Career Development - Overview

Career Development - Overview

People are the most important resource an organization can have. So, it becomes prime responsibility of the organizations to take care of their employees and give them an opportunity to grow especially to those who are career conscious and deliver performance. Career in 21st century is measured by continuous learning of the employees and identity changes in due course of time rather than changes in age and life stages. Career development of employees is not a mere responsibility of organizations, rather it is their obligation to address the ambitions of employees and create such job positions where they can accommodate their growing ambitions. Employees are career conscious and they’ll stick to an organization where they feel that they have an opportunity to showcase their talent, grow to the maximum possible level and achieve their objectives. When we talk about growth, it can have different meanings to different people. Some may look at it as a fat package, some may want to climb up the ladder in the hierarchy and reach the topmost position while some want to acquire higher skills and competencies along with their growth as a human being. Some people may take it as an opportunity to avail some exclusive perks and benefits. Depending upon one’s own thinking, different people take different actions in order achieve their objectives.

Given the present situations, if employees want their organization to give them an opportunity to grow and achieve their ambitions, they need to be prepared for the future jobs. The main focus of organizations is on the employability of their people. Therefore, individuals should make sure that they have skills and competencies plus willingness to perform a specific job efficiently. Although the organizations can hire employees from outside but they require portable competencies in order to get the job done. For this, they will need to impart training to them and develop skills and competencies according to the job profile. But this is a troublesome process and takes hell lot of time to prepare the employees for a specific job. In order to avoid this situation to the maximum possible extent, organizations take control of the careers of their already existing employees and foster succession planning to fill the topmost positions.

Individuals need to develop new and better skills so that they are fit for promotion and reach to a higher level in the organization. Organizations likewise need to become proactive in designing and implementing career development programs for their employees. It is the best thing they can do to decrease employee turnover. Although it is employees responsibility to plan their career but in today’s turbulent and terrifically ambiguous world of work it is the employers’ responsibility to provide them with opportunities achieve their ambitions. They need to create that environment and culture for continuous learning and support their employees by motivating and rewarding them.

Career development is a continuous process where both employees as well as employers have to put efforts in order to create conducive environment so that they can achieve their objectives at the same time.

Importance of Career Development

Although the business environment has been endlessly experiencing negative changes such as economic downsizing and restructuring resulting in fewer hierarchical positions but at the same time the need for improving productivity while keeping a pace with continuously changing technology has also increased. Organizations, therefore, instead of hiring a new individual from the market prefer to promote their already existing employee to a specific position as he or she is already aware of the organizational culture and does not need to be trained. This requires a careful succession planning of employees and developing and preparing them continuously for filling topmost designations in future. The process of organizational career development is important for both employees and employers. There may be several unintended and undesired changes as well as consequences that can change the entire scenario. In such a situation both employees and employers must be ready to keep with the changing environment and act accordingly. Employees continuously need to upgrade their skills and competencies to meet the current demands where as organizations must be ready with those employees who can handle the pressure efficiently and cease the risk of falling prey to the changed scenario. Therefore, understanding the importance of career development is very necessary for both the parties.

Business Environment Factors that can Bring Undesired Changes

• Economic Downsizing: The biggest of all the factors that has badly affected the careers of millions of individuals is economic downsizing. The jobs are cut from the organizations and the fittest of all employees survive. If employees continuously learn new and better skills, chances are that economic conditions won’t hurt them that badly as compared to other individuals.
• De-layering: De-layering means reclassification of jobs. This is an organizational change initiative where a company decides to reclassify the jobs more broadly. However, old reporting lines do exist in order to maintain managerial control but some jobs may be removed or cut down during the process. Again, those individuals have to leave the organization who are not competent enough to be shifted to other job with different nature.
• Cost Reduction Strategies of the Organization: Cost-reduction strategies of the organizations are again very dangerous for those individuals who are not prepared to move on to the next level. If organizations have to cut down their operating costs, the employment of those individuals is at stake who are not employable or who have not performed up to the mark in past. Employees continuously need to upgrade themselves and show their talent in order to remain in the organizations till long.
• IT Innovations: Continuous changes and up gradation in the technology is also one of the major factors that bring change. Some individuals can keep a pace with the changing technology and are always ready to learn and adopt new IT applications while some show immense resistance which is not acceptable to the organizations. Employees need to keep themselves updated and show willingness to accept changes as and when they occur and mould themselves accordingly.

The business changes affect both organizations and employees. The need is to understand them and find a way to cope with them effectively.

Designing Career Development Systems

Organizational career development process includes both individuals and institutions. Individuals plan their own careers whereas institutions or organizations manage the careers of the employees. Career planning by an individual includes several sub processes such as occupational choices, organizational choices, job assignment choices and career self-development. While the major sub processes of career management by organizations include recruitment and selection, human resource allocation, appraisal and evaluation and training and development. In order to have effective career development attempts by the organizations, designing automated career development systems plays a crucial role as it integrates a series of activities related to individual career planning and organizational career management involving employees, management and the organization. An individual’s career is a series or sequence of work-related activities as well as his or her future aspirations. It is affected by several factors such as his or her behavior, attitude, values, ambitions and desires and opportunities and threats and weaknesses and strengths plus the outer environment and economic conditions. It is a deliberate process followed by an individual depending upon his or her desires and aspirations over the span of one’s life.

Career management is an ongoing process that takes into account a particular job title or designation while preparing, implementing and monitoring succession planning depending upon the future requirements of an organization. Obviously, it also takes human factors in account but the entire process is directed and operated as per the needs and convenience of an organization. The best planning takes into account both organization’s and individual’s aspirations and creates a perfect mix where both the parties can be benefited.

Designing Career Development Systems

Designing career development systems according to specific needs and requirements of an organization can help HR specialists in bringing efficiency to the entire process of career management. Since the system tries to integrate all the activities of an employee, management as well as an organization, it has to be tailor-designed. There is nothing that fits all since the nature of the every business is different and aspirations of every employee in every industry are different. Most companies along with career management programs also involve career assessment process by the employee. If they have supportive environment such as a facilitator and properly automated system, they will properly assess their careers and fill genuine information about themselves.

Most organizations such as Xerox, IBM, Wal-Mart, Lincoln electric and Bell Atlantic have their own specific career development systems. Along with this, they provide their employees with supportive environment and a culture that supports the whole process of career development. This is the reason why these companies are considered as the best places to work. Since they manage the careers of their employees seriously and treat them as the most valuable assets of the organization, a very high percentage of university graduates prefer joining them even if they offer low compensation.

While designing career development system for an organization, the nature of their business, the industry and the business environment they are operating in should also be considered. Although it is an internal process of an organization but outer environment factors such as job market, current trends, economic conditions, etc affect the entire process.

Benefits of a Career Development System

Career development programs are most effective when they are integrated with the organization’s ongoing training and development strategies. For being able to do this, an organization must have a carefully designed career development system especially designed to meet its own unique needs and requirements. An automated and well-designed career management system not only benefits organizations but also help employees and managers or supervisors in establishing effective communication with each other. All the parties gain different benefits and combining which they can together set an organizational culture that supports such types of activities in an organization. Benefits of a Career Development System to Organization Once organization has a fair idea about employee’s strengths and weaknesses, attitude and behavior, values and future aspirations and skills and competencies, they are able to make better use of employee skills and put them at the right place. The organization can disseminate all important details and information at all organizational levels in order to ensure effective communication at all levels. It fosters and lays emphasis on better communication within the organization as a whole. It also helps organization retain valued employees by providing them what they want. Since the organization is able to collect all necessary information about a specific individual, it can make efforts to retain them It establishes a reputation of the organization in the market. More and more working professionals see it as a people developer and get attracted towards it.

Benefits of a Career Development System to Employees

• The major benefit of career development system to employees is that they get helpful assistance and guidance with their career decisions. They get to know about their own aspirations, objectives and desires and understand how to shape their career.
• By using this system, they can set more realistic goals and objectives that are feasible to be accomplished over the span of one’s life.
• It fosters better communication between the employee and the manager as well as at all levels of the organization.
• The best part is that they can get feedback on their performance. This helps them improve their working style and compels them to upgrade their skills.
• The process leads to job enrichment and enhanced job satisfaction.

Benefits of a Career Development System to Managers/Supervisors

• A career development system helps managers and supervisors in improving and upgrading their skills in order to manage their own career. Even they get to where they are heading to and what their aspirations are.
• It fosters better communication between managers and employees.
• It helps them in retaining valued employees as they get to know about their skills and competencies and future aspirations as well.
• It helps in discussing productive performance appraisal of employees and planning their promotions as well as their career graph.
• It leads to greater understanding of the organization as a whole and cultivate a supportive and conducive culture in the organization.
• It helps managers in understanding the hidden aspects of employees and guides them to allocate employees the right job that matches to their skills and competencies.

Components of a Career Development System

A career development system includes a variety of components for use in the organizations. In order to increase the efficiency of the system, the HR mangers must have complete knowledge about these tools since they play a role of consultant when employees and supervisors use this system. Plus, they are responsible for designing and developing an effective career development system for their organization. Some activities or components are known as individual career planning tools while some are used for organizational career management. To achieve greater efficiency, most organizations use a right combination of both types of activities. Let us understand these tools and activities to learn in-depth about career development system: Self Assessment Tools: This is the first technique that is widely used by organizations in their efforts to career management of their employees. This is a career exploration tool where individuals complete self-assessment exercises and fill information about their skills, interests, competencies, work attitudes and preferences, long and short term goals and obstacles and opportunities. The whole exercise helps them understand their own desires and aspirations and likes and dislikes.

• Career Planning Workshops: Once employees are through their self-assessment, they share their findings with other individuals and their supervisors in career-planning workshops. It allows them to receive feedback from others and check the reality of their plans and aspirations. They may change their plans if they find them unrealistic and move in new direction.
• Individual Counseling: It is one of the most common activities that are undertaken by almost all people developing organizations. Generally, individual counseling is provided by career development specialists, HR specialists or life skills development trainers. Some organizations hire them from outside while some have their own fully fledged departments where they recruit and hire trainers for full time. It helps employees in understanding their own goals, making a change in them if required and working on improving their skills and competencies.
• Organizational Assessment Programs: Organizational assessment programs include tools and methods for evaluating employees’ potential for growth within the organization. Johnson & Johnson is one company that uses these programs to assess the careers of their employees and evaluate their potential in order to facilitate the staffing and development of special teams known as “tiger teams”. These special teams are formed to speed up the development of new products. The most popular programs under this category include assessment centers, psychological testing, 360 degree appraisal, promo ability forecasts and succession planning.
• Developmental Programs: Developmental programs are used by an organization to develop their employees for future positions. They can be internal as well as external and can be performed under the supervision of human resource staff or trainers and specialists from outside. These programs include assessment centers, job rotation programs, tuition refund plans, internal training programs, external training seminars and formal mentoring programs.

In addition to these programs, there are several other components of a career development system such as career programs for special target groups, fast-track or high potential employees, supervisors, senior-level employees, women, technical employees, minorities and employees with disabilities, etc.

Objectives of Career Development Systems

Career development has become primary activity of organizations in order to create a pool of talented employees as well as enhance their career satisfaction. Along with this, it is also considered as an organized and planned process to improve the efficiency of organization. In common terms, we may look upon it as an effort to strike a balance between organizational workforce requirements and individual career needs. Employees have their own personal desires and aspirations and need to effectively utilize their personal skills to attain their career goals and objectives. On the other hand, organizations have needs for staffing and meeting present and future human resource requirements. A career development system is a mechanism that takes both the parties in to consideration and helps them meet their requirements as well as objectives.

Objectives of Career Development Systems

• Fostering Better Communication in Organization: The main objective of designing a career development system is to foster better communication within the organization as a whole. It promotes communication at all levels of organizations for example manager and employee and managers and top management. Proper communication is the lifeblood of any organization and helps in solving several big issues.
• Assisting with Career Decisions: A career development system provides employees as well as managers with helpful assistance with career decisions. They get an opportunity to assess their skills and competencies and know their goals and future aspirations. It helps them give a direction so that they can focus on achieving their long term career goals.
• Better Use of Employee Skills: A career development system helps organization make better use of employee skills. Since managers know their skills and competencies and therefore, can put them at a job where they will be able to produce maximum output.
• Setting Realistic Goals: Setting realistic goals and expectations is another main objective of a career development system. It helps both employees and organization to understand what is feasible for them and how they can achieve their goals.
• Creating a Pool of Talented Employees: Creating a pool of talented employees is the main objective of organizations. After all, they need to meet their staffing needs in present and future and a career development system helps them fulfill their requirements.
• Enhancing the Career Satisfaction: Organizations especially design career development systems for enhancing the career satisfaction of their employees. Since they have to retain their valuable assets and prepare them for top notch positions in future, they need to understand their career requirements and expectations from their organization.
• Feedback: Giving feedback on every step is also required within an organization to measure the success rate of a specific policy implemented and initiatives taken by the organization. In addition to this, it also helps managers to give feedback for employees’ performance so that they can understand what is expected of them.

A career development system can be very effective in creating a supportive culture in the organization and help employees grow and utilize their skills to achieve their desires and aspirations related to their career. Both organization and employees can meet their goals simultaneously.

Career Development Issues with Teams

Teams are increasingly being considered as a unit of work world over. Organizations seek harmony, coordination and oneness in teams for growth and prosperity. More emphasis is laid on group and team dynamics, still however career development issues concerning the teams are neglected somewhere, which is truer for organizations in the developing world and multinational corporations. Individuals are being replaced at a rapid pace and there are both positive and negative facets of the same. There has been sufficient amount of discussion surrounding individual issues like the selection procedures, designing the training programs, the appraisal systems and rewards and recognition. All these fall within the ambit of individual career development issues. However, as mentioned earlier, not much attention has been paid to career development issues pertaining to teams! This write up is dedicated to the same. Teams play a very important role in the individual and career development of the team members. If team dynamics are understood and exploited properly, individual and collective development will happen exponentially. For example one simple way of development of team members would be through benchmarking with team members who exhibit better competencies and skills. Teams can use these member skills and competencies to develop the same in other members who lag behind in certain areas where others excel.

Taking the above mentioned example further and assuming a team of people from across various departments. Different people from different departments make up for an interesting mix in terms of skills, competencies and attitude. People from quality, for example, can teach or introduce various quality concepts to those who are naive to the latter e.g. the marketing department. People from operations would be reasonably good in quality concepts and HR may or not be up to the mark depending upon the kind of organization. Marketing people can similarly share their competencies in marketing communication which may be a weak link in the productions department.

This exchange of skills and competencies can lead to better staffing flexibility. In yet another way, team members may help in identification of training needs for members. Even if team members do not make a conscious effort on acquiring of new skills, a simple rotation of tasks or assignments among the team members will facilitate the skills exchange.

The need analysis program can lead to a developmental plan for each member of the team. In highly empowered teams the execution of the developmental plan also lies on the team members. In Cadillac, for example, each plant and work unit has a training needs analysis program in place that reminds the members of the KSA’s required to achieve targets or goals.

Teams can thus be geared towards acting as a very powerful tool for individual career development, where team members can enhance their own work skills and those of their peers. One strong reason why teams fail is an inappropriate staff / member selection for the team, which creates barriers for skills transfer. Once this is overcome development issues within a team is taken care of.

Mentoring and Career Development

Mentoring is one of the most effective career development programs these days. In India it is gaining popularity even among SMEs (Small medium enterprises). It is in fact one of the better ways to foster relationship within individuals across the organizational hierarchy. Mentoring is a process of developing formal relationships between junior and senior members of the organization, in certain cases mentoring also takes place between peers. In other words it is a process of developing relationships between more experienced members of an organization and the less experienced ones for transfer of knowledge and skills. These associations are developed with the intent of developing career functions. For example, coaching, sponsorship, protection to peer, challenging assignments, introduction to important contacts and resources are certain ways in which mentoring may happen. Mentoring is also targeted to psychological functions; role modeling, counseling, benchmarking individual practices are various ways in which the latter is achieved. It is no doubt an important tool that apart from employee development also leads to increased job satisfaction, organizational dedication and career achievement.

The process of mentoring works both ways i.e. it benefits the parties, the mentor and the mentee. It increases the job involvement and satisfaction of the mentor. In case of the one mentored, he feels valuable, the job satisfaction increases and there is essentially a transfer of knowledge and skills.

Organizations’ that have Formal Mentoring Programs

Lots of organizations are using mentoring programs as means of career development. Federal express, bank of America and Merrill lynch are some organization that have formal mentoring programs in place. Bank of America for example has developed quad squads which comprises of a mentor and three mentees (also called as protégé for ‘males’ and ‘protégée’ for female). Many organizations have also developed like to like mentoring relationships (for example Anglo-Indian mentors with Anglo-Indian mentees).

Mentoring Techniques

Mentoring requires an exercise of great wisdom, caution and expertise on the part of the mentor. There are many techniques that are used these days, some of which have been briefly explained below:

1.      Mentors are assigned with the responsibility of preparing their mentee for change. The focus is to prepare the individual mentally before he/she is asked for change, so that the change is not taken as negative and instead a developmental process. This mentoring technique s called sowing.

2.      The other entering technique is called as accompanying, wherein the mentor is involved in the learning process of mentee side by side explicitly, guiding all the time.

3.      Doing is yet another mentoring technique in which the mentor uses his own example to make something understand. It is also called leading.

4.      Harvesting is one technique that is essentially aimed at evaluation of the past learning’s and to extract conclusions from the same.

5.      Catalyzing is one technique wherein the process of learning or knowledge transfer is speeded. This is done only when a significant amount of change is achieved.

For mentoring it is important to understand the learning requirements and the style of the mentee. An inappropriate mentoring methodology can act reverse. As mentioned at the beginning of the write up, you require great deal of expertise for the mentoring process. Handle with care is the mantra!

Career Management - Meaning and Important Concepts

Career management is conscious planning of one’s activities and engagements in the jobs one undertakes in the course of his life for better fulfillment, growth and financial stability. It is a sequential process that starts from an understanding of oneself and encompasses occupational awareness. An individual’s career is the sole source of one’s natural expression of self. One school of thought describes work as the purpose of life and the source of one’s expression and the purpose of being or existence. Yet others believe that there is a wide difference between an individual’s career and his life. In any case, career is an integral component of one’s life and therefore the need for its management. Career management is more or less like the organizational management; after all an organization is nothing but an assortment of individuals! The process of career management begins with the formulation of goals and objectives those that are short term or meant to be achieved in the short run.

This is a tedious task compared to a long term career goal which is more or visionary in nature. Since the objective is short term or immediate, it is more of action oriented. Second it demands achievement every day, every moment. Again this step can be very difficult for those who are not aware of the opportunities available or are not completely conscious of their talents. However more specific, measurable and achievable the goals greater are the chances of the management plan bearing fruit.

Achievement of goal requires a well chalked strategy, which implies a plan of action to achieve the goal. This has to be followed by drafting or establishment of procedures / policies / norms or rules that govern action or practice.

The final step in the career management process is evaluation of the career management plan for ensuring that progress is being made or if there is a need to introduce some changes in the latter.

One may also utilize the services of various career assessment tests at various stages to choose career paths that are in tandem with ones likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses. These tests range from ones that are small and brief to the ones that are exhaustive offering minute details. Some of the tests that one may like to undergo are MBTI (Myers and Briggs Type Indicator), SDI (Strength Deployment Inventory) and Multiple Intelligence among others.

The onus of career management is more on the individual self than the employer. Ensuring personal development in terms of skills, competencies, change in attitude with time are things one may need to take care of on one’s own. Short term goals need to met and evaluated. The long term career goals need to be revised with the change in employment scenario and self; organizations may or may not be concerned in a big way or aligned to your priorities in career and life. Often counseling is of major help in evaluating a job and the future prospects and for establishing clarity of values for they undergo a change with the passage of time!

Indicators of Career Program Effectiveness

A career development program is a planned mechanism to integrate a series of activities related to individual career planning by the employees and organizational career management for the employees. The main objective of designing and developing a career management program is to provide employees with an opportunity to grow within the organization and expand their horizons and upgrade and use their skills to maximum possible extent so that the organization can be benefited ultimately. Times have changed and so have the needs and aspirations of employees. Gone are the days when they would stick to their job until their retirement. In today’s world, when there is so much to explore and achieve, they simply can’t afford to be static. They need continuous development and evolvement of themselves and reach new heights. Career program in such a scenario tries to strike a balance between the employee requirements and objectives and organizations requirements and objectives. The entire program is a consortium of several activities and workshops that help in fostering better communication at all levels of organization so everyone can understand each other’s requirements, skills and competencies.

The program also gives employees an opportunity to understand their own desires and aspirations and feasibility of their goals so that they can assess their skills and competencies and therefore, set realistic goals. Once a career program is introduced in the organization, the top management has to make sure that it serves the purpose for which it has been introduced and implemented. There are several factors that indicate the effectiveness of a career program. By assessing and analyzing them, the HR professionals can measure till what extent the program has been successful.

Indicators of Career Program Effectiveness

• Matching the Standards with the Results: Comparison between already established goals and objectives and achievement is the biggest indicator of the effectiveness of a career program. Lesser the difference between the two, more successful the program is. But before matching the two, HR managers should make sure that the set standards were feasible to achieve and achieved output is calculated without any bias.
• Greater Self Awareness among Employees: The effectiveness of the program can also be measured by the degree of increase in self awareness among employees. If they feel that they have achieved greater self awareness and self-determination and acquired necessary and useful information about their career, the program is definitely a big success.
• Balance between Employee and Organization Requirements and Objectives: Implementation of a career development program should result in better communication at all levels within the organization, a balance match between individual and organizational career and identification of talent pool by HR specialists are other major indicators that can help you measure the effectiveness of a career development program.
• Changes in Performance Indexes: Improved employee performance ratings, improved employee morale, reduced turnover rates; reduced employee absenteeism, increased promotions from within and reduced time to fill job openings are other positive indicators for measuring the effectiveness of a career program.

Along with this, a positive change in the attitude and behavior of employees and adequacy of organizational career information can also be seen as indicators of career program effectiveness.

Implications of Workplace Changes

Career, as a series of upward moves of income, status, power and security has died long back. In 21st century, career is seen as continuous learning and changes in identity due to experience and personal learning along with upward moves in income, status and power. Employees, these days want a fulfilling career and organizations need to give them. The traditional psychological set up of individuals has changed and they no longer have the same interests. They desire for a boundary less, alive and flourishing career where they get a chance to shape their lives according to their requirements. Organizations need to understand the desires and demands of their employees if they want to create a pool of talent for them and ensure better working all through. In order to strike a balance with continuous workplace changes, both employees and organizations have to come to the mutually beneficial terms so that both can meet their requirements and future aspirations.

Tips for Individuals to Handle Workplace Changes

• The main focus of organizations today is on the employability of individuals. They should not hold on to a specific job. Rather they should focus on developing skills and competencies that are portable and can be used anywhere and everywhere in the time crisis.
• Individuals must take care of their career needs, desires and aspirations. They need to take control of their careers and look out for their career interests. After all, they also have right to look out for their dream jobs.
• They must think of developing new and better personal skills in order to achieve their dream careers. Plus, they should make every effort to assess themselves and their competencies and plan their careers accordingly. Most organizations lack in employee career planning. In such a scenario, the entire responsibility comes on individuals to choose their own direction.
• Employees must invest in reputation building, networking, socializing and peer learning relationships so that they can fulfill their desires and aspirations.
• Individuals must be committed towards lifelong learning to keep their skills updated and relevant to increase their employability.

Recommendations for Organizations

• Although it is an employee’s responsibility to manage his or her own career but times have changed and it is now employer’s responsibility too to provide their employees with tools and techniques, professional career guidance and opportunities so that they can enhance their skills and re-invent themselves.
• It is employer’s responsibility to create an environment that supports continuous learning and overall development of individuals. It can be done through professional training, associations, workshops, etc. Organizations such as Motorola, Intel and Ford are known as people developers just because they offer supportive environment to their employees.
• The organizations must make arrangements to provide additional training such as orientation training, core training and computer training in order to increase employability of the employees. Along with this, they should support this with a proper reward system.
• Before hiring new candidates or outsourcing, organizations must try to redeploy their already existing employees and teach them new skills.
• They should assist employees in striking a balance between their work and non-work life so that they can produce better output at work.

Organizational Assessment Programs

The purpose of organization assessment programs is to evaluate the potential of employees for growth and development within the organization. Many organizations such as Johnson & Johnson, Ford, Intel and IBM use such programs to fulfill their staffing requirements. Since these organizations are known for continuous innovation, they need special target groups in order to handle their very special department. These specially formulated teams consist of those individuals who have greater employability and are able to work under pressure. To speed up high-priority development of new products and innovation of entirely different products, highly competent individuals are required. In order to fulfill their staffing requirements, these organizations take help of assessment programs.

Organizational Assessment Programs

• Assessment Centers: Assessment centers are popular decision-making tools that are used by most companies including Pratt & Whitney, AT & T, Sears Reobuck & Co., TVA, JC Penney, IBM, GE and Bendix. All the individuals (participants) in assessment centers are engaged in a variety of exercises and put in different situations including tests, group discussions, interviews, in-baskets and business games. Their performances are evaluated by the experts. After that a panel of trainers gives them an in-depth feedback on their strengths and weaknesses. They then are given an opportunity to improve their skills and set their future career goals.
• Psychological Testing: Psychological testing consists of written test that help individuals as well as organizations understand their personality, career interests, work attitudes, vocational interests and other personal characteristics. It reveals their career needs and preferences and then they are given jobs that suit their personality as well as skills and competencies.
• Promotability Forecasts: Promotability forecasting is a tool that helps organizations is identifying the individuals with exceptionally high potential to perform different types of jobs. This technique is used in making early forecasts. Once individuals are identified, they are made to attend conferences and training programs and other relevant developmental experiences in order to groom them for higher positions. Several companies have different programs to groom different groups of employees. Along with this, high potential employees are given developmental assignments that are a real test for them.
• Succession Planning: Succession planning is a formal process with an aim to groom lower level individuals to replace next-higher level individual in case he or she leaves the organization or gets retired. The process involves continuous review top executives and the next lower level employees in order to determine whether he or she is the right backup for the senior executive or not. This is the most important exercise which often takes several years in grooming the next person for the senior position. It includes overall development of the selected individual and continuous review of his or her performance. This is a common assessment tool in Fortune 500 companies that choose their CEO by the same process. Organizations create a pool of talented employees who have high leadership potential. They are put to different jobs in different situations and are evaluated by a panel of experts. The process is usually restricted to senior level management only.

Benefits of Formal Succession Planning

Succession planning is one of the most important career development tools used by organizations. This is done to determine the backups for each senior position by identifying and training the executives who are at the next-lower levels. This is an important process as most organizations rely on it to find their next CEO and other top notch executives. This includes an overall development of lower level employees to make sure that they can effectively handle the responsibilities that they will be handed over in next few years. Formal succession planning is an examination of organization’s long range plans and strategies and HR forecasts. It also offers several other benefits and has a positive impact on organizational culture and efficiency. Benefits of Formal Succession Planning Formal succession planning is a systematic approach for preparing employees at lower levels to handle the responsibilities of next higher levels in the coming years. The process involves a lot of serious planning and careful HR forecasts in identifying the capable employees who have the potential to be promoted to next level in the hierarchy.

• It provides a logical approach for succession of top notch positions by the next lower-level employee. It is all about identifying the skills and competencies and potential of an employee so that he or she can be deployed at different jobs in the time of crisis.
• Succession planning gives the answers to all the questions regarding preparing an individual for the next level in the organizational hierarchy. It helps HR specialists in knowing and understanding why a specific individual should be developed and trained to promote to the next level.
• It reduces the randomness in organization’s processes and managerial development movements and establishes formal steps and actions, policies and procedures to support the process of selecting the CEO and other top management executives.
• A formal succession planning process is a proactive approach to fill a top position. It helps HR professionals to anticipate problems in the process before they get started. This is very important to avoid negative and dysfunctional situations.
• It fosters cross-functional development and facilitates the integration of HR planning components, processes and procedures. Not only this, it supports connecting formats, guidelines, analyses, judgments and discussions at their front.
• Formal succession planning helps in further exploitation of computer systems, HRP software applications, HR tools and techniques in order to support the identification, development and training of the individuals.
• It helps HR managers in overcoming the limitations of reactive management approaches and fosters pro-active management approaches to make organization a better place to work.
• It establishes a logical basis for making choices among qualified candidates. Who should be selected, why they should be selected and what skills and competencies they own and what needs to be developed in them are critical factors while identifying the employees for succession planning.
• The process establishes a specific connection between the business objectives and HR strategic planning. Along with this, it also increases internal promotion opportunities.

Career Programs for Special Target Groups

Career development programs are designed to meet specific needs and requirements of a particular group of employees. They can be developed for a particular department of special target groups. Depending upon the group for which the program is to be designed, the activities and workshops involved in it also change accordingly. Therefore, before designing and developing a career development program, it is very essential to analyze the requirements of the targeted group. However, there can be some common programs that can be used for all groups within the organizations. There are several different groups in an organization including Fast-track Employees, entrenched employees, supervisors, executives, new employees, women, employees with disabilities and many more. Career Programs for Fast-Track Employees Fast-track employees are the star performers who have potential to do more that what they are supposed to. The organizations place such employees in fast fast-track groups for quick and upward moves. These are specially selected employees from various groups and departments who are given an opportunity for rapid and intensive development.

These employees require continuous technical as well as psychological training in order to expand their horizons and develop such skills that they can perform more challenging jobs of different kinds. Fast-track employees are also able to manage quicker job changes particularly in the time of crisis. The organization can design high-ended career development programs for them to ensure their quick and intensive development.

Career Programs for Entrenched Employees

Since organizations undergo a lot of restructuring and cutback due to recession and streamlining of their activities and operations. Because of this, many employees are asked to leave the organization and explore some other career opportunity. In order to eliminate negative consequences, organizations can start career programs for this special group in order to help them find a new job. Organizations can offer generous severance pay packages to them to fund their career explorations. Along with this, they can also introduce schemes such as pension funds and accrued time off. They can also provide ongoing career development training and counseling and outplacement assistance to them.

Career Programs for Supervisors

When every group requires different career development programs, obviously the needs of supervisors will also be different from other employees. The can be provided with continuous training, counseling and coaching on how to lead teams and recognize special skills in an employee. Since they act as mentors of their subordinates, they should be provided with an integrated counseling on performance appraisal system and how to use it in order to measure the performance of their subordinates.

Career Programs for Women

With increasing numbers of women entering the workplace, the organizations must develop special career programs for them. Organizations need to identify their problems and challenges that they face on regular basis and try to develop special programs while keeping all these points and considerations in mind. Since women are good multi-taskers, the HR specialists should make special efforts to enhance their abilities and capabilities and motivate them to perform better regardless of the circumstances and difficulties in their personal lives. They have different problems and different requirements when it comes to career. This should be kept in mind while designing specialized programs for them.

Policies on Hiring Couples and Relocation Assistance

Recent studies have shown that many employees are less willing to accept relocation offers from their employers. The most important factor related to their willingness to relocate is their spouse’s willingness. Couples prefer working in the same city once they get married and in rarest of the rare cases they are willing to move. It is not surprising finding as it has been happening since the time when women started taking up jobs. Earlier relocation was not a real problem but when both the individuals are working, organizations are facing huge problems in relocating their employees. If they pressurize the employee to relocate, they start looking up for other employment opportunities and put in their papers with their current organization. Some large scale organizations, popularly known as people developers have already begun offering relocation assistance to their employees. They make arrangements for the relocation of their spouses also. However, the level and degree of such assistance is quite low. It depends on the necessity of the relocation of that particular employee.

Mostly, the relocation assistance is offered to the employees of higher grade. Low level or middle level employees still do not come in this category and organizations still don’t find it feasible for them to provide relocation assistance to these employees. Yes, top-notch employees can definitely take advantage of this policy.

Providing relocation assistance does not mean that the organization would offer job to the spouses of their employees. Rather it means, they offer a specific amount to a spouse in order to help him or her with resume writing and job hunting. Some companies also assist them in finding job in the state or country where they’ll be relocated through their references and networking. Motorola is known to offer such assistance to the spouses of their employees who are relocated to take up international assignments. This is a positive development for both the parties. Unisys has a policy to pay around $ 500 to the working spouse of their employee to help with job hunting and resume writing.

Even Johnson & Johnson offers career counseling to the spouse of their employees and provide them with job-related information in order to foster relocation. Many organizations including Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway and ConAgra have specially hired relocation consultants and even firms to assist them in planning the relocation of their employees. Not only this, they also involve their employees in the entire process and relocate them only when they find out a feasible solution.

Some organizations have reworked on their policies and allow their managers to hire both spouses. They have altered their policies on nepotism but they still have this rule in place that they still cannot work under the same supervisor in the same department or cannot work under the direct supervision of his or her spouse. In order to hire both spouses, they have introduced several policies that are beneficial to them. This is beneficial for the employer as well because it includes less expense on employee relocation and transfers. They can now relocate the entire family easily. The major disadvantage of this policy is that if one spouse leaves the organization die to any reason, the other may also leave.

Career Personality Tests

A career personality test centers on finding what a particular individual is best at and for what types of jobs he or she will be suitable. This test helps professionals in understanding their priorities, career aspirations, desires and values and goals. It is not necessary to choose a career in a particular domain which you have studied at university level. Different individuals have different mind setups and different needs and requirements and skills and competencies when it comes to their career. Not all individuals having same educational qualifications are competent to handle the same type of job. If you want to change your career but don’t know which way to go, do not worry! A career personality test will help you in defining your goals and objectives more clearly and finding the career opportunities that would suit you according to your personality type. Career personality tests can be broken into different parts including career assessment tests, personality assessment tests and assessment on how to have a successful professional life, personality tests for career paths. All these components play an important role in helping individuals make their career choices.

These tests are not popular in small organizations but several industry giants known as people developers regularly provide opportunities to their employees to understand their competencies and career interests so that they can put at the right place and be used effectively.

Career personality test deals in identifying the interests, abilities, likes, values and desires and aspirations of the individuals related to diverse jobs or occupations. The main objective of conducting these tests is to enable people to identify the careers they can excel into by analyzing their strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, interests and disinterests, skills and competencies. It is good to conduct these tests prior to taking admission in a particular course but since most people don’t do that, many big organizations help their employees find what they are best at.

The second main component is personality assessment test which is comprised of different questions and scenarios. The main objective of this test is to determine the personality, character, capability, emotional quotient, willingness and preferences of an individual inside various professional fields. The personality patterns can be used to identify which particular line of work is ideal for an individual where he or she can give their best. Based upon the results of test, the individuals are told what careers match their personality. Organizations use this test to determine the competency of an individual within a chosen area.

