Mass Career Customization

The other day I was reading an in-house magazine of Deloitte and came across this article on Mass Career Customization. (quite a mouthful isn’t!)

Here is a quick lowdown on Mass Career Customization:

MCC is a model that has been designed to respond to the new workplace trends which include more women at workplace, gap in demand and supply of knowledge workers, changing expectations of men, evolving expectations of generation X and Y and increasing impact of technology. Developed by Cathy Benko and Anne Weisberg, both principals at Deloitte.

The model is based on the premise that there would be no normal career path (meaning straight climb up the ladder) and careers would be multipath and built around people’s needs over time (like balance of work-life). The authors coin the word “career lattice” to describe how careers would be an undulating journey of climbs and lateral moves. . The model is being tested out in the few organizations namely Deloitte, along with SAS, Ogilvy & Mather, and law firm Arnold & Porter. Read more about this model at www.masscareercustomization.com

While the model itself is exciting and may be really the cutting edge practice in career development and management, it might be a difficult proposition for smaller organizations that do not have the different roles / career options to implement this model. The success of this model will largely depend on long-term commitment of the organization and employee. And since the success of career development and management programs can only seen over time, only long term players will buy the model and its approach.