Typical career dilemmas of academic staff during the early career phase within a changing South African higher education institution

Job satisfaction is of great importance for any organization, including higher education institutions, as it impacts on productivity. Higher education institutions need to identify, and familiarise themselves with, the career dilemmas of their employees. Then they can more effectively introduce mechanisms to support and assist academic staff to manage these dilemmas effectively. Our objective was to determine the career dilemmas of academic staff during the early career stage within a changing South African higher education institution. The data were obtained by means of the Delphi technique in order to cater for the specific and unique individual dilemmas. Respondents were randomly divided into four panels according to gender and race. A response rate of 88% to 100% was obtained from the panel members during the respective rounds. The most prominent career dilemmas that were identified included performance management and promotion; role overload and role conflict; financial remuneration; support regarding research and teaching; discrimination; and certain management matters.