Clearly, management's function is important. Employees and prospective employees have their own high levels of expectation about this. The consequences of failing to demonstrate positive, supportive interest in employee careers can be serious. In order to attract well-qualified talent in this age, when so many choices are open to professional and management people, long-term interest rather than short-term exploitation must be demonstrated. An informal survey of 100 seniors at a major university indicates that one of the attractions of any institution is the opportunity for career advancement that it offers. And exit interviews in employment offices still indicate that the main reason for voluntary resignations is lack of opportunity.
So, whether or not an individual takes advantage of career development programs within a firm, their presence attracts top talent.
No Tokenism
Lip service will not suffice. A pet peeve of both employees and undergraduates is career tokenism on the part of an organization. For example, some firms advertise a computerized inventory that stores data about current employees and is much publicized as the vehicle for filling open jobs fairly, giving equal opportunity to all qualified candidates. But when the computer is seldom used, when data arc obsolete and little effort is made to keep them current, many consider this tokenism. When an enormous paperwork system is put into effect and career interests are solicited once a year and passed up the line for further review and consideration but nothing else happens, employees consider it tokenism.
No Manipulation
Employees want an open system. They want to know how jobs are filled and what the ground rules are for getting them. They bitterly resent being told they are free to accept or reject an offer of advancement, only to discover that if they reject it, either they are pressured to change their decision or they're rarely offered another opportunity. They dislike having their titles changed, their job descriptions rewritten, and their salaries increased modestly, and then finding they are doing the same work as before. They dislike being diverted to a different job in another department under the guise of helping out temporarily only to discover they're in a job they'd rather not be doing and the only other choice is to leave the firm. They especially resent the poorer performer's being given an opportunity for a better job because the boss wants to get rid of him, while stronger contributors are held in place. Employees want to be involved in their own career decisions with both the facts and the risks exposed.
So with those provisos-no tokenism, no manipulation- employees expect management to play an important role in career advancement. The nature of its role is best described as facilitating. Workers expect good jobs, bosses from whom they can learn, educational opportunities, a working promotion system, and sufficient information about the business. These are fundamental and deserve individual discussion.
Good Jobs
A good job is one reasonably matched to the knowledge, skills, and interests of the man who fills it. It must not be so much within his capability that he feels unchallenged by it. Rather, it should build on his talents and require him to stretch, thus adding to his knowledge and skill. Learning time must not be so long that a man becomes discouraged nor so short that within three or four months he has milked a job of its major learning potential.
The way the job is delegated is also critical. Management by objectives is strongly recommended so that the individual is working toward a result he's committed to and has considerable freedom to choose how he will reach it. He is aware of the constraints or limitations within which he must work, but these are not so severe and restrictive that the result seems impossible to attain. In addition, functioning within a management-by-objectives system provides him with automatic feedback so that he knows at all times how he is doing by comparing his progress with anticipated milestones.
The good job develops with the man. As he performs it and understands the work better, he sees opportunities to make improvements, to get results faster, or to get different and better results. Thus the learning opportunity increases with the experience of the man. A poor job is quite different. Early on, it is drained of its problems and challenges, so that the major learning experience for the individual is short-lived though it may be high. What follows takes on the coloration of routine-complex, perhaps, but repetitive.
In addition to the substance, depth, and increasing learning potential inherent in a good job, it also represents a course of action that matches the employee's interests at least to a reasonable extent and continues to arouse and stimulate them as time goes on. The job thus directly contributes to the advancement of his career.
But one mistake management often makes about the good job is to oversell it, describing the work in far more glowing terms than are realizable. To counteract any possible oversell, the prospective employee should spend enough time with the incumbent to see firsthand what he does and talk with associates involved with the work. If he can, he should try his hand at the work before accepting the job-perhaps an unrealistic possibility unless he's already employed by the firm.
Good Bosses
Employees expect to learn from their managers. This is often interpreted to mean that a manager knows so much an employee will benefit from watching him work and from his explanations, coaching sessions, and performance appraisal discussions. It is now clear, however, that being a good boss is not quite so simple. In a survey I made a few years ago asking a group of young professional men under what type of manager they had grown most, the message came through clearly. It was not the personality of the man or what he did or didn't know that stood out. The developmental manager was one who had given them a tough job to do that was important to organization results and expected them to do it-no escape.
A good boss is one who not only provides freedom of operation but also sets a climate for the group that encourages each person to take the freedom he needs in order to operate successfully.
Educational Opportunities
Most large companies spend large sums of money on training programs of all sorts. It is one of the advantages they offer. Company training programs, however, have a way of becoming stereotyped and no longer relevant to assigned work. A certain company, for example, may have given a course in electronic circuitry for 20 years. The current instructor has taught it for at least five years. The methodology, the problems, the course outline, and even the tests arc completely standardized. Possibly the course gets a good rating by participants because the material is well organized, the instructor is reasonably effective, and there is no apparent basis for a poor rating, at least in the students' view.
But the most important reason for rating it down may still be present: the material might be below the level of knowledge actually in use in the company. This can happen on the college campus as well as in the company classroom, of course, but the message is that if employees want educational opportunities for career advancement, they want fresh information, presented with the latest teaching methods.
Inviting university professors and gifted teachers to review subject matter and presentation methods can pay handsome dividends. Asking company specialists to audit course content to be sure of its currency can be enormously helpful. Bringing in prominent outside lecturers knowledgeable in the subject the course is treating can help break set patterns and open minds to fresh ideas. This brings better work results as well as facilitating employee career advancement. It may in fact save senior specialists from becoming obsolete.
Management need not do it all. Nearby institutions of learning may be encouraged to set up evening courses in subjects of interest. While many companies consider tuition refund an employee benefit in such instances, this isn't always necessary. Most employees are quite willing to pay their own way or share the cost involved. The object is to have outstanding learning opportunities readily accessible.
