Responding to Career Development Uncertainties and Successfully Navigating Career Journeys

Abstract

The Problem

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced employees and organizational leaders to consider the reality of its impact on career goals. Individuals have been forced to reconsider or readjust their career goals as being achievable, deferred, or even eliminated. Organizational leaders or those in strategic positions have been forced to consider how individual career goals could impact the organization’s capacity to survive.

The Solution

Career development theories are useful for examining the role of human resource development professionals in helping employees achieve career goals as they attempt to adjust to the COVID-19 pandemic. Re-emphasizing career development as a core component of HRD highlights the significance of career development theories in adjusting to pandemics and crises that impact individual career goals and organizational strategic goals and opportunities.

The Stakeholders

HRD researchers, scholar/practitioners, professionals, and others who research and practice career development and use career development theory.

Keywords

career theories COVID-19 pandemic career development human resource development Work/Family Border Theory Hope-Action Theory Social Learning Theory Social Cognitive Career Theory

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Carnevale

J. B.

Hatak

(2020). Employee adjustment and well-being in the era of COVID-19: Implications for human resource management. Journal of Business Research, 116, 183–187.

Donthu

Anders

(2020). Effects of COVID-19 on business and research. Journal of Business Research, 117, 284–289.

Hughes

(2010). People as technology conceptual model: Towards a new value creation paradigm for strategic human resource development. Human Resource Development Review, 9(1), 48–71.

Hughes

(2012). Valuing people and technology in the workplace: A competitive advantage framework. IGI Global.

Hughes

(2018). Workforce inter-personnel diversity: The power to influence human productivity and career development. Springer International Publishing.

Hughes

(2020). The changing learning technological landscape for trainers in the wake of COVID-19. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 23(1), 66–74. https://doi.org/10.1177/1523422320972108