IMPACT OF WORKPLACE LEARNING AND PERSONAL-GROWTH INITIATIVE ON CAREER COMPETENCIES OF EMPLOYEES

Abstract

In the contemporary business and ever-changing technological environment, developing career competencies is essential for individuals and organizations to stay competitive and thrive. On the one hand, building career competencies enables individuals to be proactive in their personal and professional development, find better job opportunities and make the leader of their own career journey. On the other hand, it enhances organizational performance, productivity, and sustained competitive advantage in the market. As most of the available literature on career competencies is established in the western context, a dearth of research is available on understanding the association between workplace learning, personal-growth initiative, and career competencies in the Indian Organization Context. Therefore, the present study aims to examine the impact of workplace learning and personal-growth initiative on the career competencies of employees. To be more precise, the present research investigates how the propensity to learn at the workplace and the tendency to take the initiative for personal and professional growth assist in developing employees’ career competencies. A sincere effort has been initiated to examine how the dimensions of workplace learning (learning from the supervisor, learning through experimentation, learning from colleagues, and learning through reflection) and personal-growth initiative (readiness for change, using resources, intentional behavior, and planfulness) predict or develop employees’ career competencies. Furthermore, the present research proposes and examines a hypothesized framework of career competencies by exploring the mediating role of personal growth initiative while establishing the association between workplace learning and career competencies. The current research also examines the role of demographical differences (gender, organization type, and age) in employees’ propensity for workplace learning, the tendency to take the initiative for personal growth, and employees’ career competencies. The sample was collected from 505 employees working in manufacturing and IT service organization in India. Respondents were in junior, middle, and senior positions in public and private organizations. The convenience sampling method was employed to gather the sample. Respondents were approached through a survey questionnaire via email and training programmes organized by public and private sector organizations in India. After preliminary data screening and testing, the validated scales adopted in the present research were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis and validity analysis to test the factor structure of selected variables. Various statistical techniques were employed to test the proposed hypothesis, such as correlational iv analysis, t-test, one-way ANOVA, multiple hierarchical regression analysis, and Hayes PROCESS Macro. The results of the present research highlight mixed findings. Findings showed there are significant differences in age, gender, and organization type in the view of dimensions of personal-growth initiative and career competencies. In addition, the results indicate that the dimensions of workplace learning and personal-growth initiative are significant predictors of employees' career competencies. Furthermore, it was found that personal growth initiative partially mediates the relationship between workplace learning and career competencies. The findings of the present research augment the existing literature in different ways. First of all, the study adds to the literature on employees’ career competencies by empirically testing and analyzing a unique and unexplored combination of variables as potential predictors of career competencies of the employees, namely, workplace learning and personal growth initiative. Additionally, by providing support on the association between personal growth initiative and employees’ career competencies, the present study addresses the scarcity of literature regarding the missing link between personal growth initiative and employees’ career competencies in the Indian organizational context. Also, the study contributes to the literature on individual change readiness and change management at the individual-level one of the dimensions of personal growth initiative by exploring how personal growth initiative explains the relationship between workplace learning and career competencies. The present study’s findings indicate several important implications for HRD professionals, managers, career development practitioners, and individuals in developing employees' career competencies. The study's findings indicate that having a conducive learning environment at the workplace would help working professionals develop resource provision and career competencies to thrive in the contemporary volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous work environment. Such findings indicate the potential global applicability of the present study. The results would help encourage the management and HR professionals to review their organizational policies, such as providing accessible and relevant learning opportunities at work, developing planfulness ability, and taking initiatives for their personal and professional growth and training programs for developing career competencies. It is emphasized in the present study that in management circles, personal growth initiative is rarely discussed and seldom included in the training programmes. Therefore, the study posits that v training programmes should be organized to guide them about the significance of having reflective, communicative, and behavioral career competencies to survive in a dynamic environment. The present study is one of its kind, considering the mediating role of personal growth initiative between workplace learning and career competencies. Since the present research is based on a sample taken from India, it also contributes to scholarship on career competencies in a non-western organization context. Further, the present study also discusses the limitations and future research directions.