University career management practices for academic staff: a reality check?

This paper presents findings from the initial stage of a larger study on the career management of older academics. The paper reports the extent to which universities represent organizational career management practices for academic staff on-line and in web-based public documents. Career management practices adapted to the higher education context were developed from the organizational career management literature. The findings highlight that to a certain extent universities express a role in the career management of academics. The selected sample of 16 Australian Universities revealed that on average half of the selected organizational career management practices for academic staff were represented. There was a reasonable degree of variation across universities and different states on the range of organizational career management practices for academic staff. Based on publicly available documents, an area of concern may be the limited evidence of retirement preparation and succession planning documents. Implications for HRM including strategies towards reward and the retention of academic staff, given the current climate of a ‘war for talent’, are discussed. This becomes a crucial sustainability issue and could be addressed through innovative and flexible HRM strategies in areas such as reward and recognition; work-life balance and career development and the re-conceptualisation of academic work.