"Career Opportunities are the Ones that Never Knock"

by John Scott

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New Demands

Employability flows from various sources - experience, relationships, skills and knowledge, and continuous development both informal and formal.

An international firm sponsors a number of staff to sail around the world and benefits from publicity, new skills and testing teamwork to destruction and beyond.

The European finance director of a FMCG has wide ranging experience in sales, marketing and leadership, but none in finance prior to accepting the role.

An international bank celebrated a successful post-merger integration - in itself a perfect opportunity for enhancing employability - by having the senior executive responsible for a large project ‘kidnapped’ publicly and then organising a rescue operation in teams.

The call centre for a satellite television company has an office fitted out like a front room, complete with sofas and satellite TV so staff can experiment and start to understand queries raised by callers.

Even large professional partnerships are offering part time working arrangements and sabbaticals for partners. This is surprising given that until recently such organisations had miniscule proportions of women and ethnic minority partners.

The market for talent and knowledge is deep and rich, but as is clear from the above very different from that which has come before. At the same time, learning flows from a number of sources – not just vocational qualification, traditional training and development activity.

As Anita Roddick from The Body Shop would have it: "You can train dogs - we educate people". And this from the leader of a company which refused to hire MBAs.

Encouraging flexibility and grasping opportunities becomes the responsibility of the individual, but HR can make connections, publicise opportunities and make things happen – particularly when the organisation is resistant. Motorola realised this when they created a process to help manage and monitor their employability programme to ensure it was fully implemented.

Career Development for HR

HR professionals can benefit from these new models of career development, which offer a very attractive alternative to the old model of linear progression, time in grade and waiting for the next promotion.

"A more apt metaphor in the future may be the career as a mosaic - recognise that multiple career paths exist, many jobs within the HR community are important, and individual competencies are more important than career stages."

Ulrich, Human Resource Champions

This is one final and very powerful reason for embracing the changes which are taking place.

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John Scott is a London-based European HR consultant. The article benefits from a reading of Ghoshal and Bartlett’s The Individualized Corporation and its title is taken from "Career Opportunities" by The Clash.

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