Career Profiles of Generation Y and Their Potential Influencers.
| Autor | Cordeiro, Helena Talita Dante |
| Cargo | Report |
Introduction
New career theories are recent and several studies about them are being conducted, nevertheless, there is still need for empirical verification of concepts (Clarke, 2013; Rodrigues & Guest, 2010). In order to reduce this gap, it has been recommended that researchers develop more empirical studies about new careers and the impact of potential influencers, such as, age, gender, scholarship, etc. (Briscoe, Hall, & DeMuth, 2006; Segers, Inceoglu, Vloeberghs, Bartram, & Henderickx, 2008; R. C. da Silva, Dias, Silva, Krakauer, & Marinho, 2012).
One of these potential influencers is the demographic change that is happening in Brazil related to the larger number of young professionals joining the workforce and the large number of people advancing to retirement age (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica [IBGE], n.d.).
These young professionals are getting attention from media and organizations. Born after 1981, they are named Generation Y (Amaral, 2004). Generation Y has the main characteristic of being born in a digital environment (with the frequent presence of computers, cell phones, internet access, etc.) and that is why Tapscott (2010) calls them the Net Generation. Considering generational differences, these individuals have different expectations and attitudes regarding their careers compared to other Generations (Lyons, Schweitzer, & Ng, 2015).
Taking into consideration the new careers theories and their need for empirical verification and also the economic importance of the large number of professionals from Generation Y joining the Brazilian workforce, the current study objective is to identify the career profiles of Generation Y and investigate how demographics and professional characteristics affect these profiles. Career profiles are based upon combinations of the Boundaryless and Protean career attitudes (Briscoe & Hall, 2006).
Understanding the presence of new career attitudes allows organizations to develop more effective career management and generational inclusion practices. It is also relevant to career actors, because it supports different ways for them to develop careers aligned with their values and interests during an important moment of their professional identity formation.
Literature Review
During the last 25 years, the most commonly used approaches to reflect on new careers were the Boundaryless and Protean careers (Baruch, Szucs, & Gunz, 2014). After detailing these concepts, this section will also go deeper into the subject of Generations, focusing mainly on Generation Y as the main target of this paper.
Boundaryless career
Arthur and Rousseau (1996) define the Boundaryless career as the opposite of the organizational career. The name Boundaryless is used because the limits of the organizational career are broken, such as hierarchical structures and career advancement principles.
The career actor is shaped by economic forces but also influences those forces, therefore, he/she is the product and the producer of the work environment in which he/she participates, reversing the traditional career logic that positions the career actor as passive towards environmental changes (Arthur, 1994; Arthur, Inkson, & Pringle, 1999).
The Boundaryless career emphasizes the numerous possibilities that a career presents--it isn't related to a single organization and isn't represented in an orderly and vertical sequence. It is supported by networks from outside the organization and acknowledges that family and personal relationships play an important role. According to this construct, the career must be interpreted in a subjective way, according to the career actor perspective about his/her own career (Arthur, 1994, 2014; Briscoe & Hall, 2006).
Sullivan and Arthur (2006) describe the Boundaryless career in two dimensions: the physical and psychological. The career actor demonstrates physical mobility when he/she moves between employers and demonstrates psychological mobility when he/she builds relationships outside the boundaries of a single employer. Those two dimensions are represented as a continuum. It is important to clarify that the Boundaryless career isn't based only on physical mobility and that someone who has high tenure in a single organization can still have a boundaryless mindset.
Protean career
The Protean career is characterized by frequent change and self-invention, autonomy and self-management, guided by individual needs instead of organizational needs. That is why the name Protean was chosen, referring to the Greek god called Proteus that changes his own shape according to his will (Hall, 2002).
The Protean career is managed by the career actor according to his/her own needs, values and the search for psychological success, instead of an external definition of success. For the career actor to manage his/her career requires flexibility and adaptability, but also to be driven by a strong sense of identity and self-awareness that will work as an internal compass to make career decisions (Hall, 2002).
Considering the Protean approach, the employer has the role of offering opportunities, flexibility and resources to allow the employee to develop self-awareness and adaptability and be in the command of his/her own career. The role of the employee is to give performance and discretionary effort in return (Hall, 2002).
Big cities, such as Sao Paulo, enable Protean career development because they have facilities that strengthen autonomy, such as access to education, a large number of employers, high financial investments, health care system, etc. (Ribeiro, Trevisan, & Guedes, 2009).
Briscoe and Hall (2006) define two main dimensions of the Protean career: the self-direction and the values driven. The first grants the ability to adapt in terms of performance and learning demands, and the second allows a clear direction and career success measurement, replacing external motivational drivers, such as job title and salary.
Boundaryless and Protean career attitudes scales and career profiles
In order to support more empirical studies about new careers, Briscoe, Hall and DeMuth (2006) proposed scales to measure Boundaryless and Protean career attitudes. The authors developed and validated a model with four scales, two for each construct and with 7 questions each. The model is described in Table 1:
After building the scales, Briscoe and Hall (2006) proposed eight career profiles using combinations of the career dimensions. Considering the four career scales, it is possible to build sixteen career profiles, but only eight were suggested, based on the practical experience of the authors. The most probable profiles are described in Table 2.
Briscoe and Hall (2006) described the characteristics of each profile. The Lost, for example, represents the traditional career profile. The career actors that have this profile lack emphasis on their personal values, that could drive them, and lack a boundaryless mindset that could provide them with more possibilities. Therefore, they are restricted to few options in which they have limited control. These are the individuals that need strong adaptation to the new economy. On the other hand, the Protean career architect is the most modern profile. The career actors with this profile are physically and psychologically boundaryless and actively manage their own careers based on their personal values in a journey to define career success.
The identification of career profiles allows the exploration of personal challenges that a career actor can face to keep their status-quo. They are also a useful tool for organizations, support groups, career counselors and mentors that are interested in supporting career development. Understanding the strengths of a career profile allows the careful development of powerful combinations of career competencies (Briscoe & Hall, 2006).
Influence of demographic and professional characteristics on career attitudes and profiles
Briscoe, Hall and Mayrhofer (2012) alert that the current research about careers is based on the universalist paradigm. They therefore assume that individuals and organizations are identical everywhere and that there is an ideal way to manage them. These authors argue that organizations and individuals are socially impacted by the external environment and culture that they live in, which makes them adapt to current structures and engage in behaviors to cope with their context. Considering this argument, they propose a contextual approach to studying careers, putting culture as a critical element of differentiation of the way that a career is perceived and managed. The current study uses this contextual approach and aims to understand how demographics and professional elements impact career attitudes.
One of the studies that also uses this approach is the one made by Segers, Inceoglu, Vloeberghs, Bartram and Henderickx (2008). The researchers adapted the items of a motivation scale to the four career attitudes dimensions proposed by Briscoe et al. (2006) and evaluated the relationship between the career attitudes of 13,000 European individuals and their demographic characteristics. The main findings were:
* Gender: women presented higher psychological mobility and men presented higher physical mobility. These findings are associated with the career disruptions that happen to women due to child birth and due to social expectations towards men related to family support obligations.
* Age: the younger respondents presented higher psychological mobility, because of their interest in building relationship and networks, and presented lower values orientation. People joining the workforce go through a trial and error stage looking for ways to manage their careers. The desire to move physically decreases with the age.
* Education: individuals with higher educational levels present more self-direction, physical and psychological mobility and less values orientation.
* Professional experience...
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