Adapting careers to the COVID crisis: The impact of the pandemic on employees' career orientations

Abstract

This paper draws on event system theory and the literatures on career orientations and career shocks to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on employees' career orientations. Factor analyses in three samples allow us to group seven career orientations into two dimensions: needs-based career orientations (those related to security, lifestyle, and health) and talent- and value-based career orientations (related to job content). We use a three-wave survey of Chinese employees to examine how these two broad orientations evolved in two time windows—one representing high, the other low event strength. We find that the two types of career orientations evolved in different ways during the pandemic: employees' needs-based career orientations were more salient during the COVID crisis than their talent- and value-based career orientations, and the salience of needs-based career orientations did not decrease as event strength abated. Employees' personal exposure to the crisis was positively related to the salience of their needs-based career orientations, but not to the salience of talent- and value-based career orientations. We also show that the salience of needs-based career orientations differed across employee groups: it was weaker among more experienced and successful employees (those higher in the managerial hierarchy and with steeper past pay increases).