Managing Careers and Retention

The employer has an obligation to utilize its employees’ abilities to the fullest and to give all
employees a chance to grow and to develop successful careers. Employers do this not just
because they think that it’s the right thing to do, but because by doing so both gain—the
employee by having a more fulfilling career, and the employer by reaping the benefits of
improved employee relations, engagement, and retention.

Let’s define some important terms:

We may define career as the occupational positions a person holds over the years.

Career management is the process for enabling employees to better understand and develop
their career skills and interests and to use these skills and interests most effectively both within
the company and after they leave the firm.

Career development is the lifelong series of activities (such as workshops) that contribute to a
person’s career exploration, establishment, success, and fulfillment.

Career planning is the deliberate process through which someone becomes aware of personal
skills, interests, knowledge, motivations, and other characteristics; acquires information about
opportunities and choices; identifies career-related goals; and establishes action plans to attain
specific goals.

Careers Today

People once viewed careers as a sort of upward stairway from job to job, more often than not
with one or at most a few firms. Today, many people do still move up, but many (or most) find
themselves having to reinvent themselves.

Careers today differ in other ways from a few years ago. With many more women pursuing
professional and managerial careers, families must balance the challenges associated with dual
career pressures. At the same time, what people want from their careers is changing.

One implication is that what employers and employees expect from each other is changing. What
the employer and employee expect of each other is part of what psychologists call a
psychological contract. This is “an unwritten agreement that exists between employers and
employees. "The psychological contract identifies each party’s mutual expectations.

Employee’s Role in Career Management

It is the employee who must shoulder responsibility for his or her own career; assess interests,
skills, and values; seek out career information resources; and generally take those steps that must
be taken to ensure a happy and fulfilling career.

For the employee, career planning means matching individual strengths and weaknesses with
occupational opportunities and threats. In other words, the person wants to pursue occupations,
jobs, and a career that capitalize on his or her interests, aptitudes, values, and skills.

The person’s manager and employer have career management responsibilities.

For example, before hiring, realistic job interviews can help prospective employees more
accurately gauge whether the job is a good fit for them. Periodic job rotation can help the person
develop a more realistic picture of what he or she is good at, and thus the career moves that
might be best. Finally, we will see that once the person has been on the job for a while, career
oriented appraisals are important. Here the manager not only appraises the employee but helps
the person to match his or her strengths and weaknesses with a feasible career path.

Employer’s Career Management Methods

1. Career Development Training – Some employers create Web-based or offline libraries of

career development materials, for employees to utilize.

2. A career planning workshop – Is “a planned learning event in which participants are expected
to be actively involved, completing career planning exercises and inventories and participating in
career skills practice sessions.

3. Career coaches – Generally help employees create 1- to 5-year plans showing where their
careers with the firm may lead. The coaches help individual employees identify their
development needs and obtain the training, professional development, and networking
opportunities they require to satisfy those needs.

Diversity Counts: Toward Career Success

People with disabilities tend to have less career success than do those without disabilities. Some
barriers may be self-imposed. For instance, some with disabilities may have lower career
expectations, or may not proactively seek work-related help or the accommodations they are due
under EEO law. However, most such problems reflect unfortunate assumptions and actions by
managers and coworkers. Though well meaning, they may view those with disabilities as unable
to perform various jobs, negatively evaluate them as being poor occupational fits, and assume
that jobs designed for those without disabilities are inappropriate for those with disabilities.
Figure 10-2 presents some positive strategies for people with disabilities.

Let’s look at Figure 10-2.

The Manager as Mentor and Coach

Do not underestimate the impact that a supervisor can have on his or her employee’s career
development. With little or no additional effort than realistic performance reviews and candid
career advice, a competent supervisor can help the employee get and stay on the right career
track.

Coaching and Mentoring

Mentoring means having experienced senior people advising, counseling, and guiding employees’
longer-term career development. Mentoring may be formal or informal. Informally, mid- and
senior-level managers may voluntarily help less-experienced employees—for instance, by giving
them career advice and helping them to navigate office politics. Many employers also have
formal mentoring programs.

Coaching focuses on teaching daily tasks that you can easily relearn, so coaching’s downside is
usually limited.

