Sustainable careers: How can employers and employees build them together?

Sofie Jacobs defines a sustainable career as one where you have a long-term perspective within the context in which you navigate. Think about your life stage, work environment, and social context. It’s about finding the balance between these three elements:

• Happiness: How satisfied are you with your career and job?
• Physical and mental well-being: Can you juggle work and private life, and does your physical health allow it?
• Productivity: Do you have the knowledge and tools to perform your tasks productively? Does this contribute to your employability in various jobs or functions in the longer term?

"Importantly, this is a personal balance, in which the weight of the different elements may vary individually. An ideal balance is also not always possible, more often it is about striving for the best possible balance,” said Sofie Jacobs.

“While it’s a very personal balance, shaping it is a shared responsibility between employees and employers," continues Sofie Jacobs. In this area, we see a pendulum swing. Where the employer used to be solely responsible for shaping careers, the shift was later made to place the full responsibility on employees. Now, we see the healthy realization that both parties share responsibility. A topic that seems to trigger the participants in the roundtable discussion immediately.

"This pendulum swing from the past sometimes causes employees and employers to look at each other when it comes to steering their careers. So maybe you also need to teach some employees to take ownership of their own careers," explains Nico De Neve, Business Consultant and L&D Expert at TriHD and TriFinance.

"We indeed notice an area of tension here," picks in Vanessa De Mulder, HR Manager at Mateco. "On the one hand, employees sometimes have high expectations of their manager after a development conversation where they’ve expressed their ambitions. They often expect ready-made solutions in the short term, instead of, for example, searching for the most suitable training themselves. On the other hand, we see managers struggling to place some ownership with employees and want to keep all the strings in their hands regarding the training their team members follow."

Is this a sign of a generational difference in the workplace?

Although Sofie Jacobs emphasizes that, scientifically speaking, there are at least as many differences within generations as between different generations, we do see the impact of the spirit of the times. Young employees today seem to be searching in their careers, place more value on an optimal work-life balance, and sometimes face burnout fairly quickly after starting their careers.

"This is a broader societal issue and not just work-related. The bar is set very high: you 'must' build a successful career, make enough time for friends and family, eat healthily, and exercise… Meeting this ideal on all fronts is difficult to sustain, and therefore, not sustainable," says Sofie Jacobs.

She immediately links this to career regret, the regret of career choices made. Research shows that this is more common among young employees, in the first 5 to 6 years after graduation. Whereas you might expect it more among older employees. "This partly has to do with youthful insecurity. Additionally, young people do not yet realize that there are many ways to achieve a career goal, and that one choice does not necessarily exclude another later on. Especially today, where careers have become more unpredictable (see sidebar). The fact that social media mainly promotes the ideal image is also a factor. Not many people share that they’ve had a bad day at work, so you get a distorted view."

It’s not just young people who are demanding about work-life balance. Research shows that the majority of employees are less willing to work or attend training outside official working hours and are less willing to take on extra tasks. "This lower work-centricity, the fact that work is less central to life, is seen across all generations," clarifies Sofie Jacobs. This appears to have a major impact on organizations.

Vicky Van de Velde, Talent Manager at EEG: “In the context of careers that better fit the stages of life, as an employer we try to meet the needs of our employees on the one hand. On the other hand, flexibility in working hours, for example, is simply not possible for certain types of positions. Our installers who work on construction sites are more tied to work and travel times.”

The choice for a particular type of function and company also means that employees choose certain conditions that are tied to it. This certainly doesn’t make it easier to attract employees for some types of jobs in a tight labor market.

“Haven't the limits of flexibility gradually been reached, even apart from conditions attached to the job?”, remarks Karolien Baeten, Business Manager at TriHD.

Around the table, it’s clear that every company is looking for the right balance in flexibility. Again, the key lies in shared responsibility between employer and employee.
Liesbeth Maes, HR Business Partner at Esko: "It’s crucial to have an open and trusting dialogue. This starts, for example, during the recruitment process, where it’s important for the employer to indicate what conditions are attached to the job. In our finance department, for example, there’s an unwritten rule to not plan vacation during the closing period. Because of the longer days, on the other hand, we are more flexible around our hybrid policy. Clear agreements around this help. For me, it’s really about flexibility with responsibility. And this goes both ways."

Besides flexibility in working hours or workplace, there’s another form of flexibility: in contract forms beyond the traditional employer-employee relationship. This is also an essential part of boundaryless careers today. How do companies deal with this 'flexible layer' of employees?

Vanessa: "At Mateco, this flexible workforce is quite large, about two-thirds of our employees. We see them as full-fledged employees and focus primarily on the added value for both parties. For us as an organization, it’s beneficial that we can flexibly bring in and release expertise based on company needs. For external employees, it’s a way to shape their careers as they see fit."

Vicky concurs: "By combining insourcing talent and external workforce, you create flexibility within the organization. It helps to flexibly tap into expertise or handle workload peaks. But whether it’s employees on the payroll or external workers, we always aim for a strong cultural fit within our organization."

"As a consultancy company, we also notice that culture plays a more significant role than before, both for our clients and our consultants," adds Valerie Vandekinderen, Care Manager at TriHD and TriFinance. "Where previously the consultant’s expertise and project content were the determining factors, project experience now plays a more significant role in addition to expertise. Clients no longer choose a consultant based solely on experience and expertise, but also consider how the person will fit within the organization and team. And consultants often also have a more distinct view of the type of organization they want to work in."

Has the traditional career ladder had its day in today's career landscape?

According to Nico, it has: “Society is still strongly assumes that career growth and development go hand in hand with leadership: managing (more) people and a fancy job title as a prerequisite for professional growth and the financial benefits that go with it. Fortunately, there is now the necessary realization that expertise and leadership do not necessarily go hand in hand.”

“This is indeed a major pitfall,” Vicky picks in. “With executives who grow organically, it is essential to know whether that person is really energized by leading a team. Or does that person experience it as more of a burden to also take on responsibility for a team as an expert?”

Vanessa shared a best practice around this that drew a lot of interest around the table. “To tackle this, we have worked out horizontal careers within our IT department. For example, advancement as a technical lead is equally valuable to advancement as a people lead, both in terms of career growth and remuneration. By being very transparent about this and by discussing the talents and motivation of employees, we can make the right choices together. In this way, we really get the right people in the right place and the managers can in turn give their team members maximum support in their growth.”

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