International Outlook

International Outlook

Career Development and the Global Context

Much has been written about the changing world of work and the corresponding shift in jobs and occupations. It is within this context that we need to briefly examine what is happening and the implications, what some models of career development have to tell us, and how career planning can operate within this context.

The Context

There are many factors influencing the rapid changes to the world of work. These include an increase in competition and a stronger focus on profit at a global level, and the introduction of more sophisticated workplace technologies.

Whatever the reasons, there has been a series of unmistakable trends including:

• downsizing of many larger companies and government departments to remove layers of staff, particularly middle management
• reducing businesses to core operations only and contracting out non-core activities
• replacing tenured positions with contracted positions
• mergers and takeovers
• highly competitive tendering
• routine and repetitive jobs being replaced by technical equipment
• setting quality assurance standards
• competency-based staff selection methodologies
• commercialisation of employment agencies and practices

The implications of these changes are now having a major impact on all our lives. Stability and security for example, are no longer ‘givens’ in the employment field. We are constantly reminded that as individuals we need to operate as a ‘company of one’ and be flexible enough to respond quickly in an ever-changing work and life environment. We are being asked to think in terms of personal transferable skills. Whiteway Research for the Association of Graduate Recruiters (1995) identifies career self-management skills as among the most important personal transferable skills we can develop as we progress into the 21st Century.

Career development

How do these rapid changes in the world of work impact on career development if it is no longer possible to plan too far ahead? This is an insightful question and one often asked by students. The careers theorist, Watts (1996) labels the changes in the economic environment as a “careerquake: a shaking of the foundations of traditional conceptions, but with the opportunity to build new and more robust structures in its wake.”

Watts takes the opportunity to redefine the term ‘career’ as “the individual’s lifelong progression in learning and work” where learning embraces all forms of learning including formal, informal and training, and work embraces all form of work including employment, self-employment, and unpaid work in the home and community. Watts believes progression can take place laterally and vertically as long as it retains the sense of development and moving forward with learning as the key, and both learning and work are intertwined on a lifelong basis.

So, rather than viewing the changes in modern work practices as something painful or depressing, they can be viewed as an empowering and positive challenge. These changes are a fact of life, and embracing them, and remaining flexible and aware, will lead to a long, varied and fulfilling career.