Improving Career Development Opportunities Through Rigorous Career Pathways Research

“Organizational life has become less predictable in today’s rapidly changing workplace. Workers must make career decisions within an increasingly uncertain organizational, societal, and global environment. Businesses face the same evolving landscape, making it difficult for them to anticipate their employees’ needs, desires, and likely career directions. Career pathways systems can provide the structure that is vital for career progression, helping people develop competencies designed to increase employability while helping organizations develop employees strategically, build engagement, and improve retention. In [their] focus on the workplace, [the authors] underscore the need for more holistic, data-driven individual and organizational perspectives on career growth and success; [the authors] describe how a career pathways framework can contribute to these goals. [The authors] offer directions for future research to promote career growth and success for individuals, and to help employers create or strengthen career pathways systems that will reduce bias and enhance organizational performance by supporting the advancement of their employees” (p.i).

“[The authors’] objective is to describe an empirically grounded framework that identifies the factors that facilitate and inhibit career development, growth, and success, within a career pathways system; and that describes the relationships that exist among factors. From both a research and operational perspective, it will be beneficial to understand how individual and organizational factors interact and influence career progression and talent management within a career pathways framework. In this work, [the authors] propose two complementary career pathways research streams, one that examines the pathway from the employee’s perspective and one that examines the pathway from the employer’s perspective” (p.4).

(Abstractor: Author & Website Staff)

“A Comprehensive Employee-Focused Model of Career Development” (p.5). “[The paper] depicts a working model of [the authors’] proposed employee-centered career development and pathways framework, which illustrates how individual career-related factors, organizational factors, work–life factors, and career pathways factors interact to impact both career growth and career success. In particular, employees’ ability to manage their careers is influenced not only by perceptions and behaviors associated with career performance, but also by organizational factors, such as whether they perceive the organization supports their career development, and the interplay of work and nonwork factors in their lives. These factors, in combination with the characteristics of the organization’s career pathways system, influence career growth and success. Below, [the authors] list key aspects of career pathways programs that [they] expect to have the greatest influence on employees’ career development. Such programs should: • Require that clear criteria for advancement are developed and communicated to employees • Inform training and development offerings • Emphasize a collaborative employee–employer approach • Undergo continual evaluation • Take into account the employee’s nonwork demands” (p.5-6). “A Comprehensive Employer-Focused Model of Career Development” (p.7). “[The authors’] employer career pathways model…broadly depicts the potential interplay between a number of talent management systems and a career pathways system in the workplace. In particular, the model suggests that job analyses and competency modeling activities help define the job requirement parameters for both the recruiting/selection function and the delineation of career paths, while the presence of a career pathways system in an organization may, in turn, influence recruitment success. Once career paths have been identified, they provide structure for detailing the education, training, and experience components that drive success at each career path position. Together, these factors influence employee attitudes about their jobs and their organizational commitment, as well as subsequent individual and organizational performance” (p.7). “In the employer-focused model, the aspects of career pathways programs expected to affect employee and organizational development and performance are the same as in the [employee-focused framework]” (p.8). (Abstractor: Author & Website Staff)

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2017
• Author(s): Hedge, Jerry W.; and Rineer, Jennifer R.
• Organizational Author(s): RTI International
• Funding Source: Funding source not identified
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: Wesley Peterson
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies