Doctoral Dissertation: Professional identities must be rebuilt as work changes 

‒ Some aspects of professional identity are more easily adapted than others.  People are also different with regard to what coping mechanisms they use in changing situations, explains Kumpula.

In her doctoral thesis, Kumpula researches the professional identities of workers in the insurance industry and the change in work in the field.

‒ Older employees originally started out as insurance officials. After a change in service culture they have had to take on customer service work. Currently however, pressure for change is focused on the prevailing customer service identity and its different aspects. 

The current professional identities of employees in the insurance industry are challenged especially by an increased selling nature of the work, an increase in telephone service work and the converging of banks' and insurance companies' tasks.

‒ More and more, the identity of a financial salesperson is expected of employees rather than a customer service indentity. This kind of increased need for sales competence has been seen in many other professions.

The process of change takes time

Employees react to pressure for change in professional identity in various ways, of which the most common in the insurance industry, according to Kumpula's doctoral research, are adaptation and a belief in training.  

‒ Employees do not actively resist changes in work, rather they utilise methods of adaptation and learning new things. Only a small number of employees plan to leave the insurance industry. Some of the older employees intend to persevere in some way until they reach retirement age.

Although the identities of even experienced professionals can change, the process of change takes its own time. Taking on a new identity is not always successful.

‒ Some characteristics of professional identities can be so deeply rooted that their transformation requires an entire new generation of employees. Transforming into something else is always challenging and it can be difficult to abandon a professional identity dear to oneself.

Kumpula reminds us that it should be possible to change professional identity in many other fields, too.

‒ There is a need for change in the care industry, banking sector, public administration, education industry and even in the changing university world. There has been public debate on how employees in the care industry carry out more reporting work than previously, for example.  It is also a challenge for employees in the insurance industry to move from traditional customer service to fast-paced telephone services or goal-oriented sales work.

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Marjo Kumpula's doctoral thesis "Vakuutusalan työn sisältö ja työntekijöiden ammatti-identiteetin muovautuvuus. Vakuutusvirkailijasta finanssialan myyjäksi" belongs to the field of Management and Organisation.

Contact information: + 358 50 598 5564, e-mail: marjo.kumpula(a)turkuamk.fi

Kumpula's picture: http://www.utu.fi/vaittelijat/kumpula_marjo.jpg