Challenges to career develoment in uniformed services of Lithuania

ENPurpose. HRM in uniformed services is researched significantly less than in the civil service which in turn is under researched in comparison to businesses. Recent studies of public employment (e.g. Demmke & Moilanen, 2012) show that due to variety of factors public employment is becoming less attractive in the labour market. However, there is little data that this is the case in the uniformed services in particular. This study aims to evaluate career development experiences of military and statutory servicemembers in Lithuania to collect and interpret data about their understanding of management of the career development and career perspectives both within their services and the broader labor market. Design/methodology/approach. The purpose of this study was to analyze career development mechanisms in the uniformed services (statutory and military services), by identifying advantages, disadvantages of career development systems in the context of emerging challenges to these services, identify connections between successful career development and the sense of social security among servicemembers. The career development analysis was based on 3 career development stages regulated by both statutory and military regulations. 16 experts – all servicemembers were interviewed for the purposes of this study. Based on the interview analysis of how the career development is applied in the respective services a set of comparative criteria were developed to expand the three stages in the initial regulation overview.Findings. Research data showed that two distinct uniformed services in Lithuania are coping very differently with the challenges. This study revealed several important weaknesses of career development mechanism as they are applied in Lithuanian statutory service: lack of sense of social security by servicemembers, insufficient initial training, no clear objective setting mechanisms. In military service lack of information about career opportunities and competition among members for access to qualification courses were found to be important issues. However, the military service career development was found to be more advanced and successful than that of statutory service. So fundamental conclusion of this study is that the military service achieves better outcomes through means of career development than statutory service. Keywords: career development, uniformed services, sense of social security.