An organizational culture compatible with employability

Discusses the organizational culture appropriate to new forms of “employability” as being characterized by its success in challenging and empowering its staff, motivating them, and even satisfying their needs for belongingness in today’s downsizing environment. These characteristics strongly reflect Roger Harrison’s descriptions of person and task cultures in organizations. Reflecting elements of both and, at the same time, increasingly incorporating “Generation X‐ers”, an organization which develops an employability culture is more likely a fifth alternative to Harrison’s classification scheme. Discusses the changing nature of work and why an employability culture is inevitable. However, such a culture presents dilemmas to the organization. One of the most predominant dilemmas is how the organization reconciles individual needs for career ownership with its own, which is to align its members’ efforts towards organizational goals. A solution is put forward by way of suggesting that employers and employees engage in adult‐adult interactions around a framework of negotiation.