Assignment-3

Topic: Strategies for Career planning &

Development

Submitted By-
Md. Ashrafuzzaman (815)
Programmer
Department of Immigration & Passport
Overview
A career can be defined as all the jobs held by a person during his working life. It
consists of a series of properly sequenced role experience leading to an increasing
level of responsibility, status, power, and rewards. According to Filippo, “a career is a
sequence of separate but related work activities that provide continuity, order, and
meaning in a person’s life”. This is the objective view of a person’s career.
However, there is also a subjective element in the concept of career in the sense that
changes in attitudes, motivation and values occur as a person grows old. In both the
perspectives, the focus is on the individual. Career, thus, represents an organised, well-
timed and positive move taken by a person across tune and space. It must be noted
here that a person’s career is shaped by many factors, e.g., education, experience,
performance, parents, caste links and some occasional luck.
Similarly, while some people like creative personnel and artists may deal
independently with shaping their careers, there are others those employed by
somebody do not have much scope for their own pursuits and, in turn, career.

What Is Career Planning?

From an organisation’s view point, career planning stands for the forward looking
employment policies of it which take into account the career of individual employees
involved in various tasks. It unites organisational human resource planning with
individual career needs. Individual career goals and career path in conformity with
individual capabilities and aspirations are matched with the manpower planning in a
human resource development programme.
This is necessary to properly motivate the people to identify themselves fully with the
organisation, and to ensure expected level of organisational commitment. It also
develops people for managerial succession.
In brief, career planning is a managerial technique for mapping out the entire career of
employees from the employment stage to the retirement stage. It involves discovery,
development, planned employment and reemployment.

CAREER PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT

STAGES
Exploration: Almost all candidates who start working after college education start
around mid-twenties. Many a time they are not sure about future prospects but take up
a job in anticipation of rising higher up in the career graph later. From the point of
view of organization, this stage is of no relevance because it happens prior to the
employment.
Guidance from parents and well-wishers: This career stage begins with the
candidate getting the first job getting hold of the right job is not an easy task.
Candidates are likely to commit mistakes and learn from their mistakes. Slowly and
gradually they become responsible towards the job.
Mid-Career stage: This career stage represents fastest and gainful leap for competent
employees who are commonly called “climbers”. There is continuous improvement in
performance.
Late-Career stage: This career stage is pleasant for the senior employees who like to
survive on the past glory. There is no desire to improve performance and improve past
records. They are expected to train younger employees and earn respect from them.
Decline stage: This career stage represents the completion of one’s career usually
culminating in to retirement. After decades of hard work, such employees have to
retire. Employees who were climbers and achievers will find it hard to compromise
with the reality. Others may think of “life after retirement”
Career Development
Career Development is the lifelong process of managing learning, work, leisure, and
transitions in order to move toward a personally determined and evolving preferred
future.
In educational development, career development provides a person, often a student,
and focus for selecting a carrier or subject to undertake in the future. Often educational
institutions provide career counselors to assist students with their educational
development.
In organizational development (or OD), the study of career development looks at:
How individuals manage their careers within and between organizations and,
How organizations structure the career progress of their members, it can also be
tied into succession planning within most of the organizations.

In personal development, career development is:

The total constellation of psychological, sociological, educational, physical,
economic, and chance factors that combine to influence the nature and
significance of work in the total lifespan of any given individual."
The evolution or development of a career - informed by
1. Experience within a specific field of interest (with career, job, or task specific
skills as by-product).
2. Success at each stage of development.
3. Educational attainment commensurate with each incremental stage.
4. Communications (the capacity to analytically reflect your suitability for a given
job via cover letter, resume, and/or the interview process)
5. Understanding of career development as a navigable process. (Angelo J. Rivera)
The lifelong psychological and behavioral processes as well as contextual
influences shaping one’s career over the life span. As such, career development
involves the person’s creation of a career pattern, decision-making style,
integration of life roles, values expression, and life-role self-concepts."

