Learning is essential: A study on the influence of career management practices in the retention of younger generations

• Autor(a) principal: Oliveira, Miguel Cadima
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/27282
• topic: Generations; Protean careers; Career management practices; Retention; Gerações; Carreiras proteanas; Práticas de gestão de carreira; Retenção

Nowadays, Millennials and Generation Z share the workplace with older generations, Generation X and Baby Boomers. A multigenerational workforce creates enormous challenges for talent management and presupposes a necessity for strategic positioning from organizations. It is pivotal to consider individuals’ different career orientations, expectations, and motivations. This study focuses on choosing the right career management practices and promoting learning and development as starting points to retain the best talent. However, younger generations are now more encouraged to take control of their career progression rather than being driven by organizational demands. Therefore, we intend to assess the protean career orientation of Millennials and Generation Z, their learning orientation, and their retention. In this research, we focused on development opportunities as the key factor for their decision to stay in the organizations. This research contributes to the debate on workforce retention, learning and development attitudes, as well as generational theory. This is particularly relevant to Generation Z, as existing literature is still in a nascent stage for this generation. The data was collected through an online questionnaire with 246 participants. The results showed that 1) younger generations showed a higher protean career orientation when compared to Generation X, which positively influences their learning orientation; 2) Learning orientation positively influences retention through development opportunities for younger generations; 3) Organizations’ informal career management practices moderate the relationship between protean orientation and learning orientation for younger generations.