Mentoring focuses on relatively hard-to-reverse longer-term career issues , and often touches on
the person’s psychology (motives, and how one gets along with others, for instance).

Research on what supervisors can do to be better mentors reveals few surprises. Effective
mentors do the following:

1. Set High Standards

2. Invest The Time
3. Actively Direct and steer Protégés (Mentees, Mentors) a person under the patronage,
protection, or care of someone interested in his or her career or welfare.
4. Requires Trust
5. Professional Competence
6. Consistency
7. Ability to Communicate
8. Share Control

Set high standards, are willing to invest the time and effort the mentoring relationship requires,
and actively steer protégés into important projects, teams, and jobs. Effective mentoring
requires trust, and the level of trust reflects the mentor’s professional competence, consistency,
ability to communicate, and readiness to share control.

Employee Engagement Guide for Managers

Employers today therefore have to think through how they’re going to maintain employee
engagement, and thereby minimize voluntary departures, and maximize employee effort. (the
Cognizant Corporation – strategic context we just covered is one example.)

 Career management is the process for enabling employees to better understand and develop
their career skills and interests and to use these skills and interests most effectively both
within the company and after they leave the firm.
 Commitment-Oriented Career Development Efforts – Given the importance to most people of
having a fulfilling and successful career, career planning and development can play an
important role in engagement. Managed effectively, the employer’s career development
process should send the signal that the employer cares about the employee’s career success.

Managing Employee Turnover and Retention

Not all employees’ careers plans will coincide with the company’s needs.

Turnover—defined as the rate at which employees leave the firm—varies markedly among
industries

Turnover and Performance

What is the link between turnover and organizational performance? Perhaps surprisingly, the
issue isn’t clear (although it would seem obvious that firing an incompetent employee would be a
positive). The problem is that what might be a positive in individual cases becomes a negative
when the employer repeatedly loses employees.

One study concludes that all turnover, voluntary or involuntary, is associated with reduced
organizational performance. The researchers say, “Organizations must recognize that when
turnover rates rise, their workforce and financial performances are at risk. They should search for
strategies to mitigate and eliminate turnover, recognizing that lower turnover [of all types] is
always better.”

Managing Voluntary Turnover

In reducing turnover, the logical place to start is by measuring the number of employees
(particularly top performers and high potentials) who leave the company.

However, identifying why employees voluntarily leave is not so easy. People who are dissatisfied
with their jobs are more likely to leave, but the sources of dissatisfaction are many and varied.

Pay, promotional opportunities, work–life balance, career development, and health-care

benefits

Other reasons employees voluntarily leave include:

Unfairness, not having their voices heard, and a lack of recognition.

A Comprehensive Approach to Retaining Employees

Identifying the problems with retention is an important first step. Here are some possible ways
to do this

1. Effectively conducted exit interviews provide useful insights into turnover problem areas.
2. Many employers routinely administer attitude surveys to monitor employees about matters
such as supervision and pay.
3. Open-door policies and anonymous “ hotlines” help management identify and remedy morale
problems.
4. Usually conducted by the employee’s manager, the aim of a stay interview is to head off
retention problems by finding out “how the employee is doing.”

Employee Retention

Digital and social media tools can vastly improve the employee engagement/retention process.
Software company SAS’s employee-retention program sifts through employee data on traits like
skills, tenure, performance, education, and friendships. It can predict which high-value employees
are more likely to quit in the near future (allowing SAS to try to head that off). Alliant
Techsystems created a “flight risk model” to calculate the probability an employee would leave
and to take corrective action. Based on its analysis of previous survey results, Google’s
“Googlegeist” survey contains five questions aimed at identifying Googlers who are more likely to
leave; if a team’s responses fall below 70% favorable, Google knows to take corrective action.
Analytical software from Evolv (now Cornerstone, www.cornerstoneondemand.com/evolv) takes
HR data analysis deeper than most. It can crunch more than 500 million data points on a vast
array of items ranging from unemployment rates to a person’s social media usage to help clients
like Xerox improve retention.

Job Withdrawal

Unfortunately, voluntary turnover is just one way that employees withdraw. Withdrawal in
general means separating oneself from one’s current situation—it’s a means of escape for
someone who is dissatisfied or fearful.

