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PERSONALquarterly 02/19
NEUE FORSCHUNG
_KARRIEREPLANUNG
C
areer customization provides employees with diffe
rent options to customize their careers enabling them
to meet their personal needs, as well as delivering a
sustainable solution to the mismatch between today’s
workplace and today’s workforce (Valcour et al., 2007). Mass
Career Customization (MCC) (Benko/Weisberg, 2007) is an in
novative career intervention that allows employees to customize
their career development along a multidirectional path to align
it with their changing needs over the lifespan. MCC was de
veloped in a professional service firm (PSF) in the US to meet
the growing number of employee requests for more flexibility.
MCC promises to create a satisfactory career experience for
employees and to prevent attrition in the war for talent.
As applied researchers, this article allows us to share our
insights on the implementation of MCC in the subsidiary of the
US firm in the Netherlands. We report on whether MCC is only
window dressing, leading to stigmatization and career penalties
when used, or whether it is genuinely beneficial for employees
in different life stages. We also share lessons learned for the
organization on this type of intervention and discuss practical
recommendations for the conditions under which MCC can
flourish in a PSF context as well as what we can learn for pro
moting sustainable careers in other organizational settings.
The story behind MCC
The US headquarters recorded a voluntarily turnover rate of
25% which made the firm question their „up-or-out“ career sys
tem. The „up-or-out“ career system with its underlying norm
of continuous full-time employment moving up a career ladder
was rapidly becoming obsolete due to a changing workforce
increasingly consisting of dual-earner couples and single pa
rents. An employee satisfaction survey across all US offices
revealed that the lack of flexibility in combining career and
care was the first reason for women and the second reason
for men to voluntarily leave the firm in 2009
1
. In the firm’s lo
cal subsidiary in the Netherlands, very similar high voluntary
turnover and complaints of lack of flexibility, especially among
women, was experienced. Although the firm offered close to 70
flexible work arrangements (i.e., flexibility in time and place
of work) at that time, the board of directors recognized that a
Mass career customization:
A sustainable solution?
Von
Prof. Dr. Caroline Straub
(Bern University of Applied Sciences) und
Dr. Claartje Vinkenburg
(Expert Consultant)
more sustainable and flexible career model was needed to fa
cilitate individuals’ needs and employability over the lifespan.
In response, the HR department, supported by senior partners,
developed an approach to sustainable careers called MCC. MCC
aimed to increase and sustain employees’ positive perceptions
of their work and career at the firm, to ultimately prevent them
from leaving. In addition, MCC was supposed to prevent career
promotion penalties often arising from using the existing and
more traditional flexible work arrangements. Whereas flexi
ble work arrangements are generally used by only a limited
number of professionals (e.g. parents and elder care providers)
leading to stigmatization of its users, MCC as indicated by the
term „mass“ is available to every professional and promoted as
the „new rule“ for shaping career paths.
What is MCC and how is it used by employees?
MCC is based on the view that the career journey of many
employees will increasingly look like a sine wave with climb
ing and falling phases across the life course. MCC, therefore,
replaces the norm of continuous full-time employment and
moving up a career ladder at fixed points in time by giving em
ployees multiple career options across a career lattice structure.
Figure 1 shows the MCC tool that was developed by the firm’s
HR team and is used by employees and their supervisors to
decide on career choices. Employees who take part in MCC can
customize their career trajectory and make adaptations annual
ly, based on four career dimensions: (1) pace, (2) workload, (3)
location/schedule, and (4) role. This adaptation is done in a face-
to-face conversation with their supervisor. Pace addresses the
rate of career progression or how quickly an employee reaches
another position regarding responsibility and authority. Em
ployees, for example, have the right to postpone a promotion,
to speed up a promotion, or to move back to a lower ranked
position. Pace can be adapted on a continuum from „accelerated
to decelerated“ career progress. Workload refers to the quantity
of work an employee performs on a continuum, from fewer to
more hours worked per week. The workload can be adapted
on a continuum from „full to reduced“. Location and schedule
describe how, where and when work gets done. Employees can
choose to restrict their need to travel, to work specific hours per
