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Employee Career Development – from Mirage to Reality

By Oluwaseun Babalola GPHR


S_babalola@yahoo.co.uk

Career development refers to the growth of employees through the attainment of new capabilities, or
deepening existing ones, relevant to professional growth and development in their careers. A career
capability is any quality possessed by an individual that increases the likelihood of success at various career
opportunities, usually progressive, in the direction of the employee’s aspirations. This can include
competencies (knowledge, skills and attributes), reputation and even relationships. Typical career
development activities include on-the-job training, exposure to new jobs or projects, coaching, self-learning,
training courses etc.

Few organizations today are able to confidently assert that they have successfully developed a system that
enables employees pursue and achieve their career expectations in a predictable, concerted and coordinated
way. This is often in spite of their size, age or staff strength. In some countries like Nigeria, an organization
might even expect praise for providing jobs and alleviating the national unemployment situation. To expect
anything more, such as their offering employees careers instead of just jobs, will be asking for too much.

Both staff and HR people in organizations are acutely aware of the problems that occur when staff are not
able to grow and achieve their career aspirations in the organization. In an age where some things happen
faster than the speed of thought, employees feel stifled and frustrated when there is no clear view of what
their future may hold. Loss of productivity, employee aggression and disengagement are just few of the
symptoms of such frustration. Management is left to wonder why staff are not appreciative and responsive
to their ‘equitable and competitive compensation and benefits systems’, huge bonuses, ‘robust training
programs’ and other well-meaning offerings. They fail to appreciate that progression is a basic need of man,
and is closely linked to need for security—second in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This implies that once the
worker satisfies the basic needs of food, clothing, shelter (also called basic ‘take-home’ salary), the next thing
is the need for security which includes future progression.

The lack of a Career Management System (CMS) in many organizations is understandable, but untenable. Yes,
it appears difficult –sometimes impossible—(on the surface) to ‘manage’ the aspirations of thousands of
workers through the steep pyramid that epitomizes most organizational hierarchy. The task becomes even
more daunting because many organizations now operate a flat structure with few hierarchies. However,
much as we would like to wish the problem away, factors such as the increasingly young workforce, the
demanding and entitlement characteristics of the Generation Y employees, globalization and technological
advancement, are not going to allow the problem disappear. Many organizations will remain a camp of
discontent, but willing ‘prisoners’, sometimes with golden handcuffs, waiting for the right environmental
conditions to move on to where the grass looks greener. Even organizations whose staffing models are built
on assumptions of high attrition rate cannot remain productive in the long-term with such workforce. They
will be unable to achieve a vibrant and constructive organization culture.

Espousing the benefits of a Career Management System, and consequences of lack of one, to employees and
HR people (who constitute the majority of my reading audience) will be preaching to the converted. Besides
stating the obvious need for successful career management systems, my objective is to highlight the
important considerations and broad steps towards designing such a system. It is not simple to design,
develop and operate a successful career system, but it is possible and it is well worth it. Big organizations
argue that managing careers is simpler and more practicable for smaller organizations and smaller
organizations argue that bigger organizations have more opportunities and more pathways for staff to grow,
and are therefore better able to successfully launch such systems. Whichever category your organization
belongs to, the need, benefits and aspirations for a career management system remain the same, and so is
the process for creating such a system.

The Career Management System of an organisation should provide for employees to manage their careers
and align their aspirations to the company’s mission, goals and objectives. Rather than allowing employee
careers to “just evolve” spontaneously, the system would ensure that the company continues to provide
means, information, guidance and tools to guide staff career aspirations. It will enable formal discussions and
documentation of staff career aspirations and opportunities, chart clear career paths and provide career

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development activities for staff to meet their career aspirations. The ultimate objective is to produce a
flexible workforce of dedicated staff that can continue to deliver on the company’s current objectives and are
prepared to meet future challenges.

At ValueBridge we use a model to structure our approach to designing and developing Career Management
Systems (CMSs) for clients. The model guides the process and ensures that nothing is left out that should be
done. The model as shown in Fig. 1 captures the essential elements, considerations and linkages necessary to
develop a successful career management system. In organization development, any effort to introduce
anything new or to modify an existing system is regarded as a change effort and must be approached as such.
This means there are preliminary activities that should take place before a go-ahead is obtained for a CMS.
Some of these include developing a business case to demonstrate and justify the need, obtaining the buy-in
of top management, and more importantly, assessing the change readiness of the organization. Assessing the
change readiness of the organization involves determining whether the organization is ready for the CMS at
that time and whether the prerequisites for introducing a CMS exist in the organization or need to be
developed.

Figure 1: Model for Career Management System Development

Change readiness assessment is important to avoid issues such as organizational change fatigue and wrong
timing in introducing a CMS. The important prerequisites are as shown in the model include an enabling
organization design, a functional performance management system, strong management will or commitment,
and where possible, a competency model. These prerequisites are essential for a CMS system to work. For
example, some organization structures are like cities built without roads. Career mobility is difficult because
the organization design does not enable employee growth and development. This needs to be fixed either
before or as part of introducing the CMS.

Once the prerequisites are present and change readiness assessment suggests a go ahead decision for the
CMS, it is good practice to constitute a project team (no matter how small) that will manage the design,
development and implementation of the CMS. The designer(s) can then progress with the assessment of the
“Design Considerations.” The Design Considerations are the variables that determine the type of CMS that is
designed for a particular organization. Because it is highly unlikely that they are all the same for any two
organizations, they are the factors that make one organization’s CMS different from another’s. That is why
copying another organization’s CMS is often a bad idea.

A careful review, analysis and evaluation of the Design Considerations will then lead the designer to develop a
CM Strategy for the organization. This is done with the input of key stakeholders including staff, management
and important sub-groups within those two groups. In heavily unionized, regulated or governmental
institutions, it may be necessary to include external stakeholders in the discussions, like those that perform
oversight functions for the organization. The CM Strategy will articulate the external and internal factors
influencing the design of the CMS, strategic considerations, the CMS objectives and the high-level approach
towards meeting those objectives and evaluating the success of the system.

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The CMS objectives are of particular importance because the system must be designed to meet those
objectives, and the evaluation of the system will be based on them. Likely objectives of a CMS may be to
enable performing staff satisfy their career aspirations; make the organisation an employer of choice;
strengthen the organisation’s capability to solve future challenges; or increase employee motivation and
reduce turnover.

With the CM Strategy in place, designer(s) can proceed to the core of work –defining and designing the
elements of the CMS. The main elements that need to be defined and designed are Career Paths and Tracks,
Career Movement Options, Career Development Planning and Implementation Process, the Policies and
Procedures to guide the process and the support structures which include enabling technology, tools and
aids, training and education, responsibilities and the team that will manage the process.

Career Paths represent the logical and possible sequence of jobs and experience through which employees
can progress. Career Tracks are performance and career potential-related indicators that determine how
quickly an employee can progress in the organization. The Career Development Planning and
Implementation Process enable formal discussions at different levels that aid in defining employee career
goals and development plans, and programs to achieve them. Career Movement Options define the possible
directions an employee can progress during their careers e.g. laterally and vertically. The Principles and
Procedures provide clear rules and steps for implementing the process. They ensure that the process is fairly
and consistently implemented without ambiguity and that potential issues are addressed. The System
Enablers include tools, technology, responsibilities, teams, training, counseling, and education that are
needed to implement and provide support to the process when launched.

Finally, the linkages of the CMS to other systems in the organizational would be defined. This is a very crucial
step because the CMS cannot succeed in isolation. The implications for recognition and reward, internal
recruitment, performance management, organization design, learning and development, and even financial
systems need to be thought through and worked into the systems if it has not already been done. This will
ensure there are no conflicts or gaps in the successful implementation of the system.

In practice, the process is often not as simple and straightforward as the above description might suggest.
This is partly because organizations are never static. They are in a continuous state of flux with different
challenges and business realities every other day. As such, the design/ redesign and development of the
system is sometimes faced with constraints and simultaneous developments in other organizational systems
that impact or are impacted by the career management system. Strong leadership buy-in and commitment,
and skills in project management and change management are therefore essential to successfully design,
develop and install a viable career management system.

The author is Principal Consultant at ValueBridge Consulting where he assists clients make the
most of their people through design and development of tailored HR and learning solutions. He can
be contacted at s_babalola@yahoo.co.uk.

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