Consultancy Industry
13.5 The Study
Table 13.9. Employer Tasks, Self-Marketing
Provide Networking Platforms Offer Training focused on Net- working
Online In-house
Face-to-Face External provider
We have now presented the reader with a framework to analyze employability development from an individual and organizational point of view. For the remain- der of this article we will focus on an empirical pilot study we have carried out in 2005 in five of the top 25 IT and management consultancies located in Germany.
Five responsible HR professionals and 29 employees of these firms participated in this pilot study. Further we have run two more interviews with representatives from large consultancies also located in Germany. The outcome of these two in- terviews has been used to support interpretation of the main results of this study.
ences between groups in levels of engagement in employability activities, also us- ing t-tests.
To achieve our third aim, proposing some industry-specific and fairly concrete recommendations for developing organizational employability activities we com- bined three perspectives (see Figure 13.2.) in our research methodology: From the reported activity level of employees we identified those individual activities and sets where activity level was particularly low.
Employee Perspective:
Low Current Level of Activity
NEED
Organisational Perspective:
Low Current Level of Activity Employee
Perspective:
Indicated Need For More Activity
Fig. 13.2.Deriving Opportunities for Developing Organizational Offers
Furthermore, we asked employees which of these 34 activities they thought they would like to engage in more actively to ensure their employability identify- ing those activities that were indicated most frequently. We then identified those activities where activity was lowand a need was indicated. If these activities cor- responded to an organizational offer that was not provided across the board by most participating organizations to both employee groups, we singled those activi- ties out as candidates which may usefully contribute to further developing em- ployability offers in consultancy firms in Germany.
13.5.1 Investigating Activity Levels of Employees and Employers Comparing the four sets of activities for employees we found that employees re- port significantlyless activity for tasks related to self-organization than for activi- ties related to identity growth, qualification or self-marketing. Looking at individ- ual activities we found that regarding self-organization, there is little reported activity for developing a learning strategy, identifying milestones for reaching one’s learning goals and managing time in a way that allows participants tolearn during working hours and outside working hours. Regarding identity growth,
there is little activity for obtaining feedback from a mentor. With regard to qualifi- cation and self marketing, showing interest in taking part in a job rotation and keeping the HR department informed about one’s skills and knowledge are the ac- tivities where involvement is lowest. On the other hand, employees report high levels of activity for achieving awareness of own skills as well as strengths and weaknesses. Interestingly, awareness of skills, strengths and weaknesses is a lot higher than awareness of career goals. Furthermore, employees are highly active regarding learning that is necessary to maintain current levels of performance.
They are very active in taking on new tasks that involve more responsibility for the purpose of development and actively share their knowledge with others in their organization. To sum up the above, on average participating employees show a marked lack of activity regarding strategic and planning tasks (goals, learning strategy, milestones, time management) that would form the basis of a systematic endeavor to promote their employability.
The five participating organizations, on the other hand, engage in between 9 (for back office staff) and 24 (for consultants) out of 32 employability offers. As the number of participating organizations is small, we are reluctant to over- interpret results. However, there is a general tendency for participating organiza- tions to engage in those activities that are usually offered by HR for reasons not explicitly related to employability such as communicating internal job openings and skill requirements for recently created positions as well as supporting devel- opment activities that are initiated by employees themselves. Only 2 organiza- tional offers are provided to both back office staff and consultants by all partici- pating organizations: support with creating a training plan and qualification to maintain current levels of performance. For consultants, another 3 offers are pro- vided by all participating consultancies: communication of skill requirements for positions within the organization and information about internal training oppor- tunities as well as qualification that covers not only current skill requirements but also future requirements that have already been decided on. On the other hand, mentoring is offered to consultants in two participating organizations and 360°
feedback is offered to consultants in 2 participating organizations and to back of- fice staff in one organization only. Written tests for self-assessment are offered to consultants in 1 organization. Furthermore, only 1 consulting firm provides its staff with information on labor market developments and no organization has in- vited labor market experts to talk about recent developments. None of the partici- pating organizations support their staff financially when they want to get career guidance by an external provider. To sum up the above, participating organiza- tions are least active with regard to progressive instruments for self-assessment, offering career guidance (by way of mentoring or external providers) and offering information on labor market trends.