Career Planning

Photo: becomingtech.com

People prefer a job - not for job itself, but for a career.

The definition of a career has changed over the years.  A career not only refers to a single pathway to work.   ü Careers are 'constructed' through the series of choices we make throughout our lives. ü A career is a life-long process.  It includes the variety of work roles (paid and unpaid) which you undertake throughout your lifetime, such as everyday life roles (parent, volunteer), leisure activities, learning and work. ü Career development is the process of managing life, learning and work. Career development is a term used to describe the management of work-related activity throughout employee life. ü Career development includes providing services (in many different settings) to assist people gain more knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviors that help them to manage their career more effectively. ü  Career development is simply a way of thinking about your life, particularly in the context of education, training and employment. It puts you at the centre of decision making about your future.

§  Career is progress or general course of action of a person in some profession or in an organization (The sequence of employment positions that a person has held over his or her life).

§  Career planning is a process whereby an individual sets career goals and identifies the means to achieve them. Where organization intervenes in planning, it becomes organizational career planning.

§  Career development refers to a formal approach used by the firm to ensure that people with proper qualifications and experiences are available when needed.

§  Career management is the process of enabling employees to better understand and develop their skills and interests and use them for the benefit of the organization and self.

§  Every organization needs to have career development program and integrate the function with other HR activities. Integrating the CD with other HR programs create synergies in which all aspects of HR reinforce one another.

The essence of a contemporary career development program is providing support so employees can continually add to their skills, abilities, and knowledge. This support includes:

■ Communicating clearly the organization’s goals and future strategies. When people know where the organization is headed, they’re better able to develop a personal plan to share in that future.

■ Creating growth opportunities. Employees should have opportunities for new, interesting, and professionally challenging work experiences.

■ Offering financial assistance. The organization should offer tuition reimbursement to help employees keep current.

■ Providing the time for employees to learn. Organizations should be generous in providing paid time off from work for off-the-job training. Additionally, workloads should not be so demanding that they preclude employees from having the time to develop new skills, abilities, and knowledge.

Roles in Career Development

Employer Initiatives –

       Job postings

-          Formal education/tuition reimbursement

-          PA for career planning

-          Counseling by Manager/HR

-          Succession planning

-          Lateral moves/job rotation

-          Career booklets

-          Career paths

-          Career workshops

-          Assessment centres

-          Training and Development

-          Special needs (dual career couples)

-          Diversity management

-          Expatriation/repatriation

 Employee’s Role

       Assessing one’s own KSAP

-          Seek out information about career options

-          Make use of development opportunities

-          Establish goals and plans

-          Involve in career planning and development

Two Approaches to Career Planning

There are two approaches to career planning (Manolescu, 2003), depending on the emphasis on the needs of the organization or on the individual objectives:

 a) The organization centred planning system which aims:

 the development of Human Resource needs;

 to improve the quality of human resources to increase productivity;

 defining career paths;

 individual potential of job evaluation;

 harmonization of organizational and career needs;

 career counseling of work and life quality;

 audit and control of the planning and career development system.

 b) The person centred planning system which aims:

 to identify the potential, skills and interests of the individual;

 to identify the purposes of his life and his career goals;

 to develop a written plan to achieve individual goals;

 researching or seeking and obtaining the best career start;

 to communicate the career plan directly to individual by his manager;

 request career guidance;

 internal and external opportunities’ assessment;

 request mentor or sponsor support;

 promote their self image or recognition of their own qualities.

Career Development: Value for the Organization

Assuming that an organization already provides extensive employee development programs, why should it need to consider a career development program as well? A long-term career focus should increase the organization’s effectiveness in managing its human resources. More specifically, several positive results can accrue from a well-designed career development program. We’ll examine them.

Needed Talent Will Be Available Career development efforts are consistent with and a natural extension of strategic and employment planning. Changing staff requirements over the intermediate and long term should be identified when the company sets long-term goals and objectives. Working with individual employees to help them align their needs and aspirations with those of the organization will increase the probability that the right people will be available to meet the organization’s changing staffing requirements.

