The next question would be to stablish the factors that indicate a preference for management. In studies female participants with higher levels of self-esteem, emotional literacy and social connectivity showed confidence to form meaningful social connections and this could explain their preference for managerial career opportunities. Brown, George-Curran, and Smith (2003) showed that emotional literacy is related to the confidence to complete career-related tasks and agreed with Dries and Pepermans (2007) agrees that high emotional intelligence is related to high performing managers career development opportunities. Coetzee (2008) provide results to suggest that the African participants seem to have a significantly stronger need for managerial positions that expose them to a variety of growth and development opportunities and jobs in which they can express their talents and abilities creatively. Affirmative Action policies have given more Black people the opportunity to articulate their competencies, potential and abilities. Positive self-esteem has been found to enable people to become proactive agents and to increase their openness to, and need for, new learning as noted by Coetzee and Bergh (2009). Employers look for employees who are capable of initiative, proactive adjustment, and action-orientation. However, it remains a challenge to describe the exact personal characteristics and competencies that relates to the art of management (Coetzee, 2008; Coetzee & De Villiers, 2010; Coetzee et al., 2014;
Coetzee & Schreuder, 2011)
The importance of employability as a driver for the labour market may explain why a graduate while qualified and is yet unable to get a job. The concept of employability may be seen as an agreement or relationship. (Schreuder & Coetzee, 2002; Venter, Coetzee, & Basson, 2013) sees employability as a psychosocial construct explains why some employees are able to adapt to the demands of the organisation and the role so that the organisation can adapt to the market (Dacre Pool & Sewell, 2007).
The illustration in Figure 4 shows the contributors to employability such as subject knowledge, generic and transferable skills career development, and emotional intelligence self-confidence which all together makes up adaptability in various contexts. Where an engineer does not exhibit these skills he can find himself in a career dead end.
Figure 4: Aspects of employability
Source: Adapted from Dacre Pool and Sewell (2007) This figure is important as the same factors that contribute to employability also contribute the good management techniques. The significance of this concept makes the difference between a career that stagnates or flourishes uncertain market conditions
According to Furnham (2000), insufficient natural resources, globalisation, the growing demand for corporate social responsibility and ethical governance, as well as the increasing vulnerability of the business world to economic and political steadiness is creating a very uncomfortable future workplace. Full-time employment may be replaced in time by part-time employment or reduced hours per day for certain employees. The job security of previous years is no longer possible.
Engineers are also advised to take responsibility for their careers and future financial security. Employability may just be the key to utilising the volatile market (Furnham, 2000). Employability will be an essential skill for all graduates to enable the skills
Employability
Self confidence, Efficacy, Self-Esteem - learning
through reflection Emotional intelligence &
Social skills - learning through interaction Career, Development &
recognition Generic & Transferable
skills Subject knowledge &
understanding
gained in education and their natural talents to navigate the work environment (Ehiyazaryan & Barraclough, 2009).
Considering the previous argument, this study contributes to research in the South African context, indicating that cultural competence and sociability of individuals contribute to management skills and that while race groups differ significantly regarding these attributes according to (Potgieter & Coetzee, 2013) the difference between individuals may even be larger when compared to exposure to International managerial styles.
The question is then how do we address employability? Organisations that wish to enhance the employability attributes of valuable employees should attempt to provide career development plans which could assist individuals to increase their levels of personality attributes. ECSA also expects that as a responsibility of the employer of a candidate engineer. In order to optimise individuals’ sustained employability, organisations should employ people with not only the correct qualifications and technical skills, but also the necessary career meta-competencies. Organisations can promote career development and career counselling interventions on a cognitive, conative, affective, and interpersonal level in order to enhance their career meta-competencies as identified by Potgieter (2013).
