Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work (CFoW) released its latest whitepaper: Mismatch: Adapting Old-World Career Models to the New-World Workforce, which examines the disparity between how we think a career should work in a traditional career model and the needs of today’s diverse workforce.

Key findings of the research include:

• The threads binding the workforce and traditional career models are starting to fray. The mismatch between older career models and workers’ needs are blocking efforts to increase diversity at all levels of the organization.
• The traditional work model reinforces outdated and biased beliefs. Too many businesses continue to equate physical presence with value, base their hiring and promotion decisions on a narrow set of traits and punish career interruptions. Career models and talent management practices need to become inclusive, unbiased and data-driven.
• An inclusive, data-driven career model can help break entrenched behaviors and thought patterns currently supporting the status quo. This model incorporates five key components: embedded flexibility, new ways to measure performance, multi-directional career growth options, a data-driven approach to matching workers with job roles, and a purpose-driven culture.

“Rethinking career models isn’t the only way to ensure inclusion, and there’s certainly work to be done in other areas of the workplace,” writes Caroline Styr. “But this is one area in which organizations have definitive control and can kickstart change.

Click here to read the report.