Career management and the changing psychological contract

Abstract

This study was carried out in a major UK retail bank over a seven‐year period. The initial survey in 1993 revealed the lack of a strategic approach to career management and a negative psychological contract. The follow‐up survey was carried out in March 2000. The research findings reveal a failure by management both to provide the tools necessary for career management and successfully to change the nature of the psychological contract. The “new” contract transferred responsibility to employees for managing their own career and was considered by employees as a violation of the “old”, paternalistic psychological contract. The “new” contract in this organisation was seen to be a regressive move from a relational contract to a transactional contract. Little progress had been made by management to gain acceptance of the new contract during the period of the research.