement job insecurities would set in and employees would now want to retain their employable skills and knowledge. As time goes by and as knowledge becomes more and more easily available employees would see the futility of hoarding and would instead spend time seeking more memory space in their mind for new and updated knowledge. Some reckoning:

2. Low settling in time for peak performance². This prediction is a classical ushering in of a performance-oriented culture. While we would in contradictory terms continue to discuss the merit of a well managed socialization program for new hires, concurrently the line manager and the CEO is asking for ASAP performance contribution. That the traditional time available to new recruits to think and feel their way around the new place, gain familiarity, learn the ropes of getting things done, understand the business context and obtain as much of new company information as possible has all given way to get out there and commence delivery. The context of this expectation should be studied in the light of a demanding economy and the need to meet change head on, be in the forefront of proactive competitive strategies and make customer satisfaction happen despite seemingly impossible odds. That is attempting to state the complex environment in as amateurish a manner as possible. From a career employment trends it also appears that the CEO believes that there is adequate preparedness from the employee to see this reality and is perhaps in a position to take the bag and move into business soon after joining. As a aside it must be understood that coping with pace of change does not necessitate leaving behind proven behavioral and socialization techniques. The opportunity is to use technology and deliver appropriate on line programs to bring up the curve a new employee. The distance to be bridged is not information, data or tools to become an effective employee of the new company. What is to be bridged is the absence of human touch and physical proximity that acts as an emotional bond towards a new employee. Peak performance needs some clarity. In organizations where goal orientation is not a ritual but a practiced norm, getting employees to focus on goals and deliverables on an on line basis is not difficult. More so the selection process by itself would have figured the hiring pattern of employees to reflect this mental preparedness and organizational fitment. Some patterns could be revealing:

3. Short-term service providers like consultants & freelancers. Another interesting learning from this research is the prediction that there would rise in need for short term content and service providers like consultants and freelancers. In essence implying that specialists with advanced skills and experience relevant to the company should be hired for short-term assignments for quick delivery and return on investment. This would in turn act as a fall back for loss of long-term career employee or the constraint imposed on corporations on account of difficulty in retaining specialist skills and knowledge. Consultants bring in value added service that extends beyond traditional functional boundaries of the organization. This is reflective of the changing commercial horizon where individual contribution approached on a horizontal knowledge axis is a preferred option for company utilization. Freelancers is a new breed and would comprise of one person specialist boutique shops who possess extraordinary expertise in any particular are and are willing to work for organizations for a fixed term and remuneration. Again freelancers may also belong to select knowledge communities who practice knowledge intensive learning primarily within their learning community. Their offer to share happens when they choose to support a business enterprise that possess the capability to absorb untested knowledge contribution and the individual in turn has the opportunity to experiment. This works very well when neither the company nor the individual have extended him or herself into a commercially dependent relationship and are forced to commit a mutual obligation. Freelancers by definition are free and do what they please and have so driven a path for themselves. Corporation's benefit when an appropriate utility value can be attached to each of these externalized professional relationships. Some insights are:

4. Immediate hiring hits and on the spot performers rather than long-term loyalty in employees. CEO's definitely believe that the new age employee is likely to be a short-term employee contributing with pace and agility and who in turn would not be keen on a long-term career. The assumption that they would not only be short term in their stay within the company but would be high performing is evident from the pattern of responses. That an employee would come in for a short duration and would thereafter contribute and leave appears to be an acceptable solution to the corporate honchos. Now that is interesting. It is just not sufficient to figure that employees are keen to move on but the employer is quite happy to have employees contribute at their top gear for a short duration and have them replaced by yet another fast paced individual. Defining contribution for the duration of the stay, paying for the goals delivered and seeing off people thereafter is a reality that is envisaged. Retention of employee as a career planning option would then mean successive assignments or projects in several situations. Read as companies/jobs/roles/assignments/projects/part timing/moonlighting, would be convertible options of the HR kind with no vesting period or in other words a pre determined vesting, all mutually acceptable across once upon a time employer employee long term relationship. If this is as real as we can get coping HR strategies should be deterministic:

5. Frequent internal transfers and Flexible Employee Mindset. This is a top management expectation from an employee of the 21st century. Potentially the employee demonstrates strong thinking and execution skills and has proven capabilities to accomplish tasks and goals on an agreed basis within a pre determined time frame. The new employee brings in an open mind to think and move beyond work role configuration and adapts himself/herself to be mobile, take new unknown assignments and relocated on a permanent or temporary basis. A mercenary framework is not being envisaged where, unmindful of social or personal obligations employees are expected to walk the talk across geographic segments. What is stated, as a CEO expectation is a mindset to be able and willing to transfer into jobs and locations for a combination of business and personal good? That preference for a particular location or a role is not overriding enough to constrain any movement. This is significant given assumptions of 21st century employees being individualistic and unwilling to flex to adapt to organizational requests. What is evident is, CEO's are not willing to give up on their expectation and let go mobility as an important career-fulfilling task for the employees. This is an area of conflict as it necessitates sustaining several personal and professional demands while attempting to keep the company firing from all its cylinders to keep profitability up and growing. Internal transfers mean job versatility and knowing more than what one is expected within functional boundaries. Transfers occur to fulfill roles that are critical and where either new employee cannot fit in immediately or where the job being performed cannot be help on hold. That is when internal redeployment occurs to facilitate continuity of the job or service. Flexibility may mean more than geographic mobility. Employees who qualify as flexible are said to be open minded, willing to take unknown challenges, do jobs beyond written descriptions, perform roles that could be discarded by others as "not for me", work with diverse people, learn from dynamic territories, make new employees comfortable and are fundamentally easy and cool to get along with. Flexible employees generally are said to be positive, dependable, trustworthy, open minded and willing to shoot when asked. While this generalization should not assumed to be a 100% sample size it has adequate validity to rely on some of the characteristics mentioned above. Some situations need thought:

6. Career employees may not be available. While this issue has been to our mind dealt with limited emphasis given its ramification as a prediction, the overall consensus of the entire sample put together indicates emergence of the absence of career employees for corporations. This is not to say that careers as a concept or practice would die but to fore warn that definitions and assumptions of careers may have to be rethought and rewritten. Seeking career employment entails a willingness to look at both long and short term aspects of performing a role or a similar role for a given period of time. That in turn necessitates an element of compromise on variety and assumed changes that may arise on account of job role and company profile differences and location specific challenges. Pursuing a career means sticking to a task, a game plan, a performance category and sustaining it over time. What is the probability of a number of new age employees who would be able and willing to pursue careers that match with organizational demands and consideration? Career employment may necessitate HR systems and internal processes that cut across cross-functional and horizontal/vertical boundaries that typically stifle intellectual proliferation. This is not to undermine HR considerations that are not normal for certain types of companies and emerging industries. Dot COM companies fall into such a category surely. Dot COM's by definition are not seeking employees, least of all career employees. For them only partners and owners are understood, not employees. This is learning while looking at careers in the emerging industries. As long as motivated, competent professionals are available and willing to take risks and manage new age enterprises, answer to careers has been found. Some thoughts are worth pondering in the context of this particular research finding:

Another contradiction is in age and career employee combination. In an era of the young and bright, the old and wise become the career employee from an organizational point of view. This may not be a desired state, given lack of need for a large amount of wisdom and experience in a changing business scenario.

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