Culturally deprived minorities. In the United States, laws prohibit discrimination based on race, creed, color, sex, age, or national origin. Both public and private moneys have contributed to training programs to teach skills to so-called hardcore unemployables. But as one job corps placement officer says: "We can train people, but this doesn't necessarily make them employable!" At best, it provides an entree to work. To stay in the job once obtained requires more than skill. It requires good work habits, team contribution, a view of one's job in the perspective of others it touches-in fact, life habits that adapt to the regimen of organized daily work. To help the minority worker acquire these characteristics involves long-range, complicated interaction with him-one that we do not yet understand. But to obtain and keep a first job is hardly the American dream. The old dream (and there is no reason to suppose that it has died) is to have the opportunity to advance at least a little way up the ladder. So the career advancement problem (barely explored, much less resolved) of the minority worker shares the limelight with employability on a modest basis now, but it will surely gain increasing significance in the years ahead. Its resolution will contribute much to the satisfactory outcome of the ongoing social revolution.
Women. The most common reason firms give for failing to employ women or to consider them seriously for promotion opportunities is that they will leave to marry, to have a child, or to follow their husbands to a new career opportunity in a different geographic location. A number of things are happening to play down the validity of this argument. First, there appears to be a trend toward greater mobility among males, so that the relative position of men and women is now more even. Second, changes in social mores and values have contributed to the desire and need for married women to remain in the workforce. Third, both fear of overpopulation and improved understanding of birth control methods have decreased the birth rate. But while the trend is down, nevertheless, from a career standpoint, the typical woman worker probably must plan for an interrupted career. This poses problems for her and for the organization she joins. Yet the law says: "No discrimination."
In addition, the psychological problem of men reporting to women must be faced and resolved by both sexes if promotions are to be available equally. Fortunately, the trends toward greater democracy and participation in managing bode well. And the concept of the manager's role that plays down its ascendancy should not only help the woman to assume managerial rank but also allow her to achieve stature and full rewards as a professional, contributor as well.
Demands of young people. The rate at which we are adding information in all fields, the improvements in teaching methods, and the multiplicity of communications media are helping to provide the young college graduate entering the workforce with greater knowledge qualifications than ever before. He also brings with him impatience, a cavalier attitude toward long-standing policies, a questioning mind, and non-acceptance of many of the working values of an earlier age. Young people place greater emphasis on human relationships than did previous generations. They expect more of their employers. They look upon their careers as means of realizing their potential. But many do not see work as a 24-hour-a-day responsibility; they do not see a single employer as deserving of lifelong loyalty unless it serves their interests. They are quite accustomed to thinking in terms of world opportunity, and they are less tied to a single geographic location. Frequently the product of a broken home, they place a high value on and expect to work toward a close, meaningful marital relationship. Therefore they won't buy the 24-hour-a-day job. And so their work habits are likely to be different from those of people in the current workforce. This poses problems for them and for their employers. New systems are needed to release their great capabilities for useful results and to help them achieve that first promotion quickly and soundly.
Age distribution shift. If the knowledge explosion gives the young person an advantage, it certainly places the older worker at a disadvantage. His obsolescence is more rapid than ever. The ideal of a career in which the individual continuously assumes greater and greater responsibility until finally he retires in a blaze of glory and at the peak of his powers was perhaps never true. But today it has become even less likely. Just keeping pace means a lifetime educational effort. How will employers handle this? Will managers expect less effort on the job? Give more part-time training? Add to the employee's benefits package a training period each year or a sabbatical for updating his knowledge and abilities? Should career thinking be changed so that employees typically reach their peak at some middle-age level and then after a period of time drop back to a lower-level plateau without loss of face or prestige?
Many management theorists today recommend multiple careers as the only satisfactory solution to the problem-"multiple" meaning a career that encompasses several phases, each involving fairly dramatic change. Perhaps the first 20 years might be spent in the more competitive business and industrial settings; the next 10 in some independent staff, consulting, or professional role; and the last span of time in more humanitarian, less competitive arenas. Whether or not this solution is a viable one for most employed persons, the need certainly exists to fight obsolescence and adopt career patterns more suited to the times.
All these factors-increasing institutional size and decentralization of decision making, more complex business planning interrelated with manpower planning, and the many special challenges that face us today-point clearly to the desirability of a major overhaul of career systems. We sorely need new concepts to give both the individual and the firm greater flexibility. We need a sharing of responsibilities by all involved parties. And most of all, we need ingenious devices to facilitate careers so that talents can be applied and developed at the rate demanded by our challenging times.