Understanding how to have a successful, long and fulfilling professional life is very important. Most people who are not satisfied with their professional lives are not happy in their personal lives too. Therefore, striking a balance is very important. It can be achieved only when individuals do what they like. A career personality test helps them understand how they can bring efficiency and effectiveness in their work to live a fulfilling and satisfying life.

There are numerous types of career personality test. You can conduct an online research to find out which one is the most authentic and gives genuine results. You can determine more suitable career options according to your personality.

Career Ladders and Career Paths

Typically a career involves a growth path which takes an individual to a higher position in the organizational hierarchy over a certain period of time. It is called the career ladder or the career path. Most of the organizations map out various steps in the lifetime of an organization in advance. This is done to proactively assess various job movements, vertical and lateral or cross functional moves. Career ladders are part of the information services which in turn is a component of the career development systems. It is a part of the career management process. According to one survey conducted among 182 of the fortune 500 firms, career ladders or career path was considered as one of the effective tools of retention, work motivation and having the communication. The process of chalking the career path is beneficial to both the employees and the organization. From the perspective of the organization, they are able to preempt future job opportunities for the employees and for answering employee queries about their career progression. Lots of organizations group jobs by job families. General Motors for instance employs one such strategy. They group marketing, HR, Engineering and production etc to draft a picture of future prospects for the employee in each group.

For an employee the career path or the ladder helps him set targets for himself throughout his career; evaluate himself continually and develop new skills required at the time of transition from one position to a higher. The career path carries the time line, the intermediate goals and the skills and competencies or the qualifications. It thus serves as a guide map. For example the career path in a sales department may look like:

Executive Business Development ⇒ Senior Executive Business Development ⇒ Assistant Manager ⇒ Deputy Manager ⇒ Manager ⇒ Area Sales Manager ⇒ Senior Manager ⇒ Deputy General Manager ⇒ General Manager ⇒ Vice President and so forth.

At each level an employee may be required to spend a certain amount of time and give a certain level of productivity. Unless the individual performs brilliantly the time frame is not compromised upon. In a research survey it was found out that, those organization who picked up very young professionals from top business schools and escalated them to senior positions failed miserably despite their rich skills and qualifications! It is thus necessary to spend certain time at each level, which prepares you for the next.

Employees who outperform others are placed on fast track development tracks where they are provided training inputs so that they are able to move up the ladder and assume leadership positions soon. For such cases multiple or dual career paths have come up in the recent years! This is especially true for scientists and engineers who lacked managerial skills and were regarded as misfits for leadership or managerial positions, not anymore. Nowadays organizations have dual career paths so that a person in a technical position can move up through any of the desired paths.

It therefore appears that career paths and ladders are good contributors to the career development system within organizations. Apart from the above mentioned benefits they also act as agents of motivation by helping the employees remain focused.

Employment Counseling

Many firms across the globe have realized the necessity of employment counseling. One of the reasons is to create a quality workforce along with desired skills and competencies in order to utilize them to maximum possible extent. In today’s highly turbulent and ever-changing environment, keeping a pace with the latest developments and surviving the cut throat competition have become the first priority. In such a scenario, having a talented and extraordinary workforce is the first and foremost requirement. Organizations can only rely on their human resources as a company’s success is attributed to the quality of manpower it has. Today, many HR specialists and practitioners are busy developing innovative techniques and tools to attract the best chunk of people and utilizing their skills to the maximum possible extent. Employment counseling is an attempt to determine individual’s interests, desires, aspirations and skills and competencies in various occupations and jobs. The information collected is very important in order to understand where to put a particular employee to get maximum output from him or her. It is one of the most popular services offered by organizations to their employees.

The organizations which are looking to retain their biggest assets and attract new talent from the industry care for their employees and try to provide them services and assistance to make their relationship more meaning and purposeful. An organization may gain competitive advantage from this tool as they target to make every employee better.

Employment counseling is a process that helps individuals in learning how to deal with their interpersonal, decisional and emotional problems. The specially appointed counselors help them to learn and encourage changing and moving in a direction where they can give their 100 percent. It is a well planned step-by-step process with an ultimate objective of achieving satisfaction and fulfillment from professional life. Other than this, the main objectives of the process also include bringing positive changes in the behaviors of employees making them independent problem solvers, bringing changes in their habits, helping them choose a more suitable career option, bringing a nice change in their outlook towards different things, helping them to handle interpersonal conflicts, assisting them in dealing with their emotional instability and facilitating them to communicate more amicably with their team members.

It is also known as a remedial approach as it is offered to provide employees with an expert’s assistance to deal with their issues related to their professional life. It is also called a preventive approach that helps employees realize their potential and career interests before it is too late to make a right career choice. On the other hand, when employees get such services in their organizations, they develop a sense of belongingness towards them and stick to them even in crisis.

Employment counseling is beneficial for both employees as well as employers as it has a positive impact on them and helps both the parties achieve their short-term and long-term goals. No one is perfect - neither the organizations nor the employees. This is an effort to fight with inadequacies of employees and well as employers.