or the last several years, management consultants have been telling us job security is dead. To be competitive, organizations must be lean and agile, and capable of responding to changing market conditions by re-deploying workers when possible and releasing them when necessary. In an era of downsizing, delayering, layoffs, restructuring and reengineering, employees can no longer cling to the notion that if they work hard and add value to an organization, it will take care of them.
Job security has been replaced by the concept of "career resilience," where organizations provide workers with resources and opportunities to assess their interests and capabilities, and with training to improve their job skills. In exchange for enhanced "employability," workers are expected to be more productive and more committed to the organization. As described by Alan Balutis in this column last February ("Getting Thin the Healthy Way"), "Equipping people with the skills to understand their own strengths, limitations and motivations and to define their career needs and goals can ensure they create the right places for themselves."
Career resilience-as part of a re-employment program when an organization is, or expects to downsize-is a great idea. In such situations, at-risk employees, especially those who have not recently been job hunting, need help not just in finding new jobs, but in identifying positions that best suit their interests and abilities.
In response to a presidential directive aimed at employment opportunities for displaced employees, executive branch agencies were required to submit career transition assistance plans to the Office of Personnel Management by the end of last February. Consistent with the career resilience philosophy, the plans help employees find new positions through services such as skills assessment, resume preparation, counseling and job search assistance.
Even among stable or growing organizations, career resilience programs make sense-they can refresh employees and help them move on to other jobs or career paths. Long before it began downsizing, the General Accounting Office had an office that provided greater internal and external career mobility to employees through workshops and counseling.
Not a Substitute
The danger of career resilience programs is the current trend to use them to supplant job security. In such circumstances, the programs do little more than treat employees as mere cogs in a machine-except that the cogs are polished before they are discarded.
Clearly, to remain productive, organizations may find it necessary to downsize. And few would argue that organizations should maintain bloated and inefficient bureaucracies simply to uphold job security. Indeed, downsizing-when done as part of a carefully planned and managed corporate restructuring effort-has been shown to increase an organization's overall performance.
Nevertheless, job security, when provided to an organization's "dynamic doers," also has its place. In fact, job security is a much better way of bringing out the best performance employees have to offer.
Job security does not mean job guarantee. Rather, with job security, employees know that so long as they contribute to an organization, it will reward them with continued, and presumably upwardly mobile, employment for as long as possible. Poor performers would be let go, leaving a core of highly motivated, productive employees. As such, job security establishes a mutually beneficial relationship that recognizes employees' hard work, commitment and sacrifices.
At the heart of this relationship is loyalty, where employers and employees are dedicated to the long-term health of the other. The benefits can be seen in better quality work, lower absenteeism, future-oriented perspectives and higher morale. Furthermore, job security creates an environment where employees are unafraid to take risks, knowing that if well-intentioned gambles don't pay off one day, they'll still have their jobs the next.
Fragile Relationship
Career resilience turns this mutually beneficial relationship on its head. From the employer's perspective, employees are merely contingent workers, valued so long as they are needed and easily discarded when they are not. Employees, knowing their jobs are vulnerable, are more likely to jump ship to avoid being pushed, even when their jobs are still relatively safe. The interests of employers and employees, which coincide when there is job security, work in opposition under the career resilience philosophy.
Moreover, the employability training provided under career resilience programs may not provide a good return on employers' investments. Indeed, what's to stop an individual from going to another organization, applying all that costly training at the offices of a competitor?
For federal organizations, particularly in an era of downsizing, career resilience certainly has its place as part of an overall outplacement program. However, as a replacement for job security, it does nothing more than replace the old corporate employment contract with a marriage of convenience.
Get It on the Web
The Government Executive Web site (/careers) is full of online resources to help federal employees plot their next career moves. The features of the Careers section include information on federal job openings from the Office of Personnel Management and individual agencies and links to federal and private-sector career services.
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