Brown S.D., Lent R. (Editors). Career development and counseling: putting theory and research to work

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216 I

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ployment. They are a computer-literate generation who tend to seek con-

trol over their own schedules, opportunities to improve their marketable

skills, exposure to decision makers, the chance to put their names on tangi-

ble results, and clear areas of responsibility (Labich, 1999).

•

Generation Y individuals were born between 1977 and 1997 and comprise a

very large group of about 80 million members. They are a sophisticated

group with respect to technology, having grown up with computers and

ternet access. They also appear to be very effective at multitasking numer-

ous projects, but at the same time might have greater needs for stimulation

or entertainment and shorter attention spans.

Moses (1999) suggested that those born in the 1960s (now in their 30s and 40s)

are caught between the baby-boomer group and the Generation Xers and feel

squeezed by both groups. They may feel that the boomers do not respect their

needs for independence and time off to care for young children and that workers

in their 20s are trying to push them out of their jobs.

There are some similarities in what can be done by employers and counselors

to assist both Generation X and Y employees. Several suggestions have been of-

fered for better integrating them into the workforce and enhancing their perfor-

mance (Munk, 1999): providing full disclosure to them about work activities,

creating customized career paths, allowing them to have input into decisions,

providing public praise, treating them as sophisticated consumers, encouraging

the use of mentors, providing access to innovative technologies, considering new

benefits and compensation strategies, and offering them opportunities for com-

munity involvement. Moses also suggested that those in their 20s (mostly Gener-

ation Yers) could look to increase their experiences, expand their skills portfolio,

and shadow (follow around) those employees or managers who are doing work

that interests them to learn more about the tasks. They also might want to pursue

education at the highest, broadest level, increase their networks, and try to better

understand the attitudes of their bosses (many of whom are in their 40s and have

different values).

ANAGING

ULTIPLE

OLES

: W

ORK AND

AMILY

Today, most adults are part of a “dual-earner” family (Gilbert, 2002). This means

that adults have to manage multiple roles. Considerable research has documented

the issues associated with work-family conflict and strain (see Betz, Chapter 11,

this volume). It is clear that work performance is affected by factors in the work

environment (e.g., job design, supervisor’s behaviors, and peer group) as well as in

other parts of an employee’s life (e.g., family, personal). Thus, career counselors

must take an employee’s entire life into consideration when offering assistance to

them. (See also Bobek and Robbins, Chapter 26, this volume, and Betz, Chapter 11,

this volume, for more information on dual roles played by adult workers.)

It would be helpful for counselors to work with employees to better under-

stand the priorities they place on their work and nonwork lives. They can do this

by exploring careers with them, helping them to set goals, identifying career

strategies, and appraising their career progress.

Increasingly, organizations realize that employees may experience role conflict

and difficulties dealing with travel, child care, household tasks, job transfers, and

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Work Performance and Careers 217

relocations. Thus, they have developed more programs to assist their employees

who are parents and spouses. Results have indicated that these programs have an

impact on the firm’s bottom line. They have been shown to increase employees’

loyalty, thereby reducing turnover and absenteeism, and increasing organiza-

tional productivity (Lawlor, 1996). This often leads to greater performance

among employees.

Career counselors could encourage employees to explore whether their firm of-

fers such programs or how they might obtain similar types of assistance, if

needed. These programs include:

•Increased use of flexible work arrangements (e.g., flextime, job sharing,

part-time work, compressed work weeks, temporary work, telecommuting).

• Flexible career paths (alternatives to the linear or upward career path).

•Child-care and elder-care centers on work sites.

•Financial support for buying homes or paying for child-care costs.

•Paid leaves for fathers and adoptive parents (in addition to maternity leave).

•Relocation assistance for employees and their spouses.

•Relaxed policies on hiring couples.

•Work-family programs to discuss conflict and coping strategies (Russell,

2003).

MPLOYEES

ORKING IN

EAMS

Increasingly, many firms throughout the world are using teams to get work done.

As a result, much of an individual’s performance may be affected by working

with others on project teams. Some of this project work may be done by teams on-

site, yet, increasingly, much of it is being done by virtual teams (e.g., teams that

work via e-mail, teleconferencing). In either event, individuals have to learn to

work effectively with others and to have their performance partially evaluated by

others (peer reviews, group goal setting, team awards). They also have to learn to

coach and train one another on important job assignments. Career counselors

need to be aware of how much of an individual’s work is done in teams or alone if

they are to understand and counsel them about their performance. They could

encourage individuals working in teams to attend team training sessions, learn

to deal with conflict, evaluate peers’ performance, and provide peers with per-

formance feedback.

MPLOYEES

ORKING IN

NTERNATIONAL

SSIGNMENTS

As organizations continue to become more global, employees are faced with the

challenges and opportunities of working with employees from other cultures and

countries. Whether they physically work overseas or virtually work with those

from other cultures, it is important for employees to be able to effectively com-

municate and interact with others. Many organizations offer training for expatri-

ates to prepare them for overseas assignments. Some also offer training for

repatriates to help them make the necessary adjustments once they return to

their home country, which is critical because many employees experience shock

when traveling to foreign countries or “reentry shock” when returning home to

their own country (Stroh, Gregersen, & Black, 1998).

