Employability in France: Tomorrow’s career

“A career is not just about earning an income. It is about pursuing the essence of your life.” – Terry Mante

In France the GPEC (gestion prévisionnelles des emplois et des compétences) has been implemented in order to optimize work force planning, producing and allocating the right skills with the overall goal to decrease unemployment. We can look back on several studies in order to measure its impact. For example, a study of ANDRH proofs that companies focus on actions as e.g. employing young people which increased from 7% to 8% from the year 2014 to the year 2015, promoting diversity and giving equal opportunities to men and women which increased from 11% to 13%, supporting work live balance initiatives (e.g. work well) which number increased from 23% to 27% and retaining talents which increased from 38% to 44%.

Unfortunately, not every measure within the GPEC obtains the wished-for success:Pre-retirement plans offering part-time and phasing out solutions for senior employees are part of each GPEC. Originally those measures were meant to protect senior employees, their know how and their experience within an organization, offering the chance by keeping seniors employed to cascade the already available knowledge and experience to the succeeding generation. The same study as mentioned above, conducted in cooperation of inergie, ANDRH and Entreprise & Carrières in the year 2015, proves that the opposite is true. The application of measures which serve to keep senior employees employed as, e.g.: offering flexible working hours, home offices, a different position or anticipating the departure by prolonging the contract have decreased from 44% to 41% from the year 2014 to the year 2015, whereas measures which support a faster termination of employment for senior employees, as unpaid and garden leave have increased from 12% to 19% between the year 2014 and the year 2015. 

In their article ? Heureux qui comme Ulysse... Amarrage des ancres de carrière et de l’employabilité dans la carrière protéenne ? Cynthia BLANCHETTE and Dominique BARUEL BENCHERQUI (published in 'revue management & avenir' No. 121 in February 202)1 state that Hall (1996, p. 8) points out, “the career of the twenty-first century will be multifaceted, a career guided by the person, not by the organization (or the government) and which will be reinvented by the person from time to time, as the person and the environment change ”. The career also becomes "intelligent" and requires the development of skills in terms of "knowing how" ("skills and knowledge that a person brings to the overall know-how of a company" (Arthur et al., 1995, p. 10), “knowing why” (“motivation, personal beliefs and values” (Arthur et al., 1995, p. 9) and “knowing whom” (interpersonal relationships of the individual intra and inter organizational (Arthur et al. ., 1995, p. 10)). These new forms of careers are characterized by a breach of the psychological contract between employers and employees. From now on, contracts are centered on an exchange of performance against a promise of employability (Bravo, 2003; Baruel Bencherqui, 2005; Cadin, 2005; Dietrich et al., 2006). On the other hand, as Hall (1996, p. 10) points out when discussing the career in the 21st century (Protean career) “the new career contract is not a pact with the organization; it is an agreement with oneself and one's work ". This change results in a transfer of responsibility from the company to the employee which, particularly in France, is ratified by the various laws on vocational training (eg the laws of 2004, 2014 and 2018) and which reinforce the fact that the s/he individual is the entrepreneur of his/her professional career. Mobility is therefore at the heart of an individual's career. This mobility in the sense of Feldman and Ng (2007) is based as much on a change of position as on a change of organization or a change of activity. From this perspective, companies and individuals must maintain and develop employability. Today, the latter has become a major issue in the development of a company's human resources strategies (Blanchette, 2017; 2018). This key element is at the heart of forward planning of jobs and skills, as has been shown in particular by the research of Baruel Bencherqui et al. (2011). Thus, companies have realized that the dynamic environment in which they operate no longer allows them to guarantee, as in the past, a job for life to their employees. They must, however, enable the latter to find employment in the labor market. Indeed, the company has an important role to play in the development of the employability of its employees for two main reasons: (1) because the skills of the employees will enable it to ensure its competitiveness and thus increase its performance and (2) because it has a role of “social responsibility” by enabling its employees to find employment in the labor market. However, employees constantly make trade-offs regarding their professional choices. 

Governmental policies shape economic stability, incomes and jobs. They influence people’s well-being. However, traditional economic aggregates do not measure the economic uncertainty that households actually face. Some public policy adjustments aim to increase growth, but at the cost of increased microeconomic instability.

Therefore, measures taking influence on France’s micro economy (micro economy is a branch of economics studying the individual behavior of economic agents, in particular their decision-making) to allow people to play an active role in their destiny should be considered. Micro economic measures result in making people change their behavior by offering tailored support with e.g., by supporting job search with the creation of job centers, by adjusting the eligibility for unemployment allocation to individual needs, by offering personalized training, by offering more flexible working time and by supporting entrepreneurship. The current crises represents a perfect opportunity enhance these measures.