Absences and voluntary turnover are two obvious types of job withdrawal. Others can be less
obvious, if no less corrosive. Some examples include “taking undeserved work breaks, spending
time in idle conversation, and neglecting aspects of the job one is obligated to perform.” Other
employees stop “showing up” mentally (“psychological withdrawal”), perhaps daydreaming at
their desks while productivity suffers. The employee is there, but mentally absent.

Employee Life-Cycle Career Management

An employee’s tenure with a firm tends to follow a life cycle, from employment interview to first
job, promotion, transfer, and perhaps retirement. We’ll look here at the latter three:

1. Making Promotion Decision,

2. Managing Transfers, and
3. Retirement

Promotions traditionally refer to advancements to positions of increased responsibility. Most

people crave promotions, which usually mean more pay, responsibility, and (often) job
satisfaction. For employers, promotions can provide opportunities to reward exceptional
performance, and to fill open positions with tested and loyal employees. Yet the promotion
process isn’t always a positive experience. Unfairness or secrecy can devalue the process.

There are several decisions that become a part of the promotion process:

Decision 1: Is Seniority or Competence the Rule? In setting promotion policies, one decision is
whether to base promotion on seniority or competence, or some combination of the
two.

Decision 2: How Should We Measure Competence? If the firm opts for competence, it must
define and measure competence. Defining and measuring past performance is
relatively straightforward. But promotions should rest on procedures for predicting
the candidate’s future performance.
Decision 3: Is the Process Formal or Informal? Many firms have informal promotion processes.
They may or may not post open positions, and key managers may use their own
unpublished promotion criteria. Other employers set formal, published promotion
policies and procedures. Employees receive a formal promotion policy describing the
criteria by which the firm awards promotions. A job posting policy states the firm will
post open positions and their requirements, and circulate these to all employees.

Decision 4: Vertical, Horizontal, or Other? Promotions aren’t necessarily upward. Thus some
employees, such as engineers, may have little or no interest in promotion to
managerial roles. Several options are available. Some firms, such as the exploration
division of British Petroleum (BP), create two parallel career paths, one for managers
and another for “individual contributors” such as high-performing engineers. Another
option is to move the person horizontally. For instance, a production employee may
move to human resources to develop his or her skills and to test and challenge his or
her aptitudes. In a sense, “promotions” are possible even when leaving the person in
the same job.

Diversity Counts: The Gender Gap

Women still don’t reach the top of the career ladder in numbers proportionate to their numbers
in U.S. industry. Women constitute more than 40% of the workforce, but hold less than 2% of top
management positions. Blatant or subtle discrimination may account for much of this. In one
study, promoted women had to receive higher performance ratings than promoted men to get
promoted, “suggesting that women were held to stricter standards for promotion.” Women
report greater barriers (such as being excluded from informal networks) than do men, and more
difficulty getting developmental assignments. Women have to be more proactive than men to get
such assignments.

Steps To Eliminate the Barriers for Women

1. Eliminate Barriers. Many practices (such as required late-night meetings) may seem
gender neutral but in fact disproportionately affect women.
2. Improve Networking and Mentoring. To improve female employees’ networking
opportunities, Marriott International instituted a series of leadership conferences for
women. Speakers offered practical tips for career advancement, and shared their
experiences. More important, the conferences provided informal opportunities—over
lunch, for instance—for the Marriott women to meet and forge business relationships.
3. Break the Glass Ceiling. As one expert puts it, “The roots of gender discrimination are
built into a platform of work practices, cultural norms, and images that appear unbiased…
People don’t even notice them, let alone question them.” These range from late meetings
to golf course memberships.
 4. Adopt Flexible Career Tracks. Inflexible promotional ladders (such as “You must work 8
years of 50-hour weeks to apply for partner”) can put women—who often have more
responsibility for child-raising chores—at a disadvantage. One solution is to institute
career tracks (including reduced hours and more flexible year-round work schedules) that
enable women to periodically reduce their time at work, but remain on a partner track.
For example, when the accounting firm Deloitte & Touche noticed it was losing female
auditors, it instituted a new flexible/reduced work schedule. This enabled many working
mothers who might otherwise have left to stay with the firm.

Managing Transfers

A transfer is a move from one job to another, usually with no change in salary or grade.
Employers may transfer a worker to vacate a position where he or she is no longer needed, to fill
one where he or she is needed, or more generally to find a better fit for the employee within the
firm.

