Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Inc.
Part Three
Training and Development
Chapter 10
Managing Careers and Retention
Lecture Outline:
Career Management
Careers Today
The Psychological Contract
The Employee’s Role in Career Management
The Employer’s Role in Career Management
Employer Career Management Methods
Improving Performance Through HRIS: Integrating Talent Management and Career and
Succession Planning
Diversity Counts: Toward Career Success
The Manager as Mentor and Coach
Improving Performance: The Strategic Context
Employee Engagement Guide for Managers
Career Management
Commitment-Oriented Career Development Efforts
Improving Performance: HR Practices Around the Globe
Managing Employee Turnover and Retention
Improving Performance: HR as a Profit Center
Managing Voluntary Turnover
A Comprehensive Approach to Retaining Employees
Trends Shaping HR: Digital and Social Media
Job Withdrawal
Employee Life-Cycle Career Management
Making Promotion Decisions
Know Your Employment Law
Diversity Counts: The Gender Gap
Managing Transfers
Managing Retirements
Managing Dismissals
Grounds for Dismissal
Know Your Employment Law
Avoiding Wrongful Discharge Suits
Security Measures
Supervisor Liability
The Exit Process and Termination Interview
Layoffs and the Plant Closing Law
Adjusting to Downsizing and Mergers
Chapter 10: Managing Employee Retention, Engagement, and Careers 10- 2
Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Inc.
Chapter Review
Where Are We Now…
The main purpose of this chapter is to explain how to support your employees’ career
development needs and improve employee retention. The main topics we’ll address are career
management, improving employee engagement through career development, managing
employee turnover and retention, employee life-cycle management, and managing dismissals.
Interesting Issues:
Cognizant Corporation creates products for things like managing huge volumes of images and
other content in computer systems. Creating such products requires creative and engaged
employees. Cognizant therefore takes talent development very seriously, and its managers
consciously consider the talent development implications of each of their strategic decisions.
We’ll see how they do this.
Learning Objectives:
10-1: Discuss what employers and supervisors can do to support employees’ career
development needs.
10-2: Explain why career development can improve employee engagement.
10-3: Describe a comprehensive approach to retaining employees.
10-4: List and briefly explain the main decisions employers should address in reaching
promotion and other employee life-cycle career decisions.
10-5: Explain each of the main grounds for dismissal.
Annotated Outline:
I. Career Management – is a process of enabling employees to better understand and
develop their career skills and interests and to use these skills and interest most
effectively both within the company and after they leave that firm.
A. Careers Today – people once viewed careers as a sort of upward stairway from job
to job. Today, many people do still move up but many (or most) find themselves
having to reinvent themselves.
B. The Psychological Contract – this is what psychologists say is what the employer
and employee expect from each other. This is an “unwritten agreement that exists
between the employers and employees.” The psychological contract identifies each
party’s mutual expectations.
C. The Employee’s Role in Career Management – although the employee, the
manager, and the employer all have roles in the employee’s career development,
ultimately however, it is the employee who must shoulder responsibility for his or
her own career. The employee is to assess interest, skills, and values; seek out
career information resources; and generally take those steps that must be taken to
ensure a happy and fulfilling career.
Chapter 10: Managing Employee Retention, Engagement, and Careers 10- 3
Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Inc.
D. The Employer’s Role in Career Management – the employer should give a
realistic job preview, provide challenging first job, and assign mentors.
These are things an employer can do to help prevent reality shock.
E. Employer Career Management Methods – career planning workshops and
career coaches are methods employers use for career guidance. Career
planning workshops is “a planned learning event in which participants are
expected to be actively involved, completing career planning exercises and
inventories, and participating in career skills practice sessions.” Career
coaches generally help employees create 1- to 5-year plans showing where
their careers with the firm may lead. Career coaches help individual
employees identify their development needs and obtain the training,
professional development, and networking opportunities that they require
to satisfy those needs.
F. Improving Performance Through HRIS: Integrating Talent Management
and Career and Succession Planning
G. Diversity Counts: Toward Career Success
H. The Manager as Mentor and Coach – for the supervisor, mentoring can be
both valuable and risky. It is valuable insofar as you can influence in a
positive way the careers and lives of your less experienced subordinates
and colleagues. The danger is it can backfire. Coaching focuses on
teaching daily tasks that you can easily relearn, so coaching’s downside is
usually limited.
