Editing Psychological contract (section)

==Stages in career development==
The employment relationship emerges through the interpersonal relationships formed in the workplace. How employers, supervisors and managers behave on a day-to-day basis is not determined by the legal contract. Employees slowly negotiate what they must do to satisfy their side of the bargain, and what they can expect in return. This negotiation is sometimes explicit, e.g. in appraisal or performance review sessions, but it more often takes the form of behavioral action and reaction through which parties explore and draw the boundaries of mutual expectation. Hence, the psychological contract determines what the parties will, or will not do and how it will be done. When the parties' expectations match each other, performance is likely to be good and satisfaction levels will be high. So long as the values and loyalty persist, trust and commitment will be maintained.

The map followed by the parties is the development of an individualized career path that makes only reasonable demands on the employee, with adequate support from managers and co-workers, for a level of remuneration that is demonstrably fair for a person of that age, educational background, and experience. [[Motivation]] and [[Organizational commitment|commitment]] will be enhanced if transfers and [[Promotion (rank)|promotions]] follow the agreed path in a timely fashion.

The psychological contract changes over time. Since an employee's level of work changes as they advance in their career, the psychological contract that was established when they first began their career changes, too. As an employee is promoted throughout their career they expect more from their psychological contract because they are putting more of themselves into their work. Each stage of a career creates another editing process to the contract. The stages include apprentice, colleague, mentor, sponsor, exploration, establishment, maintenance, and disengagement.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Low|first=Chin Heng|year=2016|title=What Do Employees Want And Why? An Exploration of Employees' Preferred Psychological Contract Elements Career Stages|journal=PsycINFO}}</ref> The details of each step are as follows:
# Apprentice stage: Employees are new to the company and are expected to learn what they are supposed to do in this stage under the supervision of people in higher stages. Employees do their best to meet the expectations of the employer.
# Colleague stage: Employees in this stage work more independently and handle tasks without supervision. They work harder to prove to the employer they are capable of completing assignments alone.
# Mentor stage: Employees in this stage have the ability to oversee apprentices and guide them while also completing their own work.
# Sponsor stage: Employees in this stage take on managerial roles and help better the company rather than oversee apprentices like in the mentor stage.
# Exploration stage: Employees in this stage are new and have an unclear path in their career and are uncertain if they will stay with the same organization. They search for guidance and motivation from the organization to help them made decisions about their future.
# Establishment stage: Employees in this stage want to establish themselves in their organization. Employees want more responsibilities, more opportunities for promotion, and performance-based rewards.
# Maintenance stage: Employees in this stage feel as if their role in the organization has reached a stagnation and care to pursue other things in life besides just work.
# Disengagement stage: Employees in this stage are nearing the end of their career path. They are close to retiring, take on less work, and work at slower paces.
Studies from Canadian adjunct professor and psychology researcher Yani Likongo demonstrated that sometimes in organizations an idiosyncratic psychological contract is built between the employee and his direct supervisor in order to create an "informal deal" regarding work-life balance. These "deals" support the idea of a constructivist approach including both the employer and the employee, based on a give-and-take situation for both of them.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://politique.uqam.ca/upload/files/POL4801-30-A15-Likongo.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2016-10-09 |archive-date=2016-10-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161009181655/https://politique.uqam.ca/upload/files/POL4801-30-A15-Likongo.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> Similarities are drawn between the psychological contract and social exchange theory in that the relationship's worth is defined through a cost-benefit analysis.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Psychology of Work|last=Gautier|first=Chantal|year=2015}}</ref> The employee's attitude toward changes in the company which lead to changes in the psychological contract . An employee's attitude toward change in the job is directly linked to the employee's psychological contract with the manager or employer. An employee's attitude and mindset about what changes could benefit them in what ways could affect the psychological contract they have with the manager.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=van den Huevel|year=2016|title=What's In It For Me? A Managerial Perspective On The Influence of the Psychological Contract On Attitude Towards Change|journal=Journal of Organizational Management}}</ref>

If managed effectively, the relationship will foster mutual trust between the parties, matching the objectives and commitments of the organization to those of their employees. But a negative psychological contract can result in employees becoming disenchanted, demotivated and resentful of [[authoritarianism]] within the organization. This will result in an increasingly inefficient workforce whose objectives no longer correspond to the organization they work for. The main cause of disappointment tends to be that middle managers are protective of their status and security in the eyes of their superiors, and this can introduce conflicts of interest when they are required to fulfill their obligations to their subordinates.