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Taking an international assignment has implications for a person’s career prog-

ress and development in a firm. In some cases, employees cannot move up without

international experiences. In other cases, it hurts their career progress because

they are away from the corporate headquarters of the firm. What is important is

that career counselors understand individuals’ career aspirations and have them

explore the extent to which international assignments will be in line with those

goals. In addition, specialized training could be used to facilitate successful perfor-

mance in an international assignment or on return to the firm.

COUNSELING EMPLOYEES WHO HAVE BEEN

TERMINATED OR DISPLACED

With the increasing number of organizational restructurings and downsizings,

many employees have been terminated or displaced. As a result, employers can

face morale and work performance problems (Gines, 2001). Bobek

and Robbins

(Chapter 26, this volume) discuss issues associated with job loss (see also Jome &

Phillips, Chapter 19, this volume, and Saks, Chapter 7, this volume, for issues as-

sociated with the job search process).

Some organizations offer outplacement programs to assist terminated em-

ployees in making the transition to new employment. These programs usually

have a human resource professional, psychologist, or counselor provide individ-

ual or group counseling to individuals. Issues about being let go, financial

concerns, and skills training related to looking for new jobs, developing resumes,

and interviewing with prospective employers are often part of the outplacement

programs. It is particularly important to provide individual career planning and

counseling for older employees who have been let go because they may have been

forced into early retirement and may experience some anger, depression, stress,

grief, or loss of self-esteem. Counselors can also encourage the use of support

groups. Outplacement programs have been shown to benefit employees by help-

ing them to cope with the shock and stress associated with losing a job and by

helping them find jobs faster than they could on their own (Russell, 2003).

Displaced employees may have to be redeployed in the firm if the organization

has had to change some of its job functions. To help foster the successful rede-

ployment of displaced workers, the following suggestions are offered (London,

1996; see also Saks, Chapter 7, this volume) for use by career counselors as well as

managers within the firm to help individuals develop career insight, identity,

and resilience:

•Offer assessment and feedback processes to help people better understand

their strengths and weaknesses.

• Help individuals develop realistic expectations.

• Encourage them to receive training on job search skills (which can also im-

prove their self-efficacy).

•Teach them to develop networks and to be on the lookout for related job op-

portunities (see also Jome & Phillips, Chapter 19, this volume, for more re-

search on networking).

• Encourage them to receive training in multiple skills and to use those skills

in job assignments (to enhance their own marketability).

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Work Performance and Careers 219

• Encourage them to take advantage of job rotation programs to develop a va-

riety of skills.

•Have them participate in mentoring programs to foster work relationships.

COUNSELING EMPLOYEES FOR THE FUTURE

Given the changing views of careers in organizations, what should individuals do

to be prepared for future jobs? First, they might want to review statistics on the

fastest growing occupations and the education or degrees necessary to be suc-

cessful in those occupations (Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2003). This might

provide some perspective on the fields of the future (see also Bobek

and Robbins

Chapter 26, this volume, on occupational trends).

Individuals could also make changes in their own characteristics. For example,

some research has shown that having a proactive personality (i.e., identifying op-

portunities and acting on them, showing initiative, persevering until change is

achieved) is related to a higher salary, a greater number of promotions, and

higher career satisfaction (Callanan & Greenhaus, 1999; Sullivan, Carden, & Mar-

tin, 1998). Career counselors can assist individuals to be effective performers,

and they can help individuals understand that there are some actions that indi-

viduals should take (Russell, 2003).

AREER

OUNSELORS

SSIST

NDIVIDUALS

Career counselors can provide assistance to employees in a number of ways to

better prepare them for their future jobs. They can conduct face-to-face counsel-

ing, as well as offer online counseling (Boer, 2001). General suggestions include

these (see also Griffin & Hesketh, Chapter 20, this volume, for more ideas):

• Help employees to become more marketable and employable. Instead of

worrying about holding onto a specific job, individuals need to make sure

they have developed the competitive skills to be marketable in the work-

place. They need to have portable competencies (“Managing Your Career,”

1995).

• Help employees to take more control over their careers and look out for their

own best interests. Counselors can help them by encouraging them to take

charge of their careers by career planning and working on self-assessments.

•Work with employees to set career goals and clearly define what they are in-

terested in doing.

• Encourage employees to maintain a technical specialty, especially during

the early-career period. Thus, they could help employees plan for training

courses to enhance their technical skills.

• Encourage employees to invest in reputation building or image enhance-

ment to illustrate success and suitability for jobs (Greenhaus et al., 2000).

• Help employees to develop their collaboration skills because the use of proj-

ect teams in organizations will continue to increase (Allred, Snow, & Miles,

1996).

•Assist employees in developing multiple networking and peer learning rela-

tionships (see Saks, Chapter 7, this volume).

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• Encourage employees to be adaptable and flexible to changing job require-

ments (Callanan & Greenhaus, 1999).

