The first challenge is deciding who will be ultimately responsible for career development activities. In traditional, bureaucratic organizations development was something done “for” individual employees. For instance, the organization might have an assessment center to identify employees who have the characteristics necessary to hold middle- and upper-management positions. Once identified, these individuals would be groomed through a variety of programs: special project assignments, positions in international divisions, executive training programs, and so on. The individual employee, although certainly not kept in the dark about the company’s plans, would not actively participate in the development decisions.

In contrast, many of today’s organizations have concluded that employees must take an active role in planning and implementing their own personal development plans. Continuing mergers, acquisitions, and downsizings have led to layoffs and employees’ realization that they cannot depend on their employers to plan their careers for them. Added to this economic turmoil is the emergence of the empowerment movement, which shifts decision-making responsibility down through the organizational hierarchy. Both these trends have led companies to encourage their employees to take responsibility for their own development. We will look at strategies for personal development at the end of this chapter.

Career development can occur in many ways in today’s organizations. In an increasing number of organizations, career development responsibility is being shifted to the employee. Although an employee-empowerment approach to development can be positive, it can be negative if taken too far. Giving employees total responsibility for managing their own careers can create problems in today’s flatter organizations, where opportunities to move up through the hierarchy are far fewer than in traditional bureaucratic organizations. Employees need at least general guidance regarding the steps they can take to develop their careers.

As discussed in the Manager’s Notebook,“A Global Career Boost? Keep It in Perspective,” employees can view global experiences as a path to advancing their careers. As a manager, however, you may need to clarify the motives and expectations of an employee taking on a global assignment.

MANAGER’S NOTEBOOK A Global Career Boost? Keep It in Perspective

Global

Global assignments can be seen as a means for career advancement. Employees might seek out or accept an international assignment because they view it as an exciting opportunity that can improve their career. Unfortunately, expectations may not meet reality. If international assignments result in unmet expectations, the result can be a disappointed employee who has lower job satisfaction and may look elsewhere to advance his or her career. What can you do as a manager to avoid a negative reaction and prevent a potentially valuable employee from leaving?

Consider the following illustration presenting the basic stages involved in an international assignment. An expatriate can have expectations at each of these stages that might be unmet. As a manager, you can take steps to make sure that employee expectations are realistic and avoid later having to deal with a dissatisfied employee.

Motive	Assignment Characteristics	Repatriation
To escape or a development opportunity?	Unreasonably positive expectation or recognize challenges?	Expect significant advancement or have a realistic assessment?

In the first stage, employees will have expectations about the international assignment as a way to get away. An employee may be wrestling with family or money issues and an international assignment may be a ticket to get away from those troubles. Alternatively, an employee may view the international assignment as a challenge and opportunity to develop knowledge and skills.

In the second stage, employees will have expectations regarding the international assignment and what it will be like. The employee may anticipate an exotic international setting that offers outstanding support. Or, the employee might anticipate that the location of the assignment will mean lack of conveniences and technology and will anticipate a difficult experience.

Finally, in the third stage expatriates will have expectations regarding their return to their home operation. An employee might, for example, expect that the international assignment will be followed by being placed in a higher-level and better-paying position.

An international assignment can be an important growth opportunity and offer unique career development opportunities. However, unrealistic expectations can mean that a potentially positive outcome turns negative. To limit this downside, as a manager, you can follow the goals summarized below for each of the above three stages.

Stage	Management Action
Motivation	Have employee view the assignment as a development opportunity.
Assignment Characteristics	Employee should have an accurate appraisal of the international experience.
Repatriation	Employee needs to have a realistic assessment of their job when returning home.

In terms of the first stage, employees need to understand that taking on an international assignment will not, in and of itself, resolve personal issues. If there are relationship or money problems, they will likely not go away and could get worse over the course of an international assignment. As a manager, you can work with employees to recognize the international assignment as a development opportunity and not as a means to escape. You can emphasize the new experiences, skills, and network that can result from an international experience.

