Career Development or Collecting Competencies?

Sandra Haase, Jan Francis-SmytheUniversity of Worcester

11.05.07

Career Competencies, a new approach to sustainable career development

Synopsis

• Context• New Career Realities• Competencies in Career Development• Introduction Career Competency Concept• Re-definition of Career Competencies• Career Competency Indicator & Applications• Summary

Context – Issues in the Police Force

• Workforce modernisation - career development responsibility of individuals

• National Competency Framework (NCF) - standards and guidelines to improve quality & consistency of performance and behaviour

• Human resource processes based on NCF

New Career Realities

• Dramatic transformations in organisations and context of employment

• Definition of career changing - Careers are boundaryless

• Individuals required to take ownership of their careers

Individual Career Development

• “do-it-yourself career management”

• Transferable skills

• Individual career development needs to be supported

• Organisations increase self-development features in interventions

Competencies in Career Development

• Increased use in Personal Development and Career Planning predicted

• Form basis of most career-related processes

• Problems:

– Definition

– Main focus on job performance

Career Competency Concept (Arthur, Claman & DeFillipi, 1995)

• Introduced idea of career competencies (knowing-why, knowing-how, knowing-whom)

• Operationalised in Intelligent Career Card Sort

• Problems:

– Lack of empirical support for three-fold structure

– Definition: term relabelled

Career Competencies - Redefined

Career Competencies are:

• behavioural repertoires and knowledge instrumental in the delivery of desired career-related results and outcomes

• assessable & trainable

Career Competency Indicator

• Goal setting and career planning (5)• Self-knowledge (5)• Job-performance (5)• Career-skills (7)• Knowlege of (office) politics (5)• Networking and mentoring (8)• Feedback seeking and self-presentation (8)

Application

• As basis of career development interventions:

– Address organisational needs of developing qualified & self-reliant workforce

– Address individual needs of developing career management skills to ensure employability

• Pilot study (N=21) using career competencies as framework for guided career discussions

Summary

• Competencies as presently used not adequate to support individuals in developing the skills necessary to effectively manage their careers

• More holistic approach required:

Career development through the use of career competencies

Any questions?

Thank you

Sandra Haase

University of Worcester

Centre for People @ Work

Worcester, WR2 6AJ, UK

s.haase@worc.ac.uk