Career Management: Taking Control of the Quality of Work Experiences

Abstract

Due to flatter and rapidly changing organisations, employees rather than employers will be responsible for employees’ development and careers. This chapter focuses on career management through personal development. Extant literatures have primarily addressed the quantity of employees’ work experiences as being important for personal development, whereas the quality of these experiences has been neglected. We argue that the quality of work experiences will become crucial for people’s objective and subjective career success. The best way to increase the quality of work experiences is to engage in challenging assignments, since these types of assignment stimulate learning, development, and career flexibility. Whether employees encounter challenging experiences depends on personal initiatives as well as opportunities provided by employers. People’s specific motives, self-efficacy, proactivity and career anchors may stimulate or prohibit them to initiate challenging assignments. In a similar vein, the work context and particularly supervisor task assignments may offer opportunities for or restrain employees from having challenging experiences. Employees need the coaching of others to manage their careers.