Employees also need a realistic assessment of the international assignment. An employee needs to have as accurate a picture as possible of the international environment and the challenges that will be faced in the job. You can make sure that your employees have the best information possible.

You also can help employees have realistic expectations about their repatriation. Employees might expect that their international experience will be utilized in a new job or that the experience will lead to a higher-level position in the company. Those aspirations could be wrong, and it is probably best to help your employees avoid being disappointed. There may be no room for promotion and the employee might be asked to return to the employee’s original job. If that is the situation, the employee should at least understand what is reasonable to expect at repatriation.

Sources: Based on Harvey, M., Buckley, M. R., Richey, G., Moeller, M, and Novicevic, M. (2012). Aligning expatriate managers’ expectations with complex global assignments. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 42, 3026–3050; Selmer, J., and Lauring, J. (2012). Reasons to expatriate and works outcomes of self-initiated expatriates. Personnel Review, 41, 665–684; Shaffer, M. A., Kraimer, M. L., Chen, Y. P., and Bolino, M. C. (2012). Choices, challenges, and career consequences of global work experiences: A review and future work agenda. Journal of Management, 38, 1282–1327.▪▪

Career development is generally seen as a positive way for companies to invest in their human resources. However, too great an emphasis on career enhancement can be detrimental to organizational effectiveness.9 Employees with an extreme careerist orientation can become more concerned about their image than their performance and be poorer organizational citizens.10

It is difficult to pinpoint where an employee’s healthy concern for his or her career becomes excessive. However, there are warning signs managers should watch for:

• ▪ Is the employee more interested in capitalizing on opportunities for advancement than in maintaining adequate performance?

• ▪ Does the employee devote more attention to managing the impressions the employee makes on others than to the reality of his or her job responsibilities and skill levels?

• ▪ Does the employee emphasize networking, flattery, and being seen at social functions over job performance? In the short run, people who engage in these tactics often enjoy advancement. However, sooner or later they run into workplace duties or issues they are not equipped to deal with.

For better or for worse, studies have found that such strategies are effective in helping employees advance through the organization.11

Managers should also be aware that a career development program can have negative side effects—including employee dissatisfaction, poor performance, and turnover—if it fosters unrealistic expectations for advancement.

To meet the career development needs of today’s diverse workforce, companies need to break down the barriers to advancement that some employees may face. In 1991, the first major government study of the glass ceiling revealed that women and minorities are held back not only from top executive positions, but also from lower-level management positions and directorships. The study revealed that women and minorities are frequently excluded from informal career development activities such as networking, mentoring, and participation in policy-making committees. In addition to outright discrimination, some of the practices that contribute to their exclusion are informal word-of-mouth recruitment, companies’ failure to sensitize and instruct managers about equal employment opportunity requirements, lack of mentoring, and the too-swift identification of high-potential employees.12 Barriers to the advancement of minorities and women continue to exist after more than two decades since the initial government study of the glass ceiling. For example, recent statistics indicate that females make up approximately 47 percent of the U.S. workforce, but less than 3 percent are CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.13

Another group of employees who may need special consideration are dual-career couples . Nearly 80 percent of all couples are working couples. The two-income family has replaced the single-income family as the norm.14 When both members of a couple have career issues at stake, personal lives can complicate and become intertwined with occupational lives. A career opportunity for one member that demands a geographic move can produce a crisis for both the couple and their companies.

Both couples and organizations can take steps to help deal with dual-career issues. Rather than waiting until a crisis point, it is better if the couple resolves competing career issues by planning their careers and discussing how they will proceed if certain options become available. This approach also reduces the possibility of abrupt personnel losses for organizations. Some of the organizational approaches used to deal with the needs of dual-career couples include flexible work schedules, telecommuting (both discussed in Chapter 4), and child-care services (see Chapter 12). These kinds of practices have become more common.