MODULE 8

CAREER PLANNING
 Career Planning
If you dont have a plan for
yourself youll be a part of someone
elses
- American Proverb
 Career Planning
A career is a sequence of positions held by a
person during the course of a lifetime.
It comprises of a series of work related
activities that provide continuity, order and
meaning to a persons life.
 Career planning is the process by which one
selects career goals and the path to these goals.
The major focus of career planning is on
assisting the employees achieve a better match
between personal goals and the opportunities
that are realistically available in the
organization.
 Career planning is the process of identifying an
individuals strengths, weaknesses, aptitudes,
inclinations, aspiration and attitudes and
designing his job responsibilities to take
maximum advantages of positive traits and
minimizing the effect of negatives traits.
 Career Planning Terms
Career Path - A career path is the sequential
pattern of jobs that forms ones career.
Career goals - Are the future positions one strives
to reach as part of a career. These goals serve as
benchmarks along ones career path.
Career planning - Is the process by which one
selects career goals and the path to those goals.
Career Development - consists of the personal
improvements one undertakes to achieve a personal
career plan
 Common Concerns
Do company training programs help my
chances for a promotion?
How do I advance my career?
Why hasnt my boss given me career
counseling?
Arent most promotions based on luck and
knowing the right people?
Do I need a degree for that job?
With all the talk of downsizing, how secure is
my job?
 Objectives

Attract and retain talent by offering careers,

not jobs.
Use human resources effectively and achieve
greater careers, not jobs.
Reduce employee turnover.
Improve employee morale and motivation.
 SIGNIFICANCE OF CAREER
MANAGEMENT
Every employee wants to have work
experiences which are memorable forever.
Enabling employees to do what they enjoy
doing can enhance performance and morale
of the employees.
Employees feel accomplished when their
career goals are met.
Employees with satisfying careers stay
longer with the organization loyally.
FACTORS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO
CAREER
Nature of work
Place of work
Level at which the person works in the

organizational hierarchy
The technology used for work
The kind of people to be interacted with at

work
The challenges to be faced at work
The opportunities to be harnessed at work
Social status surrounding the work
Economic expectations met from the work
Opportunity for work life balance
 IMPORTANT CAREER
INTERVENTIONS
Promotions

Transfers

Job enrichment
Job enlargement
Learning and development
Developmental job assignments
Coaching/ mentoring
Pay restructuring
Job restructuring
 Process

Identifying individual needs and

aspirations: most individuals do not have a

clear cut idea about their career aspirations,
anchors and goals. The human resource
professionals must, therefore, help an employee
by providing as much information as possible
showing what kind of work would suit the
employee most, taking his skills, experience, and
aptitude into account.
 Analyzing career opportunities:
Once career needs and aspirations of employees are
known, the organization has to provide career paths for
each position. Career paths show career progression
possibilities clearly.

Aligning needs and opportunities:

This process consists of two step: first, identify the
potential of employees and then undertake career
development programmes . Such an appraisal would
help reveal employees who need further training,
employees who can take up added responsibilities, etc.
 Review from Time to time.
After initiating these steps, it is necessary to
review the whole thing every now and then.
This will help the employee know in which
direction he is moving, what changes and likely
to take place, what kinds of skills are needed to
face new and emerging organizational
challenges.
From an organizational standpoint also, it is
necessary to find out how employees are doing,
what are their goals and aspirations, whether
the career paths are in tune with individual
needs and serve the overall corporate
objectives, etc.
 Career planning is a process of integrating
the employees need and aspirations with
organizational requirements.
 Stages of Career Development
Stage 1: Preparation for Work (ages 025)
Stage 2: Organizational Entry (ages 1825)
Stage 3: Early Career (ages 2540)
Stage 4: Mid-career (ages 4055)

Stage 5: Late Career (ages 55retirement)

Who is responsible for career
development
Is it the employee
Is it the organization
Or both
It is the responsibility of employee as well
as the organization to create meaningful
careers for everyone.
 WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR CAREER
DEVELOPMENT
The Individual
Accept responsibility for your own career.
Assess your interests, skills, and values.
Seek out career information and resources.
Establish goals and career plans.
Utilize development opportunities.
Talk with your manager about your career.
Follow through on realistic career plans.
The Manager
Provide timely performance feedback.
Provide developmental assignments and support.
Participate in career development discussions.
Support employee development plans.
The Organization
Communicate mission, policies, and procedures.
Provide training and development opportunities.
Provide career information and career programs.
Offer a variety of career options.
 CAREER ANCHORS
Career anchors is a syndrome of
talents, motives and values which gives
stability and direction to a persons
career.

A concern or value that a person will

not give up if a career choice has to be
made.
Schein identified 8 career anchors
Technical Competence
Managerial competence
Stability and Security
Creativity and Challenge
Freedom and Autonomy
Dedication to a cause
Pure Challenge
Lifestyle
 Sudipta works for a small private sector bank as
a cashier. She likes the steady hours, the
predictable schedule , the pleasant co-workers ,
the good working relationships with her
customers and the image of the bank. What
(schein) anchors are important for Sudipta?

a. Security , creativity
b. Security ,managerial competence
c. Creativity, autonomy, security
d. Creativity, autonomy , technical competence
e. Technical competence, security
 Mentoring employees for
growth
Organizations are appointing mentors to
assist the employees in career
development.
Mentors are executives who coach,
advise, and encourage individuals of
lesser rank.
Mentoring

WHO
Senior Managers

Peer Groups

Role Models

HOW
Advise
Coach
Encourage
Why Develop a Mentoring
Program?
Generate Management Visibility
Build Bridges Between Management and
Employees
Create Culture Awareness
Increase Networking
Staff Retention
Mentoring Functions
Inside an Organization
Sponsorship
Exposure and
visibility
Coaching
Protection
Challenging Outside Environment
assignments Role modeling
Advocate Internally Counseling/Advising
Friendship
 Providing developmental job
assignments
Organizations should provide challenging
job assignments to the employees,
challenging job assignment is one of the
best career development tools.
According to Ohlott (2004), a
developmental job assignment is
something that stretches people, pushes
them out of their comfort zone and
requires them to think and act differently.
 Developmental job assignment (DJA) is an on-the-job development
(OJD) intervention capable of providing opportunities to the people,-
for learning new behaviours,
for stretching more on the job to create new performance
benchmarks,
for familiarizing with the most important but unfamiliar aspects of
job roles and for ensuring overall development of competencies so
as to remain fit for meeting any kind of unstructured or
unprecedented work challenges.
The intentions behind any of the above assignments may not be
developmental but the challenges; such assignments bring creates
scope for development.
 Benefits:

Enhances competencies
On the job experience
Employees will perform better when they are
put in real situation.
 Unfamiliarity

High risk Wide scope

Developmental
Job
Higher Fluid situations
responsibility
Assignment
Characteristics

Unprecedented High visibility

problems
External
pressures

Characteristics of a developmental job assignment

DJA Process
DJA process will help us
understand how to go about Identify the
using job assignments for person
development of employee
capabilities. The
developmental need of each
employee is unique. In the Process of
Support the developmental job Identify the job
same way, the developmental performance assignment
potential of each job is unique
in itself. Placing people into
difficult jobs by itself will not
result in development Match the person
and job
automatically. A supportive
climate of learning has to be
Process of developmental job assignment
created. Ultimately, there is
no use if the organization
does not have a performance
culture to recognize, motivate
and utilize the potential of
 Possibilities for Moving People in DJA

Geographical movement: Urban to rural area and vice versa, advanced

region to backward region and vice versa, hot climate to freezing
climate zones, agriculture economy to industrial economy, different
customer preferences, different government policy, educated
population to uneducated population and home country to foreign
country.
Cultural movement: Different religious values, different languages,
different food habits, different life styles (say individualistic to
collectivistic), power distances, time orientations, tolerance to
ambiguity, different motivation styles, different leadership styles,
different degree of respect for law and order and so on.
Hierarchical movement: Higher level to lower level: In this approach,
the salary and service conditions of the DJA holder remains
unchanged. Working at a lower level helps understanding the
challenges of grassroot level workers and their work roles. Here you
get instructed by others rather than instructing others and Cont.get
reprimanded for mistakes rather than reprimanding others.
Lower level to higher level: Higher responsibility, higher visibility,
getting the work done from others rather than doing oneself,
interacting with top level people rather than the grass root level
people and process driven work to thought driven work.
Functional movement: Marketing to production or finance to HR, line
function to staff function, routine functions to customized functions,
facilitative functions to performance functions supervisory functions to
strategic functions or back office functions to front line functions.
Sectoral movement: Private sector (resource crunch, service quality
and competition) to public sector (bureaucracy, corruption, political
interference, market monopoly) service sector (dealing with people) to
manufacturing (dealing with machines) Profit sector (borrowing
repayable loans for interest) to not-for-profit sector (raising donations),
serving the able and powerful customers for a price to helping
disabled and helpless people free.
 Promotion
Change of
assignment to a job
at a higher level in
the organization.
 Transfer
Placement of an
individual in another
job for which the
duties,
responsibilities,
status, and
remuneration are
approximately equal
to those of the
previous job.
 Vertical promotions
This means the advancement of employees
to higher positions in an organizations.
It also indicates by increased authority,
responsibility, accountability and status.
Objectives:
To utilize employee skills
To develop competitive spirit
To promote employee self development
To promote employees interest
To rewards employees.
 Horizontal promotions
It is known as transfer from one job to
another usually with no change in
responsibilities, salary, authority.
Horizontal career development also
provides many potential benefits.
Objectives:
Optimum utilization of skills
Training of employees
Disciplinary action
Providing resources of learning
and development opportunities
Learning is an important ingredient of
career planning and development.
Employers should provide learning
environment to employees
Employers should build learning
orientation among employees
Ultimate goal of performance
management system is to create a
powerful learning structure, processes
and practices.
 Psychological contract
Individuals join organizations for certain
reasons such as good pay and chances
for promotions and organizations expect
certain things from the employees for
paying him or her well.
This unwritten understanding of
expectations is known as the
psychological contract.
It is all about the expectation for both
sides in relationship.
 Characteristics of psychological contract
Unwritten expectations
Beliefs
Ongoing process
Functions
To reduce insecurity of employees
To shape the behaviors of employees
To fill the gap in employees and employers
relationship
To make the employees know their obligations
towards the organizations.