Career Planning and Development
Career Planning – Meaning – Need for -- Process ● Succession Planning ● Career Development
-- Steps – Career Development Actions – Advantages ● Recent Developments
Opening Corporate Example: Career Plan at HP India
HP India encouraged employees to develop themselves.
Career paths up to the local regional level are napped for
each role and continuous learning and career development
tools are available to all employees. In addition, it
provided formal training programmes, and reimbursed
employees for tuitions
Companies have to plan for the career and develop the career of its employees after providing technical and
managerial skills. Now, we shall study the career planning and development in the following lines.
CARRER PLANNING
Individual Career Planning assumed greater significance with the unparallel growth and speed of knowledge,
phenomenal increase in educational and training facilities and widespread increase in job opportunities.
Similarly, organizational career planning also gained importance with the change in technology, human needs,
values and aspirations, increase in organizational size, complexity and number of openings at different levels.
MEANING OF CARRER PLANNING
A career pertains to all the jobs that are held during one’s working life. Edwin B. Flippo defined a career as a
sequence of separate but related work activities that provides continuity, order and meaning in a person’s life.
Dougls T. Hall defined a career as “an individually perceived sequence of attitudes and behaviors associated
with work related experiences and activities over the span of the person’s life.” Writher and Davis defined
various terms of career planning as given hereunder.
A career path is the sequential pattern of jobs that from a carrier.
Career goals are the future positions one strives for as a part of a career.
Career Planning is the process by which one selects career goals and the path to these goals.
Career development is those personal improvements one undertakes to achieve a personal career plan.
Career management is the process of designing and implementing goals, plans and strategies to enable the
organization to satisfy employee needs while allowing individuals to achieve their career goals Box. 11.1
presents career planning practices.
The Louisville Courier-Journal
Royal Dutch/Shell
Saturn
American Express
Federal Express
Royal Dutch/Shell
Clorox
Career Planning Practices Example
Promote from within whenever possible
Employ personal employee intranet sites to facilitate career planning
Install customized systems to facilitate rapid leadership development
Design career and training paths for key competencies
Identify and Develop Key character traits in managers
Deploy career rotation as a tool communicate a global culture
Hold managers accountable as gatekeepers of employee career path
planning.
Need for Career Planning
Career planning is necessary due to the following reasons:
To attract competent persons and to retain them in the organization.
To provide suitable promotional opportunities.
To enable the employee to develop and make them ready to meet future challenges.
To increase the utilization of managerial reserves within an organization.
To correct employee placement.
To reduce employee dissatisfaction and turnover.
To improve motivation and morale.
Process of Career Planning and Development
Steps in Career Planning and Development include:
i)
Analysis of individual skills, knowledge, abilities, aptitudes etc.
ii)
Analysis of career opportunities both within and outside the organization.
iii) Analysis of career demands on the incumbent in terms of skills, knowledge, abilities, aptitude etc. and in
terms of qualifications, experience and training received etc.
iv) Relating specific jobs to different career opportunities.
v)
Establishing realistic goals both short-term and long-term.
vi) Formulating career strategy covering areas of change and adjustment.
vii) Preparing and implementing action plan including acquiring resources for achieving goals.
Managers act as mentors in advising the employee in their career plan (See Box below)
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An Innovative Career Plan at AT & T
A unique company initiative at AT&T is on Offered permanent positions at Resource Link.
internal labour pool of contract employees.
Resource Link employees retain the same salary and
Termed Resource Link, the AT&T contingent benefits that they had when they joined AT&T earlier.
labour pool has more than 600 people working It is only their assignments that remain temporary.
for it. About 50% of these joined the contract Rather than being in traditional job and career path,
pool as a ‘career move.” Resource Link the Resource Link Associates move from project to
promised employees an opportunity to increase project.
their skills, knowledge, visibility and AT&T is reaping innumerable benefits by
marketability.
building on internal contract pool like Resource
Employees electing to be part of Resource Link
Link AT&T has successfully been able to retain
used to apply through a selection process.
and develop talented employees.
Attributers that come in handy include a track
At the same time, the company is spending much
record for high performance, multi-skill
less on severance payments. Another pay-off is
development and ability to contribute in various
that there are huge savings on fees that it would
fields.
otherwise be paying to external agencies for
Once employees are selected, they are
hiring temporary employees.
Source: Human Capital, September 2001, p 49).
Succession Planning
Succession planning is to identify, develop and make the people ready to occupy higher level jobs as and when
they feel vacant. Succession may be from internal employees or external people. Organizations appraise
employee potentialities, identify training gaps for future vacancies, develop them for higher and varied jobs.
The scope of succession plan would be more when the organization grows steadily and employees have
potentialities to take up higher responsibilities. Box 3 presents the succession planning practices of various
companies.
Mentoring helps in developing subordinates and employees at lower level and outside people and make them
eligible for higher level jobs (See 4 for examples on mentoring).
Career Development
Steps involved in Establishing a Career Development System
Career development programs are not a recent idea.
There are four steps in establishing a career development system. They are (i) needs- defining the present system
(ii) vision-determining new directions and possibilities (iii) action plan-deciding on practical first steps and (iv)
results –maintaining the change.
Box 3 Succession Planning Practices. Example
GE Capital, Lucent Technologies
Weigh key leadership characteristics according to company culture and
values
Eli Liffy
Align succession plans with the corporate culture to create a foundation for
success.
GE
Customize pieces of the succession planning process to fit individual
business units.
Clorox
Use Performance Metric Tools that are aligned with corporate culture to
organize top potentials
Glaxo Wellcome
Conduct a division-by-division succession planning process Match
succession planning and development processes to emerging trends in
corporate culture
Novartis
Match succession planning and development process to emerging trends in
corporate culture.
Motorola
Novartis
Glaxo Wellcome
Bell Atlantic
Lucent Technologies
Step 1:
Step 2 :
Step 3 :
Step 4:
Box. 4 Company Examples in Mentoring
Avoid large overhead costs that are not fully utilized by extensively using
contract trainers
Design participation in mentoring programs to be beneficial to senior
managers as well as the junior member
Encourage informal mentoring as an intermediate step to a more formal
process
Establish iterative process to work new potentials into mentoring program.
Utilize corporate Intranets list possible executive choose and mentors to
facilitate the mentor identification process.
Needs: This step involves in the conducting of needs assessment as a training programme.
Vision: The needs of the career system must be linked with the interventions. An ideal career
development system known as the vision links the needs with the interventions.
Action Plan: An action plan should be formulated in order to achieve the vision. The support of the
top management should be obtained in this process.
Results : Career development programme should be integrated with the organization’s evaluated from
time to time in order to revise the programme.
Career Development Actions
i)
Job Performance: Employee must prove that his performance on the job is to the level of standards
established, if the wants career progress.
ii)
Exposure : Employee’s desire for career progress would expose their skills, knowledge, qualifications
achievements, performance etc. to those who take decision about career progress.
iii) Resignations: Employees may resign the present job in the organization, if they find that career
opportunities elsewhere are better than those of the present organization.
iv)
v)
Change the job : Employees who put organizational loyalty above career loyalty may change the job in
the same organization if they find that career opportunities in other jobs in the same organization are
better than those in the present job.
Career Guidance : Counseling provides information, advice and encouragement to switch over to
another career or organization, where career opportunities are better.
Advantage of Career Planning and Development
For Individuals:
i)
The process of career planning helps the individual to have the knowledge of various career opportunities,
his priorities etc.
ii)
The knowledge helps him select the career which is suitable to his lifestyles, preferences, family
environment, scope for self-development etc.
iii) It helps the organization identify internal employees who can be promoted.
iv) Internal promotions, upgradation and transfers motivate the employees, boost up their morale and also
result in increased job satisfaction.
v)
Increased job satisfaction enhances employee commitment and creates a sense of belongingness and
loyalty to the organization.
vi) Employees will wait his turn of promotion rather than changing to another organization. This lowers
employee turnover.
vii) It improves employee’s performance on the job by tapping their potential abilities and further employee
growth.
viii) It satisfies the employee’s esteem needs.
For Organizations
A long term focus of career planning and development will increase the effectiveness of human resources
management. More specifically, the advantages of career planning and development for and organization
include:
i)
Efficient career planning and development ensures the availability of human resources with required skill,
knowledge and talent.
ii)
The efficient policies and practices improve the organization’s ability to attract and retain highly skilled
and talented employees.
iii) Proper career planning ensures that the women and people belonging to backward communities get
opportunities for growth and development.
iv) The career plan continuously tries to satisfy the employee’s expectations and as such minimizes
employee’s frustration.
v)
By attracting and retaining the people from different cultures, enhances cultural diversity.
vi) Protecting employee’s interest results in promoting organizational goodwill.
Recent Trends in Career Planning
Organization started using career planning as a technique of retaining employees. Career planning should
be designed such that it not only provides multiple alternatives, but also helps them have their skills and
widen their knowledge base.
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Organizations started viewing career plan as an opportunity because a well designed career planning
system will offer a gamut of alternatives to employees. Instead of traditional corporate ‘on-the-way-up’
ladder, now there is this concept of multiple career paths, where employees are shown plentiful lateral
opportunities and employees are involved in their own career plan (See Box 5)
Box 5 Recent Trend : Concentrate on Contract Staff, but not on Career Plan
Why companies are going for contract staff, rather Conductive to short term contract and a flexible
than concentrating on career plan?
workforce to increase productivity.
- The employee market is tight and finding good Full-time employee overheads to permanent is
people tough, especially in technical areas.
attractive, both for the company and the worker.
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The market place is highly volatile. Unexpected changes call for a flexible staff that can be moved
out when projects are finished
Skills are scarce, particularly in the areas like IT and highly specialized technical areas.
Companies can bring in contract workers for a
probation period, ‘try-them-out.’ And then decide
whether to hire them full time or not
Revenue per employee is higher with more
contract and less full time staff.
Employees prefer being independent contractors,
because they earn higher salaries, and get
independence and mobility.
There is a need for project work in specialized
technologies. Such project work is
(Source : Human Capital, September 2001, p.48
In addition, organizations rather than planning the career of the employees. Concentrate on contract staff
from employees leasing firms and body shoppers (See Box. 6)
Box 6 Encouraging Protean Careers at Ford Motor Company
Since the 1979 recession, we find ourselves in a less More breadth of experience to manage the
stables, less favourable environment with a rapidly organization.
changing technology. In order to be effective, it is
necessary to move a mechanistic organization to The previously held ideal of rapid upward movement
smaller more organic, efficient organization, is no longer viable. Instead, we must look at career as
characterized by flatter structure, broader spans of a life-long sequence of job experiences to be ordered
control, responsibility focused at lower levels and a by the individual’s own needs and interests and
participative management style (which we call coupled with as complete a picture of organizational
‘employee involvement”)
reality as possible. Carriers will be characterized more
by lateral movement or no movement than by upward
We Respect to career planning we must:
movement.
- Encourage employee participation in the
management of their own careers.
From the individual’s perspective, there is need to
- Provide information on organizational trends and understand the factors affecting their own career. From
developments that will facilitate career planning
the company’s viewpoint there is a need encourage
- Define criteria for success in various areas and broad-based development to provide future managerial
provide extensive feedback to individuals on and professional personnel ... There is also a need to
where they stand in relation to these criteria and
signal to employees, especially high performing
- Implement supportive practices
individuals that while there has been a change in
orientation towards careers, there are still viable
The reduction in the overall number of employees options within the company.
and the reduction in structure (levels of
management and numbers of positions) forces a The ford Career Planning Program is based upon the
change in the way we look at career development. following beliefs.
- Fewer positions means fewer promotional Individuals have the right and responsibility to
opportunities.
participate in the management of their own
- Broader spans of control-delegated responsibilitycareers.
means more people with
The Company has the right and responsibility to
provide information to individuals and to act on
individual plans consistent with the needs of the
organization.
(Source: John Turner and Dr. Phyllis C Honer ‘Coping With Career Development in on Industry in Transition’
Questions for Discussion
1.
What is Career Planning and Career development? Explain the various career development actions.
2.
What are the benefits and problems of career planning and development? What do you suggest to
minimize career problems?
3.
What are the life and career stages? How does the organization plan for the career of employees based on
the career stages?
4.
What is succession planning? How do the organizations plan for the succession of the employees?
5.
What are the problems in career planning and development? Suggest the measures for effective career
planning and development
6.
Why do companies prefer outsourcing rather than developing the career of its employees?