Succession Planning
Organisations run on eternal basis. The survival and thrive of any organisation on
continuous basis requires a succession of persons to fill key positions. This is done
through “succession planning”. Succession planning can be defined as an executive
inventory report indicating what individuals are ready to move into higher positions in
the organisation.
Succession may be from both internal and external sources. Succession from internal
sources is advantageous to the organisation as well as to the internal employees. This
is so because while organisation can buy employees loyalty and commitment,
employees feel belongingness, and shared feelings of development along with the
organisation.
However, it is necessary to allow inflow of new blood also, i.e., succession through
outside talent in certain cases like when competent and qualified people are not
available internally, when major expansion, diversification and growth plans are in
offing.
The succession planning involves the following eight core activities:
i. Analysis of the demand for executives, managers and professionals by level,
function and skill.
ii. Audit of existing executives and inventory of likely future supply from both
internal and external sources.
iii. Planning individual career paths based on objective estimates of future needs
and drawing on reliable appraisal and assessment of potential.
iv. Undertaking career counselling in the context of future requirements for
executives and managers.
v. Accelerated promotion schemes with development targeted against the future
needs of the organisation.
vi. Training and development activities to groom people for future roles.
vii. Planned recruitment to fill short-term vacancies and provide people for
development to meet future needs.
viii. The actual process by which jobs are filled includes recruitment procedure,
internal appointment procedure, methods of assessment, internal search
mechanism and often, use of computer-based information systems.

Objectives of Career Planning

The major objectives of career planning are as follows:
1. To identify positive characteristics of the employees.
2. To develop awareness about each employee’s uniqueness.
3. To respect feelings of other employees.
4. To attract talented employees to the organization.
5. To train employees towards team-building skills.
 6. To create healthy ways of dealing with conflicts, emotions, and stress.
The primary purpose of career planning by the employees is to develop their career
goals strategically and then achieve success by utilizing the available opportunities.
The individual employees attempt to achieve career success by employing relevant
skills and knowledge. In the case of organization, it is an opportunity to show its
interest in and commitment to the well-being and growth of the employees. Of course,
the organization also seeks to achieve optimum employee efficiency and loyalty. The
primary responsibility for career planning tics with the employees but the supervisors,
the line managers and the HR department have a collective responsibility in designing
and developing realistic career plans.

Process of Career Planning

Major Steps Involved in Career Planning Process
1. Analysing employee needs and aspirations:
This assessment is based on personnel inventory. Since most employees do not have a
clear idea of their career anchors and aspirations, they, therefore, need to be provided
as much information about these matters as possible informing what kind of work
would suit the employee most considering his/her skills, experience and aptitude into
account.
2. Analysing Career Opportunities:
Once career aspirations and goals of employee are known, there is a need to analyse
various career opportunities available to offer under prevailing career paths in the
organisation. Career paths indicate career progression. Here also, since many
employees may not be aware of their own career progression path, this needs to be
made known to them.
3. Identifying congruence and incongruence:
At this stage, a mechanism for identifying con-gruence between employee career
aspirations and organisational career system is developed. This helps identify specific
areas where mismatch or incongruence prevails. This is done through relating different
jobs to different career opportunities. Such a mechanism of match and mismatch
between career aspirations and opportunities enables the organisation to develop
realistic career goals, both long-term and short-term.
4. Action plans and periodic review:
Having identified the mismatch, now it is necessary to formulate an alternative
strategy to deal with the same.
Some of the strategies adopted by several organisations include the following:
(a) Changes in career system by creating new career paths, new incentives, and new
rewards by redesigning jobs for lateral movement.
(b) Change in the employee’s hopes and aspirations by creating new needs, new goals
and new aspirations.
(c) Seek new basis of integration through problem solving, negotiations, compromises,
etc.
After initiating these strategies, it is also necessary to review the same every now and
then. Such a review will enable the organisation to know whether the plans are
contributing to effective utilization of human resources by matching employee
aspirations to job needs.

