A career development system is formal, organized, planned in an effort to achieve a balance between individual career needs and organizational workforce requirements. It’s a relatively young function.
It’s necessary to attract and keep qualified employees.
It’s important for both individuals and organizations and human resource development.
What are the Components of Career Development Programs?
A career development program involves the following elements or activities:
1. Career Need Assessment
A person’s career is a higher personal element of life. A person should be permitted to make his own decision in this regard. Employees may not be aware of what they want to become.
Their career needs can be judged by evaluating their aptitudes, abilities, and potential.
The HR manager should assist employees in assessing their career needs and in identifying their career goals.
He should assist in this decision-making process by providing as much information as possible about the employee to the employee.
Employees’ primary interest should be determined to perform different types of work.
The following evaluation instruments or devices can be used to determine employees basic aptitudes:
- Life Planning Workbooks: These facilitate career decision making.
- Formal Assessment centers workshops: These provide employees their assessment through psychological testing, simulation exercises, and depth interviewing.
- Expert Observers: They help employees to make decisions concerning proper career goals and specific development needs.
Candidates are urged to consider the relative importance of such things as prestige, independence, money, and security.
They are also asked to think about whether they basically loners or socially oriented, whether they prefer to lead or follow.
The objective in these assessment programs is not that of selecting future promotees, but rather to help individuals to do their own planning.
Related: What are the roles and responsibilities of the training manager?
2. Career Opportunities
Career opportunities can be identified through Job analysis. Job description, job specification, and job redesign can reveal and chart specific career paths and lines of advancement.
Low ceiling jobs, where there is limited opportunity for significant progression, should be identified and made known to possible applications.
The employee needs to know what types of jobs are now and will be available in the immediate future, as well as in the medium and long-range information should be provided concerning:
- Actual duties of jobs.
- What is required in the way of training and development?
- How the employees become eligible for training.
- Selection criteria for those who have completed training.
- What jobs lead to other jobs.
- Lines of promotion and the route to the top job.
- Career ladder.
Career information can be published in a booklet form, based on such information, employees can plan their own career movement and progression.
3. Need Opporuntittyh Alignement
When employees have accurately assessed their career needs and have become aware of organizational career opportunities, the next step is one of alignment.
The organization can design appropriate development programs to help employees integrate their development needs with organization opportunities.
The following development techniques can be used for the planned career development programs:
- Individualized development techniques such as special assignments, planned position rotation, and supervisory coaching.
- Performance appraisal: IT can provide the future potential of employees.
- Management by objectives programs: It encourages employees to set personal development goals and to develop action plans.
- Career Counselling: It provides career guidance to assist employees to understand their strengths and weaknesses and to avail themselves of career opportunities.
- Traning and education.
4. Monitoring Career Moves
Managers maintain a record of the career movements of employees and monitor their progress towards the predetermined career goals.
Managers help to identify discrepancies and to adopt corrective measures at the right time.
Employees may also be assisted to find suitable openings outside the organization.
A career development program can be effective by:
- Creating awareness towards employees’ strengths and weaknesses.
- Making aware of organizational constraints.
- Creating a feeling of trust in employees that their superiors care for them.
- Designing appropriate career plans.
- Providing support systems to give fair ad equal opportunities for all.
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