CAREER ANCHORS AND WORK BEHAVIOURAL STYLE FOR CAREER MANAGEMENT IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN PUBLIC SERVICE

Abstract

The practice of career management is mostly deficient in the South African Public Service and is a cause for great dissatisfaction amongst public officials, resulting in demotivation, underperformance and low morale. Consequently, the underperformance of public officials gives rise to underperformance of the Public Service as a whole. Further, the Public Service does not employ a career management model to assist in the implementation of career management. In an effort to resolve the issue, empirical research was conducted to establish the status on the implementation of career management in the Public Service (through interviews), and to determine public officials’ perceptions and experiences pertaining to career management (through focus group discussions). The research confirmed that career management practices are mainly non-existent in the Public Service and, in those instances where it is implemented to a certain extent, the manner in which it is managed is not contributing to the enhanced performance, motivation, retention or career aspirations of public officials. As a practice that influences employees’ motivation, morale, retention and performance, and ultimately organisational performance (which in the Public Service translates into service delivery), it can be argued that Public Service departments can neither afford a lack of career management, nor ineffectuality in the implementation thereof. The paper therefore develops a career management model, based on employees’ work behavioural styles, in combination with their career anchors, that can assist managers in providing support to public officials with regard to their career ambitions, career development and career pathing, and simultaneously benefitting the Public Service at large through the perceived increased individual performance, which is likely to contribute to increased organisational performance.