Winter 2007

Careers and transition

No longer jobs for life

Peter Carey looks at the paradigm shift that has happened as a result of the changing context and demands on workers, its benefits and the impact of the role of the career practitioner.

In today’s work environment, full-time work can no longer be presumed. Employability is the key. Learning about other workplaces and spheres of endeavour can only add to our knowledge and experience. Taking an active interest in researching the world around us will broaden our outlook and our capacity to network, and allow us to know as much as possible about other companies, trends, theories, strategies and opportunities.

One of the most significant modern trends is for organisations to have far fewer management positions. This means skills that were previously thought of as administrative skills are now required by all staff. We should acquire as many competencies as we can in communication, budgeting, leadership and conflict resolution. We should accept responsibility for leading a team, for making a presentation and doing a report. We should make suggestions about how things can be done better. Organisations employ people with positive attitudes. If our attitude is genuine it will show through in all aspects of our work, including our relations with others, manner and dress.

The economic value of many of the leading global organisations now resides in their knowledge-based assets. Individuals contribute to the net worth of a company in ways that are quite different from the productive processes of the past. Until now, opportunities for Australians to learn the required skills for managing their career in this new environment were limited. As a consequence, Australia faces a competitive disadvantage arising from widely held but irrelevant assumptions of what it means to have a career now and in the future. What is at stake is the economic and social future of our country.

Providing strong career development systems that assist individuals to manage their career effectively is now very important for maintaining and developing an effective labour force in this country. Individuals need to be able to assess their skills, interests and preferences accurately and regularly, and they need the skills to read changes in the labour market in order to take advantage of the opportunities that exist. In this way they become skilled in managing lifelong transitions. The economic benefit of a national integrated career development system is clear. We can motivate people in the workforce to recognise their own strengths and help them to pursue opportunities more actively, which will benefit both employers and employees.

Career pathways

Career pathways are increasingly being created rather than built upon well-worn trails. Flexibility has increased employability of the individual and created broader options. Most people will have several changes in jobs over their lifetime, many working in roles not yet invented and full-time work is no longer seen as a natural right. To survive and thrive in the world of paid work, people need to place emphasis on flexibility, opportunity, enterprise, innovation, change, risk and being passionate about job aspirations. Strategies that encourage attitudes and aptitudes, as well as skills and knowledge, are critical if participants are to be successful in the new millennium.

Career management: the key to employment

There is no turning back from the economic, political and technological upheavals of the last century, which have redefined the workplace and demanded a more skilled, assertive and smarter worker.

The days when employees could rely on employers and unions to look after them are over and people have to take more responsibility for their careers in a tougher working environment. The Australian Workplace Agreements introduced in 2004, clearly place responsibility for the negotiation of the terms and conditions for employment on the worker, and the unions are responsible for far fewer industries. The key is to set short-term career goals, update skills and remain flexible to opportunities.

Individuals need to become aware they have to manage their career—that it doesn’t just happen. For example, a short-term career goal may be to extend skills through training, to complete a degree, to use more of their talents within the organisation or even to achieve a better balance between family and work. It may be simply setting up a work situation that is flexible enough to allow you to take time off when a child is sick. Organisational influences that contribute to career satisfaction include open channels of communication between employers and employees, access to training and opportunities to demonstrate responsibilities and skills.

In times past employers had a responsibility to match the career goals of employees to the strategic goals of the organisation through career development programs. Most career guidance took place at a vocational level with little attention paid to career development for people in the middle of their working life.

A paradigm shift

A momentum for career management as the key to employability among government, educationalists, community agencies, organisations and career practitioners is causing this paradigm shift.

Our notions of success and career satisfaction have changed dramatically in recent years because employees can no longer expect regular promotions on a long career ladder. People are seeking fulfilment in developing their full potential in a variety of ways of working experiences and in making a valuable contribution to their organisation. Our whole work culture has changed and people are striving to get some balance in their lives where work is just one component.

Proficiency of career management skills cannot be left to chance. It needs be part of school education programs, employee training and development and restorative programs for adults in career transitions. The career practitioner has an important role to play in this regard. The paradigm wheels are shifting, and career practitioners are ready to tackle this change with new insights when meeting the needs of adults in transition and young people preparing for work.

The vital role of career practitioners

Career practitioners have a vital role to play in assisting students and adults to identify and develop the knowledge, skills, understandings and attributes that they will need to experience success. These include:

• lifelong learning as the norm
• demand for creativity, enterprise and collaboration
• self-managed career development
• demonstrated adaptability in a rapidly changing environment
• negotiating skills while demonstrating personal responsibility
• capacity for work in collaboration with others
• increased self-employment, part-time or casual employment and portfolio work combinations
• identifying and applying the benefits of cultural diversity
• identifying and applying the benefits of being observant
• identifying and applying the benefits derived from service to others
• focus and application of creativity in problem solving
• demonstrated technological literacy in problem solving
• communication of paper-based and digital information
• learning new skills and assimilating new ideas quickly
• taking initiative and self-direction
• applying abstract thinking techniques, and
• identifying problems and solutions.

Practitioners need to assist students and adults to develop all of the above and to give them legitimate confidence in their ability to construct fulfilling lives. Students and adults need to:

• focus—on who they are, what they have to offer, and what is important to them
• get direction—know their options, what appeals to them, and how to qualify for suitable learning and work opportunities
• adapt—learn the skill of making the best of ever-present change, and having healthy self-esteem and self-knowledge to counter uncertainty and doubt.

The present skills crisis provides compelling reasons to redouble the commitment to helping many more people to acquire the career management skills needed to assure increased prosperity for citizens and corporations, windfalls for governments and an even brighter future for our country.

Career practitioners have a vital role to play in assisting students and adults to identify and develop the knowledge, skills, understandings and attributes that they will need to experience success.

Peter Carey is national president of Australian Association of Career Counsellors Inc.

The author owns the copyright in this article. For information related to the reuse of this work in any form please contact the publisher denise.quinn@curriculum.edu.au