Organisations using a career development counselling framework will aid employees in developing their personality attributes. This framework would help employees to develop their employability attributes and career meta-competencies by identifying the relationship between their self-esteem, emotional intelligence and employability attributes. The role of both the manager and the industrial psychologist is that of a career counsellor. To successfully fill this role as a career counsellor, one should gain a holistic image of an individual’s self-esteem and emotional intelligence. This enables the career counsellor to help individuals to increase their career meta-competencies. This could potentially assist individuals to obtain and sustain suitable career opportunities.
Human resource practitioners can also play a role using 360 degree feedback in a more sustainable manner. Individuals could engage in self-reflection upon receiving feedback with regard to their personality attributes. Individuals could engage in
personal therapy in order to enhance low levels of self-esteem and low emotional intelligence (Potgieter, 2013 P 359).
2.8.1 Career Anchors
The concept of career anchor, as defined by Schein (1978) and expanded in Schein (1996), is one way to explain the pattern of self-perceived talents, motives and values that direct and integrate careers of engineers in a work context (Sithole, 2012). When faced with a career shift such a promotion to management an engineer may in time become aware of motivations that are explicit or others that are hidden. Career anchors reflect basic motives and needs and provide one lens through which to look at the aspects influencing employability as well as drive (Bigliardi, Petroni, & Dormio, 2005; Igbaria, Kassicieh, & Silver, 1999) . According to Schein (1996), a “career anchor” is a strong self-concept that helps an individual to stabilise their internal career in the midst of dramatic external changes. The concept of career anchors can assist in understanding how people make career choices. A person’s career anchor includes self-perceived talents and abilities, values, and, the sense of motive as it applies to the career. Career anchors only evolve with occupational and life experience. The self-concept provides stability as it is the foundation of the construct of values and motives that directs decisions. The career anchor is revealed in career choices, career changes, career aspirations, and hope for the future; it tends to colour work experiences. The career orientations of an employee show up in the career anchors (Schein & Schein, 1978). In engineering we note the importance of the following anchors a) autonomy/independence: to make own decisions and act accordingly b) job security: to organize career to maximise security or control over security, c) geographical stability: to choose the location of work d) technical-functional competence as an expert in a specific field e) general managerial competence to be a manager. In the engineering management work environment expert power and managerial authority play a large role.
Links between career anchors and occupations have, however, been substantiated by other researchers, e.g. Igbaria et al (1999), who demonstrated links between engineers and technologists, and certain career anchors. In the study by Nordvik (1996), with Norwegian workers, he also showed links between certain career anchors and occupations.
There are three main types of engineering professional in South Africa, depending on their degree or diploma. A four year Bachelor of Science (BSc Eng) or Bachelor of Engineering (BEng) degree from a university is required to register as a candidate profession engineer.
A bachelor of technology (BTech) degree from a university of technology is required to register as an engineering technologist. A person with a national diploma (NDip) from a university of technology can apply for engineering technician status. Some engineers do not complete their formal qualifications and do not eligible register with the Engineering council and they can still work in some technical capacity.
Engineers mostly work in organisations of varying sizes from small consultancy boutique companies or partnership to large conglomerates and public enterprises. It is therefore important that engineers become competent at negotiating their way in the organisational politics and are able to deliver engineering work, sometimes in spite of bureaucracy. The participants in this research study are working in the public sector and the environment has a few unique characteristics of its own.
2.8.1.1 Development of the manager career path
The development of a new manager is designed to expand their influence, power, and capability to manage complexity. Therefore an engineer will be asked to manage a small project under supervision and then another until he can do so unassisted.
After that he will be able to lead a small team. As his leadership and managerial skills develop he will become part of a bigger project until he is able to manage larger projects successfully. During this time an engineer can decide to become a project manager or a line manager. If he chooses to become a line manager of a specialist engineering department or ‘Centre of Excellence’, he takes accountability for the people, their training as well as the technical quality, contractual and performance delivery of the specialist system designs. The line manager role will include general management tasks such as managing skills, providing expert resources for projects and financial management.