Many firms today boost productivity by consolidating positions. Transfers are a way to give
displaced employees a chance for another assignment or, perhaps, some personal growth.

Employees seek transfers for many reasons, including personal enrichment, more interesting
jobs, greater convenience—better hours, location of work, and so on—or to jobs offering greater
advancement possibilities. Transfers for the firm’s convenience—once widely used—are used less
of late.

Managing Retirement

Retirement planning” is no longer just about helping current employees slip into retirement. It
should also help the employer to retain, in some capacity, the skills and brainpower of those who
would normally retire and leave the firm.

Many have wisely chosen to fill their staffing gaps in part with current or soon-to-be retirees.

Other techniques employers use to keep older workers include offering them part-time positions,
hiring them as consultants or temporary workers, offering them flexible work arrangements,
encouraging them to work past traditional retirement age, providing training to upgrade skills,
and instituting a phased retirement program. The latter lets senior workers ease into retirement
with gradually reduced work schedules.
Managing Dismissals

Not all employee separations are voluntary. Some career plans and appraisals end not in
promotion or graceful retirement but in dismissal—involuntary termination of an employee’s
employment with the firm.

Many dismissals are avoidable. For example, many dismissals flow from bad hiring decisions.
Using assessment tests, background checks, drug testing, and clearly defined jobs can reduce
such dismissals.

There are four bases for dismissal :

1. Unsatisfactory performance – refers to a persistent failure to perform assigned duties or to

meet prescribed standards on the job. Specific reasons include excessive absenteeism, tardiness,
a persistent failure to meet normal job requirements, or an adverse attitude.
2. Misconduct – is deliberate and willful violation of the employer’s rules and may include
stealing and rowdy behavior.
3. Lack of qualifications for the job – is an employee’s inability to do the assigned work, although
he or she is diligent. Because this employee may be trying to do the job, it is reasonable to try to
salvage him or her—perhaps through further training or by assigning the employee to another
job.
4. Changed requirements of the job – is an employee’s incapability of doing the job after the
nature of the job has changed. Similarly, you may have to dismiss an employee when his or her
job is eliminated. Again, the employee may be industrious, so it is reasonable to retrain or
transfer this person, if possible.
5. Insubordination, a form of misconduct, is sometimes the grounds for dismissal. The two basic
categories of insubordination are unwillingness to carry out the manager’s orders, and
disrespectful behavior toward the manager.

Dismissals are never easy. However, the manager can take steps to make them fair.

1. Allow the employee to explain why he (or she) did what he did. It could turn out, for instance,
that the employee “disobeyed” the order because he or she did not understand it. Similarly,
people who get full explanations of why and how termination decisions were made “were
more likely to perceive their layoff as fair … and indicate that they did not wish to take the past
employer to court.”
2. Have a formal multistep procedure (including warning) and an appeal process.
3. The person who actually does the dismissing is important. Receiving it from an immediate
manager vs. Human Resources Manager.
4. Dismissed employees who feel they’ve been treated unfairly financially are more likely to sue.
Many employers use severance pay to blunt a dismissal’s sting.
Figure 10-3 summarizes typical severance policies.

Termination at Will

For more than 100 years, the prevailing rule in the United States has been that without an
employment contract, either the employer or the employee can terminate at will the
employment relationship. In other words, the employee could resign for any reason, at will, and
the employer could similarly dismiss an employee for any reason, at will. Today, however,
dismissed employees increasingly take their cases to court, and employers are finding that they
no longer have a blanket right to fire.

Three main protections against wrongful discharge eroded the termination-at- will:

1. First, statutory exceptions include federal and state equal employment and workplace laws
that prohibit certain dismissals. For example, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits
discharging employees based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Laws protecting
LGBT workers from termination for sexual orientation have been passed in 18 states and the
District of Colombia, but in 29 states someone can still be terminated based on sexual
orientation. For federal employees, the EEOC has held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of
1964 applies to LGBT individuals.
2. Second, numerous common law exceptions exist. Courts create these exceptions based on
precedents. For example, courts have held that employee handbooks promising termination
only “for just cause” may create an exception to the at-will rule.
3. Finally, under the public policy exception, courts have held a discharge to be wrongful when it
was against a well-established public policy. Thus, a public policy exception might prohibit an
employer from firing an employee for refusing to break the law.