• Help employees to solicit performance feedback and appraise how they are

doing relative to their career goals; encourage them to work with their man-

agers to explore the causes of any performance problems.

• Encourage employees to commit to lifelong learning to keep their skills rele-

vant, whether by additional schooling or new assignments.

AREER

OUNSELORS

SSIST

MPLOYERS

In addition to counseling individual employees, career counselors can offer some

suggestions to employers that will enhance their employees’ performance, de-

crease employee turnover, and prevent job burnout and obsolescence. Ideas in-

clude the following (Latham & Latham, 2000; Moses, 1999; Russell, 2003,

pp. 193–194; also see Griffin & Hesketh, Chapter 20, this volume):

•Provide tools and opportunities for employees to enhance their skills so that

the firm has a career-resilient workforce or self-reliant workers who can

reinvent themselves to keep up with the fast pace of organizational changes

(Waterman, Waterman, & Collard, 1994).

•Create an environment for continuous learning by supporting and reward-

ing employee development and learning (Callanan & Greenhaus, 1999).

•Provide opportunities for self-assessment and self-directed, continuous

learning with career counselors and career centers (London, 2002).

•

Encourage the use of Internet-based career services that offer job search tips,

relocation information, self-assessment inventories, and networking tips.

•Provide opportunities for additional technical training.

•Have managers trained as coaches to assist employees.

•Develop a formal mentoring program and encourage participation.

•Provide career counseling to help employees deal with stress and career bar-

riers and obstacles and to identify new directions for their careers.

•Assist employees to balance their work and personal lives (e.g., by offering

child care, elder care, flexible work arrangements, and benefits).

•Develop a feedback, learning-oriented culture that encourages employees to

participate in 360-degree performance appraisals so that they receive feed-

back about their performance from multiple sources in the organization

(e.g., self, peers, clients, supervisors, subordinates).

•Develop performance appraisal and feedback systems that take into consid-

eration the virtual nature of an employee’s job (i.e., determine who will be

the best raters of an employee’s performance if interactions are not on-site

but are by e-mails, voice mail, or video or teleconferencing).

•Provide training to employees to learn how to deal with performance feed-

back and criticism.

•Use reward systems that support the organization’s career development

strategy.

•Make sure the performance appraisal systems are integrated with other

human resource programs (e.g., training, career development, selection,

compensation).

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Work Performance and Careers 221

•Use retraining of current employees before outplacing them.

•Provide sabbaticals to encourage time off for employees to recharge them-

selves.

•Allow for project ownership to give employees a stronger sense of entrepre-

neurial spirit.

SUMMARY

This chapter has been written with the understanding that career counselors

will be interested in enhancing employees’ work performance. To do this, coun-

selors must understand what is meant by work performance and how it is mea-

sured. They must also be aware of the issues facing employees at various stages

of their lives and careers since these issues impact employees’ job performance.

Thus, counselors could tailor their interventions to the specific background and

needs of their clients. Today’s turbulent business environment requires that

counselors be acutely aware of the career issues and challenges facing employees

and employers. It is also helpful for career counselors to anticipate the new chal-

lenges that will confront employees as the jobs of the future continue to evolve

and develop.

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CHAPTER 10

Career Development in Context:

Research with People of Color

Roger L. Worthington, Lisa Y. Flores, and Rachel L. Navarro

OUNSELING PROFESSIONALS HAVE

only relatively recently recognized the im-

portance of addressing issues related to diversity, pluralism, and multi-

culturalism (American Psychological Association [APA], 2002; D. W. Sue,

Arredondo, & McDavis, 1992; D. Sue et al., 1982). Yet, in a short time, multicultur-

alism has become a vital force throughout psychology (APA, 2002; Pedersen, 1991),

which has led scholars, educators, and practitioners to evaluate longstanding as-

sumptions about human nature, psychological knowledge and inquiry, and profes-

sional practices. Progress in understanding the roles of gender, race or ethnicity,

and sociocultural factors in the career development process has been slow and has

generally not been fully integrated conceptually in the vocational literature or

given extensive empirical attention within dominant vocational psychology

perspectives (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994). Career development psychology has

lagged behind the broader multicultural counseling movement (Pope, 2000), pub-

lishing its first major volume on the career development of people of color only as

recently as 1995 (i.e., Leong, 1995). However, there has been a substantial flow of

new research and conceptual scholarship in the past decade concerning the career

contexts, choices, decision making, adjustments, and transitions of people of color

(Byars & McCubbin, 2001). During this period, some of the original career theories

have been updated or expanded, and several new theories have been developed

to address issues of diversity (e.g., Gottfredson, 1996; Lent et al., 1994; Super, Sav-

ickas, & Super, 1996; Vondracek, Lerner, & Schulenberg, 1986).

The purpose of this chapter is to acquaint readers with the literature on the ca-

reer development of people of color. To accomplish this goal, we have organized

this chapter into two major sections: contextual issues and multicultural voca-

tional psychology research. First, we address the sociocontextual issues that are

relevant in the career decision-making process of people of color. Second, we

sum

marize empirical research related to the career development of people of

color in

the United States over the past decade. We organize our literature review

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