What happened to the 'Job For Life'? | Gary Chaplin

It?s my wedding anniversary today; five years, no time at all in the halls of marriage?.. but in career terms, five years is now a well above average tenure. What happened to the ?job for life??

Times move on, businesses move on and careers?have certainly moved on. The average (median) tenure for people?s current jobs in the UK is now significantly less than 4 years, yet only 25 years ago it was almost 10 years. The average number of different jobs held in a lifetime is now 11.8 for men and 10.6 for women (the female ratio increases to be higher than men once you take out the effect of ?family?).

For young professionals, the stats are even more surprising. Professionally qualified individuals under the age of 35 move jobs, on average, every 2 years 2 months. Once that age profile moves to 35-45 it improves, but only to 3 years 1 month.

If we wind back a generation, the ?job for life? was very common place. Wind back two generations and it was positively expected. My father in law stayed with his employer from his very first day of employment, right up until he retired.? My grandfather began working for the civil service at the age of 15 and concluded his employment, in 1977, after almost 45 years?.and he took ?early? retirement.

We do still see some people getting to 25, 30 and even over 35 years service, but the realistic chance of someone entering the workplace today and staying with that employer for 40 years is almost nil. Is it the people, the businesses, the nature of work or the world in general? Or a combination of all four?

The world is turning a lot faster, in just about every conceivable way. Man?s ability to get around the world is increasing exponentially. Countries ability to shift their economic positioning is accelerating like our forefather would never imagine (See China and Greece as diametrically opposed examples). The world?s appetite for change and development is on an accelerative path like we can?t begin to comprehend ? and technological advancements are responding to that desire (or are they fuelling it?)

Businesses?are different. Very few businesses genuinely stay in the same, recognisable form for a decade, let alone for a generation. That is a comparatively new phenomenon. Genuine Blue-Chip businesses that dominated decades of this country?s commercial power up until 20 years ago are now few and far between, one could argue that there are no such things as Blue-Chip businesses, in this country at least ? save except for the major banks, as controversially proved in the last 4 years. The pace of shift in the make-up of the FTSE-100 is further proof of that.

The nature of work?has evolved. 50 years ago, over ? of the employed population were employed in what would been deemed blue-collar employment, or unskilled labour. Today that number is estimated at 43%. Blue collar workers are 3 times more likely to be in their job for in excess of 20 years, but that again is falling.

People are probably the biggest element though. Our appetite for change, our hunger for development and our unwillingness to tread-water are like we have never seen, and it is only getting worse. The global appetite and impatience every time Apple launches a new product are again proof of that ? despite each hyped build up is less than a year since the last amazing developmental launch of a ground breaking product that by tomorrow will be outdated and to some at least, worthless. After a year.

The ?playstation generation? have grown up on immediacy. Instantaneous internet and computer speed, the immediate playback digital music and video provides. They have become used to yesterdays launch being outdated before they hear about it ? their attention constantly focussed several phases ahead.? How do you expect someone to do the same job for 20 years when they get impatient over the annoying wait until a video game starts or a streamed movie loads?

Add in modern day human?s transitory mindset ? nothing lasts forever, and fewer things are expected to last more than a few years (marriage included!). Virtually every purchase we make is seen as almost disposable. White goods expected to last maybe 5 years, tech products less than that. There are even fewer and fewer younger people staying in the same house/location for much more than this magical 4 years.

Given all of the above, it isn?t difficult to see why the average tenure of jobs is getting shorter and shorter, fast forward 15-20 years when current ?lifers? fall off the end of the employment statistics, expect that figure to plummet yet further.

There are however financial and career development reasons for such short job tenures. ?The average ?job for life? worker can expect their earnings to increase just 2% above inflation/cost of living, this compares to the average pay increase for those moving jobs of 12% over the last decade (impressive when there has been downward pressure on earnings over the last 3 years). ?Those getting internal promotions will typically see just an average of just 7% increase.

Two of conversations I had yesterday were with people I placed into similar level finance jobs in the late 1990s. Both with sizable organisations. One has only recently departed that same job, he has had 3 promotions and his exit salary was just 30% higher than his starting salary 14 years ago ? in physical terms ? in real terms, it is probably no higher. The other individual has had 5 jobs, 3 of which I have put him into. His current remuneration level is over 3 times what it was 13 years ago, and his package value well over 5 times that of 13 years ago. Moving works.

It?s also my fault.

There is a final reason though ? the recruitment industry, and specifically Head-Hunters. Professionals taking the decision to consider looking for a new role, and thus asking me for advise on doing so will typically do so when they are naturally ready for a fresh challenge (whether driven by carrot or stick). However, the Head-Hunting/Exec Search sector will approach people well before that time.

This may be somewhat unpalatable from an employer perspective, but our clients want the best ? and the best will seldom be actively looking on the job market, and are highly unlikely to be sat on a recruitment business?s active database.

This is also the reason the Exec Search market is growing so quickly, as businesses realise that in order to capture the best talent before they go public, they need to get someone to map, search, approach and lure the best talent for them?.and that?s where we come in.

?.Alas whilst our actions are driving our clients? businesses forward every quicker, they are also putting the gold-pocket-watch industry under threat.

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Source: http://garychaplin.com/2013/03/08/what-happened-to-the-job-for-life/

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