Career Counselling:
Career counselling or career guidance includes a wide variety of professional activities
which help people deal with career-related challenges. Career counsellors work with
adolescents seeking to explore career options, experienced professionals
contemplating a career change, parents who want to return to the world of work after
taking time to raise their child, or people seeking employment.
Several approaches have been undertaken to systemize the variety of professional
activities related to career guidance and counselling. In the most recent attempt, the
Network for Innovation in Career Guidance and Counselling in Europe (NICE) - a
consortium of 45 European institutions of higher education in the field of career
counselling - has agreed on a system of professional roles for guidance counsellors.
Each of these five roles is seen as an important facet of the career guidance and
counselling profession.
 The Career Educator: supports people in developing their own career
management competences.
  The Career Information & Assessment Expert: supports people in assessing
their personal characteristics and needs, then connecting them with the labour
market and education systems.
 The Career Counsellor: supports individuals in understanding their situations,
so as to work through issues towards solutions.
 The Programme & Service Manager: ensures the quality and delivery of
career guidance and counselling organisations' services.
 The Social Systems Intervener & Developer: supports clients (even) in crisis
and works to change systems for the better.

Making Career Planning a Success

Career planning is not an activity that should be done once in high school or college
and then left behind as we move forward. Rather, it is an activity that is best done on a
regular basis
To achieve a successful career planning one should:
1. Map the Path Since Last Career Planning
One of the first activities whenever someone takes on career planning is spending time
mapping out the job and career path since the last time of career planning. One should
not dwell on the past, while taking the time to review and reflect on the path whether
straight and narrow or one filled with any curves and dead-ends will help plan for the
future.
2. Reflect on Likes and Dislikes, Needs and Wants
Change is a factor of life; everybody changes, as do our likes and dislikes. One should
take the time to really think about what it is they want or need from the work, from the
career.
3. Examine Pastimes and Hobbies
Career planning provides a great time to examine the activities done when not
working. It may sound a bit odd, to examine non-work activities when doing career
planning, but it's not. Many times hobbies and leisurely pursuits can give you great
insight into future career paths.
4. Make Note of Past Accomplishments
Most people don't keep a very good record of work accomplishments and then
struggle with creating a powerful resume when it's time to search for a new job.
Making note of past accomplishments, keeping a record of them, is not only useful for
building resume, it's also useful for career planning.
5. Look Beyond Current Job for Transferable Skills
Some workers get so wrapped up in their job titles that they don't see any other career
possibilities for themselves. Every job requires a certain set of skills, and it's much
better to categorize ourselves in terms of these skill sets than be so myopic as to focus
just on job titles.

6. Review Career and Job Trends

Everyone makes his or her own job and career opportunities, so that even if the career
is shrinking, excellent skills and know-how of the market can help find a new job with
ease. Having information about career trends is vital to long-term career planning
success.
7. Set Career and Job Goals
One should develop a roadmap for the career success. A major component of career
planning is setting short-term (in the coming year) and long-term (beyond a year)
career and job goals.
8. Explore New Education/Training Opportunities
It's somewhat of a cliché, but information really does lead to power and success. One
should never pass up chances to learn and grow more as a person and as a worker.
10. Research Career Advancement
One of the really fun outcomes of career planning is picturing in the future. A key
component to develop multiple scenarios of that future is researching career paths.

Conclusion
As per the study we came to know that Career planning is an important step
to success in the workplace. Through career planning one selects career
goals and the path to these goals which incorporates short-term and long-
term career goals, personal goals and constraints.
So, Career planning program is being designing and implementing goals,
plans and strategies to enable the organization to satisfy employee needs
while allowing individuals to achieve their career goals. So, this career
planning and development is necessary to each and every employee in an
organization. The need of career planning and development is felt in each
and every organization of today’s global world.