What really shapes careers

If you think that everyone wants a promotion, everyone wants to be paid more and that only a small number of people are considering a total career change within the next five years, you’ll need to sit down before reading any further. In reality, many of the assumptions we make about how people feel about their jobs are not only false, they’re colored by our own point-of-view. It’s easy to look around and see how many of our peers are feeling and experiencing the same things and assume that those issues are common across the board. Well, they’re not.

If the latest installment from the 2011 Kelly Global Workforce Index does one thing, it will show you just how influential age, culture and the length of time we’ve been in the workforce really is on career progression and choice. By examining some of the key patterns in career development across the globe, we hope to help you think about specific ways to effectively manage a more diverse and change-oriented workforce.

In times like these—when the overall workforce is aging, birthrates in mature markets are dropping, labor pools in developed nations are shrinking, the number of skilled workers is dropping and the demand for skills is accelerating—knowing the expectations of your workforce is increasingly important.

The reality is, employee choices and preferences follow strong demographic patterns. Our age, experience level, culture and location have a measurable impact on the choices we make about the types of roles we take on, and how we apply ourselves to our work.

This blog is part of "What really shapes careers", a whitepaper free for download.