The Organization’s Ability to Attract and Retain Talented Employees Improves  Outstanding employees will always be scarce and competition to secure their services considerable. Such individuals may prefer employers who demonstrate a concern for employees’ futures and personal interests. These people may exhibit greater loyalty and commitment to an organization that offers career advice.  Importantly, career development appears to be a natural response to the rising concern by employees for the quality of work life and personal life planning. A survey of college students and recent graduates by Manpower subsidiary Right Management found that they would be more likely to stay put at an employer that offered the ability to grow from within, a workplace that offers flexibility, and a culture where there is camaraderie and a good work/life balance.

Minorities and Women Have Comparable Opportunities for Growth and Development As discussed in previous chapters, equal employment opportunity legislation and affirmative action programs have demanded that minority groups and women receive opportunities for growth and development that will prepare them for greater responsibilities within the organization. The fair employment movement has served as a catalyst to career development programs targeted for these groups. Legislation, such as the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, offers an even greater organizational career challenge. Furthermore, courts frequently look at an organization’s career development efforts with these groups when ruling on discrimination suits.

Reduced Employee Frustration Although the workforce educational level has risen, so, too, have occupational aspirations. However, as periods of economic stagnation increase organizations’ efforts to reduce costs, they also reduce opportunities. This has increased frustration in employees who often see a significant disparity between aspirations and actual opportunities. When organizations downsize to cut costs, employee career paths, career tracks, and career ladders often collapse. Career counseling can produce realistic, rather than raised, employee expectations.

Enhanced Cultural Diversity The workforce in the next decade will continue to reflect a more varied combination of race, nationality, gender, and values in the organization. Effective organizational career development provides access to all levels of the organization for more employees. Extended career opportunities make cultural diversity, and the appreciation of it, an organizational reality.

Organizational Goodwill If employees think their employing organizations care about their long-term well-being, they tend to respond in kind by projecting positive images of the organization into other areas of their lives (for example, through volunteer work in the community). For instance, employees at Principal Financial Group in the chapter opener are encouraged to use eight hours of paid time off each year to volunteer at a local nonprofit organization, including their church or their child’s school. Employees who are happy with this arrangement spread the word, making them effective recruiters for the company. One young mother who left a teaching career to work for Principal said, “Friends who are working moms told me about it. I didn’t even look at positions at another company.”

(Source: DeCenzo and Robbins)

Career Development: Value for the Individual

Effective career development is also important for the individual. In fact, as we’ve previously mentioned, it is more important today than ever. Changing definitions of careers and success have expanded the value of individual career development programs.

Career success may no longer be measured merely by an employee’s income or hierarchical level in an organization. It may now include using one’s skills and abilities to face expanded challenges, or having greater responsibilities and increased autonomy in one’s chosen profession. Contemporary workers, seeking more than salary and security from their jobs, want intrinsic career development, or “psychic income,” too. They want interesting and meaningful work, such as that derived from a sense of being the architect of one’s own career.

Careers are both external and internal. The external career involves properties or qualities of an occupation or an organization.  For example, think of a career in business as a person’s sequence of jobs or positions: undergraduate degree in business; sales representative for a construction supply house; graduate training in business; district manager in a do-it-yourself hardware chain; president of a small housing inspection and appraisal firm; retirement. External careers may also be characterized by career ladders within a particular organization (employment recruiter, employment manager, HRM director, vice president HRM).

The individual career encompasses a variety of individual aspects or themes: accumulation of external symbols of success or advancement (bigger office with each promotion); threshold definition of occupational types (that is, physicians have careers, dog-catchers have jobs); long-term commitment to a particular occupational field (such as a career soldier or teacher); a series of work-related positions; and work-related attitudes and behaviors.

