What organizational career management practices do IT professionals prefer?

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I believe our findings have some practical implications for HR managers and I hope they find them of value. First, in general, professionals are most interested in OCM that promotes their competence in their job in the present and the near future. Second, this seems to be the case even though being a technical specialist is not the top priority for many professionals. Third, take-up of career interventions that relate to longer-term and broader career paths and skill development, and the development of professional communities of practice is likely to be somewhat lower, so if they are deemed to be important it will be vital to promote them vigorously. Fourth, awareness of the preferred career anchors of professional staff can help to inform decisions about the organizational career management to offer. For example, managerially-orientated staff are more likely than others to be interested not only in non-technical skills training, but also in activities that combine the interpersonal and the reflective, such as career coaching. Also, professionals oriented towards job security are interested not only in their present job but also in the prospects of advancement in a well-defined structure. Fifth, the career anchor scores suggest that professionals tend to be highly concerned with their non-work life and with job security, so HR interventions that can be seen to protect these (such as technical training and flexible hours) are likely to be especially welcome. Sixth, relative to Swiss and German colleagues, UK professionals are likely to be (even) more concerned with their job security, clarity of career paths, and technical skills, and less orientated towards service and development of broader managerial skills. In other words, their attention is relatively narrow and self-focused.

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