I. Improving Performance: The Strategic Context
II. Employee Engagement Guide for Managers
A. Career Management – due to labor market turbulences, many people ask the
question “why should they be loyal to their employers?” Employers today
therefore have to think through how they’re going to maintain employee
engagement, and thereby minimize voluntary departures, and maximize employee
effort.
B. Commitment-Oriented Career Development Efforts – the employer’s career
development process should send the signal that the employer cares about the
employee’s career success. Career-oriented appraisal allows the supervisor and
employee to jointly merge the latter’s past performance, career preferences, and
developmental needs into a formal career plan.
C. Improving Performance: HR Practices Around the Globe
III. Managing Employee Turnover and Retention – not all employees’ career plans will
coincide with the company’s need. Turnover—the rate at which employees leave the
firm—varies markedly among industries, whether voluntary or involuntary.
A. Improving Performance: HR as a Profit Center
B. Managing Voluntary Turnover – identifying why employees voluntarily
leave is not so easy. People who are dissatisfied with their jobs are more
likely to leave, but the sources of dissatisfaction are many and varied. The
manager should understand that retaining employees is a talent
management issue, and that the best retention strategies are therefore
Chapter 10: Managing Employee Retention, Engagement, and Careers 10- 4
Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Inc.
multifunctional. Thus, trying to formulate a “retention strategy” requires
one to consider all practices.
C. A Comprehensive Approach to Retaining Employees – identifying the
problem is an important step that can be done by doing the following: exit
interview, attitude surveys, hotlines, and stay interview. Once analyzed,
some of the simple solutions may be the following: raise pay, hire smart,
discuss careers, provide direction, offer flexiblity, use high-performance
HR practices, and counteroffer.
D. Trends Shaping HR: Digital and Social Media
E. Job Withdrawal – generally has been identified as “actions intended to
place physical or psychological distance between employees and their work
environments.” Absences and voluntary turnover are the two obvious
types.
IV. Employee Life-Cycle Career Management
A. Making Promotion Decisions – promotions usually provide opportunities to reward
the exceptional performance and to fill open positions with tested and loyal
employees. However, unfairness, arbitrariness, or secrecy can diminish the
effectiveness of the promotion process for all concerned.
B. Know Your Employment Law – Establish Clear Guidelines for Managing
Promotions
1. Decision 1: Is Seniority or Competence the Rule? Today’s focus on
competitiveness favors competence. However, union agreements and civil
service regulations often emphasize seniority.
2. Decision 2: How Should We Measure Competence? Define the job, set
standards, use one or more appraisal tools to record the employee’s
performance, and use a valid procedure for predicting a candidate’s potential for
future performance.
3. Decision 3: Is the Process Formal or Informal? Each firm will determine
whether the promotional process is formal or informal.
4. Decision 4: Vertical, Horizontal, or Other? Promotions can be vertical (within
the same functional area) or horizontal (in different functional areas).
5. Practical Considerations – there are several practice steps that should be taken by
employers and managers: 1) establish eligibility requirements; 2) review the job
description; 3) review candidates’ performance and history, and 4) hire only those
who meet the requirements.
C. Diversity Counts: The Gender Gap – women still don’t reach the top of the career
ladder in numbers proportionate to their numbers in U.S. industry. Women constitute
more than 40% of the workforce, but hold less than 2% of top management positions.
To help eliminate the barriers that impede women’s career progress, employers can take
some of the following specific steps: a) eliminate barriers, b) improve networking and
mentoring, c) break the glass ceiling, and d) adopt flexible career tracks.
D. Managing Transfers – transfers are moves from one job to another, usually with
no change in salary or grade. Transfers are a way to give displaced employees a
chance for another assignment or, perhaps, some personal growth.
Chapter 10: Managing Employee Retention, Engagement, and Careers 10- 5
Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Inc.
D. Managing Retirements – studies show that employees who are more committed
and loyal to the employer are more likely to stay beyond their normal
retirement age. It helps to create a culture that honors experience. Employers
use several techniques to keep older workers such as offering part-time
employment, which is an alternative to outright retirement, or hiring them as
consultants or temporary workers. Also offering flexible work arrangements,
encouraging them to work past traditional retirement age, providing training to
upgrade skills, and instituting a phased retirement program.