Careers are indeed the pattern of work-related experiences that span the course of a person’s life, but we must understand that both personal relationships and family concerns are also of intrinsic value to employees. Subjective and objective elements, then, are necessary components of a theoretical perspective that captures the complexity of career.  Success can thus be defined in external terms. For example, if after five years at the same company you are promoted, and Chris, a colleague hired the same day you were for the same type of job, has not yet been promoted, you may view yourself as more successful than Chris. The external definition also states that a certified public accountant is more successful than an animal control worker. However, if you consider the subjective, internal valuation of success, the story may be different. An animal control worker who defines his job as protecting children and others in the community from danger, who goes home proud at night because he has successfully and compassionately captured stray dogs that day, is successful in his career. Compare that to a CPA who works only to buy a new sports car so she can escape from the drudgery of her day-to- day office life of dealing with clients, accounting forms, and automated systems. Is she more or less successful than the dogcatcher?

This differentiation of internal from external is important to the manager who wants to motivate employees. Different employees may respond to different motivational tools.

For instance, Danny is working for you as a consultant, looking to earn enough money to purchase a time-share in a condo in Florida. Diane, your newest software developer, joined the company with the expectation that within four years she will have obtained a master’s degree and be in a supervisory position in the company. Would they respond equally to the opportunity to be trained in interpersonal skills? Would both of them be as likely to accept (or reject) a transfer to another city? Probably not, because they have different motivations. Thus, we can say that internal and external career events may be parallel but result in different outcomes. We have displayed these events in Exhibit 9-1, which discusses them in the context of career stages, the topic discussed in the next section.

(Source: DeCenzo and Robbins)

Need for Career Planning

1.     Provide Career Goals and Paths

2.     Develops competencies

3.     Creativity

4.     Employee retention

5.     Motivation

Objectives of Career Planning

1.     Meet staffing requirements

2.     Lower employee turnover

3.     Develop employee potential

4.     Assist work force diversity

5.     Motivate employees

6.     Reduce hoarding of employees

7.     Prepares employee for international placement

Career Development: Value for the Organization

1.       Needed talent will be available

2.       The Organization’s Ability to Attract and Retain Talented Employees Improves 

3.       Minorities and Women Have Comparable Opportunities for Growth and Development

4.       Reduced Employee Frustration

5.       Enhanced Cultural Diversity

6.       Organizational Goodwill

Career Development: Value for the Individual

An individual

1.       Evaluates his interests and abilities

2.       Considers alternatives career opportunities,

3.       Establishes career goals, and

4.       Plans and participates in practical developmental activities

Summary of Managing Careers [DeCenzo & Robbins – Fundamental of HRM]

1. Explain who is responsible for managing careers. The responsibility for managing a career belongs to the individual. The organization’s role is to provide assistance and information to the employee, but it is not responsible for growing an employee’s career.

2. Describe the term career. A career is a sequence of positions occupied by a person during the course of a lifetime.

3. Discuss the focus of careers for both organizations and individuals. Career development from an organizational standpoint involves tracking career paths and developing career ladders. From an individual perspective, career development focuses on assisting individuals in identifying their major career goals and in determining how to achieve these goals.

4. Describe how career development and employee development differ. The main distinction between career development and employee development lies in their time frames. Career development focuses on the long-range career effectiveness and success of organizational personnel. Employee development focuses more on immediate and intermediate time frames.

5. Explain why career development is valuable to organizations. Career development is valuable to an organization because it –

(1) ensures needed talent will be available;

(2) improves the organization’s ability to attract and retain high talent employees;

(3) ensures that minorities and women have opportunities for growth and development;

(4) reduces employee frustration;

(5) enhances cultural diversity;

 (6) assists in implementing quality; and

(7) promotes organizational goodwill.

6. Identify the five traditional stages involved in a career. The five stages in a career are:

•        exploration,
•        establishment,
•        mid-career,
•        late-career, and
•        decline.

7. Describe the implications of personality typologies and jobs. Typology focuses on personality dimensions including extroversion-introversion; sensing-intuition; thinking-feeling; and judging-perceiving. These four pairs can be combined into sixteen different combination profiles. With this information, job personality traits can be matched to individual personality traits.

8. Identify several suggestions that can help you manage your (employee's) career more effectively. Some suggestions for managing your career include

(1) know yourself,

(2) manage your reputation,

(3) build and maintain network contacts,

(4) keep current (update with demanding KSA)

(5) balance your specialist and generalist competencies,

(6) document your achievements, and

(7) keep your options open.