Coming to terms with the new corporate contract - changing responsibilities for employees and employers

Business Horizons, Jan-Feb, 1995 by William J. Byron

There will be job growth in the domestic economy, but at moderate rates and mainly in service industries, not in manufacturing. The application of intellect will always be needed in a technological society, and the application of technology to services will be the road taken by successful new businesses and expanding small ones. Moreover, providers of human services and managers of human effort will always be needed. Those most likely to succeed in meeting the new managerial challenges will, in my view, be people committed to their own continuing intellectual and personal development--human, confident, ambitious, flexible, sufficiently open to get along well with others in a more democratized, less hierarchical business culture. As one of my respondents insists, you should build your employment future on what he calls your "scar tissue"--your past education, past experience, and present skills--being careful to nurture the continuing development of all three all the time.

What all this means to the mid-career, managerial job seeker is summed up by one who has been through it himself and volunteers a lot of his time in counseling others: "There is nothing wrong in considering yourself to be a 'product' or 'service' that has to be marketed. Look at bosses as if they were your customers or clients. Establish your own personal R&D program to keep yourself current. And no matter where you are working, always act as if you were a self-employed entrepreneur." These are the words of Torrey Foster, volunteer facilitator of a job-seekers support group at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. His comment describes what he calls the "new reality" of employment in America today.

This is not, however, a one-sided responsibility, looking only to an employee's need to stay flexible. There are responsibilities on the employer's side too. If met, they will create a new form of corporate loyalty as part of the new corporate contract. Enlightened corporations will put a higher priority on shared goals--a sharing of vision, values, and objectives with employees, especially managerial employees. It will, in my opinion, become a characteristic of the "good" corporation to provide career enrichment programs that help employees, including senior management, identify and develop their marketable skills, thus enhancing their employability elsewhere. Whether employees do this on their own or with the assistance of the, corporation, those who are openly considering or even seeking other opportunities will not be labeled "disloyal," just aware of the new corporate realities. We are not there yet in the world of work, but that's the way it will have to be if the new corporate contract is going to work.

If continuous employment in a given corporation cannot be guaranteed, it is wise and responsible activity on the employer's part to encourage those who could become victims of downsizing (and that includes just about everyone) to maintain their employability and marketability.