- Work is a lifestyle. Adequate adjustment of profession and personal life is
desirable.
Career planning and development is closely related to family life; between the two aspects
several relationships are possible (Zedeck; Mosier, 1990, apud Gysbers, 2003):
- total merge – there is a very close connection between work and family, so
that satisfactions and dissatisfactions in one have their effect on the other; - compensation – the relationship between work and family is reciprocal: one
can compensate the other; - segmentation – work and family may co-exist without mutual influence;
- instrumentality – one role is used to get something from the other role;
- conflict – success in one role involves sacrificing the other.
Career planning process in an organization holds three possible routes of career
development, which vary function of the organization size and the activity categories
therein:
a. the traditional route: the employees are promoted vertically, from the bottom
to the top, on a preset line of positions (continual promotion in time);
b. the network route: when various positions require similar capacities, forming
families of jobs; the employees move in alternation vertically and
horizontally, function of the work activities and necessary abilities;
c. the dual route: when employees contribute with their abilities to certain
activities without swerving from their previous route.Since present-day society passes through a phase of significant restructuring, particular
attention must be paid to career development, which involves quick adaptation on the part
of the workforce. Here are the changes expected to occur:
- as globalisation continues, some employees become redundant;
- more and more jobs created in the service sector;
- flexibility, creativity, adaptability and continuing training count more than
the experience in years; - job security no longer available in many sectors;
- employees asked for flexibility, adaptation, innovation (and not necessarily
for work speed and low production costs); - outsourcing of production (companies only do what they do best, all the rest
provided by outside companies);