Avoiding wrongful discharge suits requires several things:

1. First, have employment policies including grievance procedures that help show you treat
employees fairly. Here employers can also use severance pay to blunt a dismissal’s sting. No
termination is pleasant, but the first line of defense is to handle it justly.
2. Second, review and refine all employment-related policies, procedures, and documents to limit
challenges.

Security Measures & Supervisor Liability

 Security Measures

Prudence suggests using a checklist to ensure (for instance) that dismissed employees return all
keys and company property, and (often) accompanying them out of the building. The employer
should disable Internet-related passwords and accounts of former employees, plug holes that
could allow an ex-employee to gain illegal online access, and have rules for return of company
laptops and handhelds.

 Supervisor Liability

Courts may hold managers personally liable for their supervisory actions, including dismissals. For
example, the Fair Labor Standards Act defines employer to include “any person acting directly or
indirectly in the interest of an employer in relation to any employee.” This can mean the
individual supervisor.

The Exit Process and Termination Interview

Guidelines for the termination interview itself are as follows:

1. Plan the interview carefully. According to experts at Hay Associates, this includes:

 Make sure the employee keeps the appointment time.

 Never inform an employee over the phone.
 Allow 10 minutes as sufficient time for the interview.
 Use a neutral site, not your own office.
 Have employee agreements, the human resource file, and a release announcement
prepared in advance.
 Be available at a time after the interview in case questions or problems arise.
 Have phone numbers ready for medical or security emergencies.

2. Get to the point. When the employee enters the office, give the person a moment to get
comfortable and then inform him or her of your decision.

3. Describe the situation. Briefly, in three or four sentences, explain why the person is being let
go. For instance, “Production in your area is down 4%, and we are continuing to have quality
problems. We have talked about these problems several times in the past 3 months, and the
solutions are not being followed through on. We have to make a change.” Don’t personalize the
situation as in, “Your production is just not up to par.” Emphasize the decision is irrevocable.
Preserving the employee’s dignity is crucial.

4. Listen. Continue the interview until the person appears to be talking freely and reasonably
calmly.

5. Review the severance package. Describe severance payments, benefits, access to office
support people, and the way references will be handled. However, under no conditions, make
any promises of benefits beyond those already in the support package.

6. Identify the next step. The terminated employee may be disoriented and unsure what to do
next. Explain where the employee should go next, upon leaving the interview.
Outplacement Counseling – With this, the employer arranges for an outside firm to provide
terminated employees with career planning and job search skills.

For the Employee – What should you do if you get fired or passed over for a position?

Most people surrender to the usual stages of shock, denial, and anger. However, the better first
step is usually to think through why you lost the job. Doing so isn’t easy. Actively explore what (if
anything) you did to contribute to the problem. Then objectively consider what you might do
differently in the future, keeping in mind that you should view the loss (difficult though this may
be) as an opportunity. Then evaluate your new options and be ready to seize the right
opportunity.

Exit Interview – Many employers conduct exit interviews with employees leaving the firm. These
are interviews, usually conducted by a human resource professional just prior to the employee
leaving, that elicit information about the job or related matters aimed at giving employers
insights into their companies.

The Exit Process – The exit interview is just one part of a rational exit process. The employer
should follow a checklist.

Layoffs & The Plant Closing Law

Layoff – is when an employer sends employees home due to a lack of work; this is typically a
temporary situation but can turn out to be permanent.

Adjusting to Downsizing and Mergers

Downsizing means reducing, usually dramatically, the number of people employed by a firm. The
basic idea is to cut costs and raise profitability. Downsizings (some call them “productivity
transformation programs”) require careful consideration of several matters:

1. First is making sure the right people are let go; this requires having an effective appraisal
system in place.
2. Second is compliance with all applicable laws, including WARN.
3. Third is executing the dismissals in a manner that is just and fair.
4. Fourth is security, for instance, retrieving keys and ensuring that those leaving don’t take
prohibited items with them.
5. Fifth is reducing the remaining employees’ uncertainty and addressing their concerns. This
typically involves a post-downsizing announcement and program, including meetings where
senior managers field questions from the remaining employees.