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day or day(s) per week, and to work at a client’s, in the office,
or from home. Location and schedule range from „not restricted
to restricted“. Finally, role refers to an employee’s tasks and
responsibilities in client service teams and can range from in
dividual contributor to team leader. Customization within each
career dimension is standardized, meaning that levels of custo
mization are tied to specific behavioral anchors. For example, an
increase in workload is tied to an increase in hours worked. This
standardization ensures fair treatment of employees.
Figure 1 captures one individual’s profile choice at a given
moment with the „pace“ dimension being near the center, in
dicating a regular track towards promotion. This employee is
working full-time with no restrictions regarding travel and
ABSTRACT
Research question:
What are the consequences of a career customization intervention for
employees’ work engagement, turnover intentions, career satisfaction, career ambition,
and performance evaluation?
Methods:
We evaluated the implementation of a career customization intervention using
a pre- and post-test design with an online survey tool.
Practical implications:
The findings show mixed results depending on career customi-
zation choices (up or down), parental status, and gender. Work engagement is higher,
and turnover intention is lower when supervisors support the implementation of career
customization. Practitioners receive information on the design and implementation process
of sustainable and customized career interventions.
1
2
work location. Accordingly, „workload“ is set at „full“, and lo
cation/schedule is set at „not restricted“. The setting for „role“,
four nodes from the top of the continuum, signals a mid-career
level manager (Benko/Weisberg, 2007). The MCC handbook
(Benko/Weisberg, 2007) and the MCC website
2
have clear ex
planations and illustrations about how to organize the MCC
implementation, how to manage the adaptation process, and
how to involve both supervisor and employee in deciding on
an MCC profile.
A result of the yearly MCC career adaptation allows perfor
mance managers to work with teams that consist of employees
with different profiles: (1) those who chose a „common“ career
profile, which means that they chose the predefined profile set
by the company in line with their job level, (2) those who chose
to „customize up“ their career profile (i.e., upscaled from the
common career profile on at least two MCC dimensions), and
finally (3) those who chose to „customize down“ their career
profile (i.e. downscaled from the common career profile on at
least two MCC dimensions).
What insights did we hope to get?
Our research teamwas interested in examining whether the MCC
intervention has positive effects on employees in terms of sub
jective and objective career outcomes. Since the firm introduced
MCC to reduce attrition and to improve career opportunities we
assessed turnover intention, work engagement, career satisfac
tion, and career ambition. While career satisfaction refers to past
achievements, we were also interested in career ambition, which
refers to aspirations for the future or achieving career goals.
In addition, as MCC was supposed to prevent penalties re
garding career progress for using the existing and more tra
ditional flexible work arrangements, we assessed objective
career outcomes such as a performance evaluation. We were
also interested in examining who benefits from career custo
mization, as especially mothers had requested more flexibility
and threatened to leave. We, therefore, decided to take gender
and parental status into account in examining the career con
sequences of customized career choices.
MASS CAREER CUSTOMIZATION
Figure 1:
Illustration of the MCC tool for career choice
selection (van Kleef, 2014)
pace
workload
location/
schedule
role
Options relating to
the rate of career
progression
Choices relating
to the quantity of
work output
Options for when
and where work
is performed
Choices in
position and
responsibilities
Accelerated
Full
Not Restricted
Leader
Decelerated
Reduced
Restricted
Individual
Contributor
Quelle: Eigene Darstellung
