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PERSONALquarterly 02/19
NEUE FORSCHUNG
_KARRIEREPLANUNG
women may have experienced less stigmatization from supe
riors and colleagues than mothers. Reducing work schedules
for professional reasons rather than family caregiving is often
more accepted and therefore leads to less punishment (Leslie
et al., 2012). For the firm, this finding can be interpreted both
positively and negatively. Positively, in that, customizing down
for presumable reasons other than caring for children might
have become acceptable in the firm. Negatively, if customizing
down is more accepted for women without children than for
mothers, this could be interpreted as an ironic effect as moth
ers were intended to benefit most from MCC and the option to
customize down.
When looking at the development of performance evalua
tions, our results show that performance evaluations improve
for non-fathers who customized up. Among employees who
customized down, the performance evaluations of fathers de
creased compared to the improved performance evaluations of
mothers. This finding confirms earlier research that reported
greater penalties with regards to performance evaluations for
fathers using flexible work arrangements than for mothers
(Vinkenburg et al., 2012), given the „male breadwinner“ norm
that underlies the dominant career model in employee ser
vice firms. The positive impact of customizing down on perfor
mance evaluations for mothers reflects earlier findings, that
performance managers praise rather than penalize mothers
who effectively combine career and care.
In sum, our data clearly show that MCC does not fulfill its
promise in generating positive outcomes for all. While custo
mization is a recipe for career satisfaction for some employees,
customizing down generally results in a loss of career ambition.
What does this case teach us for practice?
We are aware that with MCC we have investigated career cus
tomization implemented in a particular and extreme work
setting, a professional service firm with specific career ex
pectations and organizational goals. Practitioners designing
career interventions should tailor them to the specific needs of
the organizations, which can be different to those of the firm
we studied. Nevertheless, MCC as an intervention is exempla
ry for how employers can play an essential role in promoting
sustainable careers across the lifespan through the provision
of targeted opportunities for career development, and support
for combining career and care in different life stages. We be
lieve that our findings on MCC can guide practitioners in the
design process of new types of sustainable, flexible, and custo
mized career interventions. We see clear potential how MCC
in organizations with growing labor shortages and retention
issues can facilitate individuals’ flexibility in meeting differ
ent demands and needs and promote their careers over time.
However, our findings show that the consequences of MCC are
not all positive. Even though MCC was designed to be used by
„every“ employee with the purpose of accepting all possible
MCC choices, MCC has unintentionally created inequalities
by favoring employees who customize up over employees who
customize down. These differences show that promoting custo
mized careers using MCC style interventions may come with
challenges.
In the following, we discuss some practical recommenda
tions for the conditions under which MCC can flourish based
on what we learned throughout the MCC implementation. First,
a central message to practitioners designing career interven
tions and HR interventions is that formally and actively in
cluding supervisors in intervention processes and design is
crucial. In MCC supervisors are assigned a formal role with
clearly defined and expected behaviors. Second, training that
explains the rationale behind an intervention and informs su
pervisors about their formal roles and responsibilities may
additionally enhance intervention outcomes by motivating
supervisors to embrace their HR responsibilities. In MCC, a
mandatory half-day supervisor training is part of the design of
the MCC intervention. In this training, supervisors learn about
the organizational rationale behind the introduction of MCC
and how to use MCC in interaction with their subordinates.
The training explains to supervisors the different MCC profile
options and shows them how to manage the planning and the
assignment of work tasks in a teamwith employees with differ
ent MCC profiles. In addition, the training teaches supervisors
on how to conduct the annual MCC profile conversations, how
to encourage employees to use MCC, and how to counsel them
on the different MCC profile options.
Third, our findings show that practitioners should focus on
alternative designs that can overcome inequalities by favoring
employees who customize up over employees who customize
down. We suggest reconsidering the terminology used for de
scribing different MCC choices. Labels such as „customizing
down“ and „customizing up“ might reinforce the career no
tions of the career ladder, with negative connotations for cus
tomizing down and positive connotations for customizing up.
Another design flaw might be that MCC provides (too) many
options that in practice are difficult to operationalize. A com
bination of customizing down on workload and role but not on
pace is perhaps unrealistic.
Fourth, to allow MCC function properly, we also believe that
MCC needs to be supported by an upgrade of the performance
evaluation system to be based on output rather than input
concerning hours and visibility. This would indeed change the
underlying assumptions of work and careers in PSFs and would
give employees more flexibility to customize their career with
out being stigmatized. Finally, due to supervisors’ influence on
performance evaluation, salary, and promotion decisions, they
should be encouraged and supported to look beyond stereo
typical gender roles, to combine career support (for mothers