V. Managing Dismissals – not all employee separations are voluntary. Some career plans and
appraisals end not in promotion or graceful retirement but in dismissal – involuntary
termination of an employee’s employment with the firm.
A. Grounds for Dismissal – there are four bases for dismissal: unsatisfactory performance,
misconduct, lack of qualifications for the job, and changed requirements of (or
elimination of) the job.
1. Insubordination – a form of misconduct, is sometimes the grounds for dismissal.
The two basic categories of insubordination are: 1) unwillingness to carry out the
manager’s orders, and 2) disrespectful behavior toward the manager. (This
assumes that the orders were legitimate and that the manager did not incite the
reaction through his or her own extreme behavior).
B. Know Your Employment Law: Termination at Will – there are three main protections
against wrongful discharge which are statutory exceptions, common law exceptions,
and public policy exceptions.
C. Avoiding Wrongful Discharge Suits – wrongful discharge (or termination) occurs when
an employee’s dismissal does not comply with the law or with the contractual
arrangement stated or implied by the employer. To avoid it requires several things:
1. Have employment policies include grievance procedures that help show you how
treat employees fairly.
2. Review and refine all employment-related policies, procedures, and documents to
limit challenges.
3. Procedural steps include:
a. Have applicants sign the employment application. Make sure it contains a
statement that “the employer can terminate at any time.”
b. Review your employee manual to delete statements that could undermine your
defense in a wrongful discharge case. For example, delete “employees can be
terminated only for just cause.”
c. Have written rules listing infractions that may require discipline and discharge.
d. If a rule is broken, get the worker’s side of the story in front of witnesses, and
preferably get it signed. Then check out the story.
e. Be sure that employees get a written appraisal at least annually. If an employee
shows evidence of incompetence, give that person a warning. Provide an
opportunity to improve.
f. Keep careful confidential records of all actions such as employee appraisals,
warnings or notices, and so on.
g. Finally, ask the questions in Figure 10-4.
Chapter 10: Managing Employee Retention, Engagement, and Careers 10- 6
Copyright © 2017 Pearson Education, Inc.
D. Security Measures – using a checklist to ensure (for instance) that dismissed
employees return all keys and company property, and (often) accompanying them out
of the building. The employer should also disable Internet-related passwords and
accounts of former employees, plug any holes that could allow an ex-employee to
gain illegal online access, and have rules for the return of company laptops and
handhelds.
E. Supervisor Liability – courts may hold managers personally liable for their
supervisory actions, including dismissal. The Fair Labor Standards Act defines an
employer to include “any person acting directly or indirectly in the interest of an
employer in relation to any employee.” This can mean the individual supervisor.
F. The Exit Process and Termination Interview – dismissing an employee is one of the
most difficult tasks you can face at work. Guidelines for the termination interview
are as follows:
1. Plan the interview carefully
2. Get to the point
3. Describe the situation
4. Listen
5. Review the severance package
6. Identify the next step
G. Layoffs and the Plant Closing Law – for the employer, reduced sales or profits or the
desire for more productivity may require layoffs. Employees (as we’ve seen) may leave
for better jobs, to retire, or for other reasons. The Worker Adjustment and Retraining
Notification Act (WARN Act, or the plant closing law) requires employers of 100 or
more employees to give 60 days’ notice before closing a facility or starting a layoff of
50 or more people.
H. Adjusting to Downsizing and Mergers – the basic idea is to cut costs and raise
profitability. Downsizings (some call them “productivity transformation programs”)
require careful consideration of several matters.
Chapter Review
Chapter Section Summaries:
10-1: Employees are ultimately responsible for their own career, but employers and managers
also have roles in career management.
10-2: The employer career planning and development process and practices (including career-
oriented appraisal) help to foster employee engagement.
10-3: Managing voluntary turnover requires identifying its causes and then addressing them. A
comprehensive approach to retaining employees should be multifaceted.
10-4: Employers need to address employee lifecycle career management issues.
10-5: Managing dismissals is an important part of any supervisor’s job.
Discussion Questions: