CAREER PLANNING

REASONS
CAREER STAGES
NEED

Reasons for interest in Career Planning

Several reasons account for this partiularly
I.
Technology change and obsolescence have resulted in layoffs &
under-employment, causing scope of career planning and
development of multiple skills
II. Rising expectations due to Increased education.
III. Policies demands ensures hiring of females and members of
protected groups and need for plan for the development and
steady movement of these individuals through the Orgn.
Development
IV. Organisations typically loss 30 to 50% of young employees during
the first 2 years on the job. Employees ask Am I in the right job?
V. Shortage of such capable managers and certain skilled ,
professional & technical workers has made orgns to find ways to
develop such personnel through career planning and
development.

Career Stages
Flippo defined a career as a sequence of separate but
related work activities that provide continuity, order
and meaning in a persons life.
Career goals are future positions one strives as part of
a career
Career planning helps in selecting career goals and
path to those career goals.
Career management is the process of designing and
implementing goals, plans & strategies to enable
organisations to satisfy employee needs while allowing
individuals to achieve their career goals.

Career stages
Exploration: generally ends in mid twenties as one makes transition
from college to work. This stage has least relevance to Orgn
1. Establishment: Search for work. Includes getting ones first job. It
takes many years to search for a right job. Making kistakes,
learning from them, and assuming increased responsibilities are
problems of this stage.
2. Mid-career stage:Marked by continous improvement in
performance, levelling off in performance or the start of
deterioration in performance.
A.
Climbers: ambitious try and go to higher heights
B.
Plateaued: not ambitious as climbers
3. Late Career: No longer learning from job and pleasant stage. The
employee can rest on his laurels and gain the respect of young
employees.

Need for Career Planning

To attract competent persons & to retain them
To provide suitable promotional opportunities
To develop employees and make them ready to
meet the future challenges
To increase the utilisation of managerial talents
within an organisation
To correct employee placement
To reduce employee dissatisfaction and turnover
To improve motivation and morale.

Steps in Career Planning Process

Analysis of individual skills, knowledge, abilities,aptitudes,
etc
Analysis of career opportunities both within and outside
orgn
Analysis of career demands on the incumbent in terms of
skills , knowledge, abilities, aptitudes etc. and in terms of
Qualifications, Experience & training received.
Relating specific jobs to different career opportunities
Establishing realistic goals both short term & long term
Formulating career strategy covering areas of change and
adjustment
Preparing and implementing action plan including acquiring
resources for achieving goals.

Succession PLanning
The purpose of SP is to identify, develop and make the people ready to
occupy higher level jobs as and when they fall vacant.
Succession from internal employee beneficial
Orgn buy employees loyalty & commitment, belongingness, shared
feeling of development
Orgns appraise employees potentialities, identify training gaps for future
vacancies, develop them for higher jobs
Scope of SP would be more when orgn grows steadily and employees have
potentialities to take up higher responsibilities.
Orgns ask Managers to identify individuals with potential & develop them
for higher positions.
Orgns should search for outside talent when internal people are not
competent.
Complete dependence on exclusive internal or ext source not desirable.

Career Dev System Steps

i.

Needs: Conducting needs assessment as a

training programme
ii. Vision: The needs of Career system must be
linked with the interventions. An ideal career
dev system known as the vision links the needs
with the interventions.
iii. Action Plan:An action plan should be
formulated to achieve the vision.
iv. Results: Career Dev Programme should be
integrated with the Orgns on-going employee
training & Mgt Dev Programmes.

Tasks in Career Dev System

1. Needs: Defining the present system
a)
b)
c)

d)
e)
f)
g)
h)

Establish roles and responsibilities of employees, managers, orgn

Identify needs; establish target groups
Establish cultural parameters,support and commitment to career
development
Assess existing HR Programmes, find its link to Career Dev
Programme
Determine prior attempts at solving the problem or need
Establish the mission or philosophy of programme
Design and implement needs assessment to confirm the data or
collect more data
Establish indicators or criteria of success.

Tasks in Career Dev System

2. Vision : Determining New Directions and
Possibilities
Create a long term philosophy
Establish the vision or objective of programme
Design interventions for employees ,
managers and the organisation
Organise and make available career info
needed to support programme

Tasks in Career Dev System

3. Action Plan deciding on practical first steps
Assess the plan and obtain support from top
managemnt
Create a pilot programme
Assess resources and competencies
Establish an advisory group
Involve advisory group in data collecting, prog
design, evaluation and monitoring

Tasks in Career Dev System

4. Results : Maintaining the Change

Create long term formalised approaches
Publicise the programme
Evaluate and redesign the programme and its
components
Consider future trends & directions of progm

Career Dev Actions

Job Performance: Emp must prove that his
performance on the job is matching standards
Exposure: Employees desire for career progress should
expose their skills , knowledge, qualifications,
achievement, performance to decision makers
Resignation: Employees may resign present job if they
find lucrative career opportunities
Change the job: Employees putting orgn loyalty above
career loyalty may change the job in same orgn
Career guidence: counselling provides information,
advice and encouragement to switch over to other
career or orgn where career opportunities are better

Pre-Requisites for the success of

Career Planning
Strong commitment of top mgt in career planning, succession
planning & development
Orgns should develop, expand & diversify its activities at a phased
manner
Orgn should frame clear corp goals
Orgn should have self motivated, committed and hard working
employees
Orgns goal in selection should be selecting the most suitable man
and place him on right job
Orgn should take care of proper age composition in manpower
planning and in selection
Orgn should take steps to minimise career stress
Fair promotion policy
Wide publicity for career planning & dev programmes

Advantages of Career Planning & Dev

This helps individuals to have knowledge of various career
opportunities, his priorities etc
This helps in selecting the career which suits his life styles,
preferences, family environment , scope for self-dev
It helps orgn to identify internal promotable employees
Internal promotions, upgradations & transfers motivate employees ,
boost up their morale and results in increased job satisfaction;
Increased job satisfaction enhances employee commitment and
creates a sense of belongingness and loyalty to Orgn
Employee will await his turn of promotion rather than changing to
another orgn resulting in lower employee turnover.
It improves employee performance on the job by taping their
potential abilities and further employee growth
It satisfies employee esteem needs

Benefits of a Career Dev System

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Managers
Increased skill in managing own career
Greater retention of valued employees
Better communication betwn manager &
employee
More realistic staff & dev planning
Productive performance appraisal
discussions
Greater understanding of orgn
Enhanced reputation as a people
developer

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Organisation
Better use of employee skills
Dissemination of information to all levels
Better communication within the orgn
Greater retention of valued employees
Expanded public image as a people
developer
6.
Increased effectiveness of personnel
systems
7.
Greater clarification of goals of orgn
8.
Minimum employee frustration
9.
Improves orgn ability to attract and retain
highly skilled and talented employees
10. By attracting and retaining people from diff
cultures orgn enhances cultural diversity

Limitation of Career Planning

Dual Career Families: both husband & wife working can
cause disadvantage
Low Ceiling Careers: No scope for advancement
Declining career opportunities: Career opportunities
reach declining stage due to economic or technological
factors. Statistians, Comp Operator
Career & Life Issues: Career issues with life stages of
employee & family, changing needs of employee
complicate the career issues
Downsizing: Restructuring of orgn by delayering and
downsizing. Downsizing activities result in fixing some
employees or degrading certain employees

Career Development Suggestions

Challenging initial Job assignment: employees who
take up initial challenging jobs perform better at later
stage
Dissemination of Career Option Info
Job Positioning: Use bulletin boards, publications,
websites etc
Assessment Centres: This technique helps to identify
the available skills, abilities and knowledge
Career Dev Workshops
Continuing Education and training
Periodic Job changes: Job Rotation,

Career Development Suggestions

Leave of absence: Sabbaticals

Management Simulation
Professional Associations
Mentor-protg relationships
Career Counselling: helps employees in setting
directions, identifying areas of professional growth.
The content of career counselling include:
a. Employees goals, aspirations, expectations
b. Managers views about future opportunities
c. Identification of employees attempts for self
development