Alfred Marshall had written in his book ‘Principles of Economics’ that “The most valuable of all capital is that invested in human beings”. In the present era, every organization is concentrating more and more on the development of “Human Resources”. It has been an accepted fact that besides management and improvement, the “Career Development” of the manpower is the key to the development of an organization, particularly in a consistently growing and developing country like Bharat which is blessed with vast human resources. Organizational growth creates new positions and changes the responsibilities of existing positions.
Career Development is needed in order to survive economically as well to plan growth of employees so that they do not stagnate, become obsolete, and lose motivation, and ultimately become ‘dead wood’.Capable people need to be identified to fill the new and bigger jobs with higher responsibility. It has to be a concern of the organization to develop the full potential of all employees through job opportunities that provide them with higher responsibility, career advancement, and challenging work. What needs to be done is to match individual needs, abilities, preferences, motivation, and organizational opportunities.
For the development of people an organization has to make concerted efforts to identify the needs of the people working for the organization. At the same time, the employees should have a clear picture of opportunities available at present and anticipated in the future. For this, the organization must have clear and sound career development planning. The overall objective of the career development has to be to match the employees’ needs and goals with current and future career opportunities in the organization.
The time has shifted, and currently, all employees are focused on their careers. Organizations must have a distinct HR Vision to guide employee career advancement. The organization alone will then be able to foster satisfaction, retain employees, and increase performance.
What is Career Development?
In simple term, it means “Providing employees an opportunity to grow”, especially those employees who deliver performance. Growth means, to an employee, one or more of the following:
- Climbing up the ladder in the organizational hierarchy.
- On-going increase in remuneration.
- Acquiring higher-level skills and competencies.
- Occupying higher-level Job Positions.
- Having an opportunity to avail of some exclusive benefits (Perks and Privileges)
Career Development is not a mere management responsibility. It is a composite organizational process that involves people, addresses their ambitions, assigns them roles and responsibilities commensurate with their potential, evaluates their performance, and creates Job Positions to accommodate the growth ambitions of employees. In the Career Development Cycle, several actions must take place at different levels as mentioned hereunder:
The Employees –
- Decide what they want from their careers now and in the future.
- Examine individually or with their supervisors, their interests and ambitions.
- Set up Development Plans by receiving inputs from the Supervisor, to meet the requirements of the present job and to cater long term perspectives.
- Work with the Supervisor to identify on-the-job learning and training opportunities and other avenues for professional development.
The Managers/Supervisors –
- Identify the Job-related knowledge, skills, competencies, and experience needed for an employee to be effective in that position.
- Help subordinates to define their short-term and long-term development needs which support the organizational objectives and employee’s career goals.
- Support the Employee Development Plans by indicating specific steps that need to be taken to achieve the learning goals.
- Provide guidance/help employees in understanding the type of jobs which will be rightly suited for their career growth.
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The Management –
- Provide a job and compensation structure that supports the organization’s as well as the individual’s growth and development perspectives.
- Enrich job positions to create more challenges in the work environment.
- Provide time and funds for employee development activities.
- Create processes to utilize the knowledge, skills and abilities of each employee, aligned fully to the organizational goals.
- Undertake proactive manpower planning and implement the same scrupulously to meet with future staffing needs.
- Timely and impartially evaluate the employees’ performance and create as well as implement the succession plan for vital job positions in the organization.
- Identify and nurture talents and reward performance transparently.
The Systems Approach –
Career development requires a foolproof and strong system approach.
- This implies Institutionalization of processes to automatically capture and providethe respective supervisor with the essential data of each employeefrom time to time right from Recruitment and Induction onwards.
- It also includes maintenance during the entire service period of the employment of each employee irrespective of his position and role in the organization, the following particulars:
- Training undergone
- Performance ratings
- Award and recognitions
- Special Skills and Competencies
- Promotions
- Pay Increments
- Any additional skill or qualification acquired
- All other particulars depicting the employee’s capability profile.
All these particulars need to be available to the management on each Employee Dashboard for successful career planning as a part of the HR Vision.
Career Development is an essential part of the HR Functions of the organization by which the real resources brought and developed by an employee, like education, knowledge, talents, skills, culture etc. of the Human Resources working for the organization can be developed and utilized for the betterment of the organization as well as that of the people concerned. The basic principle to bear in mind by the HR Experts is that they are managing the ‘People’ and not the ‘Personnel’ and hence the development of the people will be the right prosperity of an organization that is not a mere Organization or a Company but the “Caring Employer”.
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