PHR3183

DEVELOPMENT
for HRM
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION TO CAREER DEVELOPMENT 3

Chapter 2
CAREER THEORY AND MODEL 10

Chapter 3
KNOW YOURSELF IN DEVELOP THE CAREER 19

Chapter 4
SELF-ASSESSMENT 29

Chapter 5
CAREER SYSTEM IN ORGANIZATION 37

Chapter 6
CAREER IN BUSINESS SECTOR 46

Chapter 7
ROLES OF TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT 55

Chapter 8
PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY 61

Chapter 9
MANAGING CAREER DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE ISSUES 68

Chapter 10
MANAGING GLOBAL AND WORKFORCE DIVERSITY 80

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 Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION TO
CAREER
DEVELOPMENT

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INTRODUCTION TO CAREER DEVELOPMENT
1.1 DEFINITION AND CONCEPT

Career development is the series of activities or the on-going/lifelong process

of developing one’s career. Career development usually refers to managing
one’s career in an intra-organizational or inter-organizational scenario. It
involves training on new skills, moving to higher job responsibilities, making a
career change within the same organization, moving to a different organization
or starting one’s own business.

Career development is directly linked to the goals and objectives set by an

individual. It starts with self-actualization and self-assessment of one’s interests
and capabilities. The interests are then matched with the available options.

The individual needs to train himself to acquire the skills needed for the option
or career path chosen by him. Finally, after acquiring the desired competency,
he has to perform to achieve the goals and targets set by him.

Career development is directly linked to an individual’s growth and satisfaction

and hence should be managed by the individual and not left to the employer.
Career development helps an individual grow not only professionally but also
personally. Learning new skills like leadership, time management, good
governance, communication management, team management also help an
employee develop and shape their career.

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1.2 FUNCTIONS OF CAREER DEVELOPMENT
 Retain Top Talent.
- Best-in-class organizations understand the need to retain their top
talent. But the cost of retaining top talent can run in the hundreds of
thousands of dollars to company expenses. Additional costs
associated with retaining talent include:
• The loss of company knowledge
• The disruption of customer service
• The loss of employee engagement
- Career development opportunity is to ensure that valuable individuals
are more likely to look within the organization when they desire a job
shift.

 Improve Employee Engagement and Productivity.

- Today's employees expect to find meaning and direction in their day-
to-day work. They are not simply looking for jobs and tasks, but
meaningful careers and career goals.
- Employees who have access to career development processes,
resources, and tools feel much more engaged and supported by the
organization. In addition, employees who drive their own
development are far more likely to be motivated and productive on a
consistent basis.

 Strengthen the Succession Pipeline.

- The backbone of any effective succession planning process is a
readily available talent pipeline. An employee-driven career
development initiative gives your top talent the opportunity to apply
for critical roles that may be vacant.
- Making such opportunities visible and available for all eligible
employees ensures that the most qualified individuals enter those
critical roles.

 Generate Knowledge Transfer and Retention.

- The ongoing retirement of Baby Boomers makes it crucial for
organizations to retain the knowledge and experience of seasoned
employees.
- Career development initiatives aimed at retaining experienced talent
provide direct opportunities for knowledge sharing. This promotes
enhancing and tapping into knowledge capital within an organization
and ensuring that such valuable knowledge is not lost.

 Fill Internal Skill and Role Gaps.

- Skill and competency gaps are becoming more common as roles
become more demanding and the demands of leadership grow
increasingly complex. Creating a culture that facilitates internal
mobility is one of the best ways to fill these gaps from within the
organization.
- An internal mobility framework enables qualified employees to find
roles most suited to them. It also enables the organization to fill such

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 roles without the extensive costs associated with hiring, training, and
on - boarding outside hires.

 Create Positive Employer Branding.

- Organizations that achieve sustainable success are those that attract
the best people to develop their strategies and achieve their goals.
An effective career development initiative brands your organization
as one that truly cares about its employees.
- This helps your organization attract the best people for the roles you
need.

1.3 CAREER AND PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY

Career and Professional responsibility, along with legal and statutory

responsibility, may be viewed as the other side of the coin to moral
responsibility. While moral responsibility begins with a series of questions and
is open to negotiation, professional responsibility tends to be presented as a
set of answers.

It is suggested that if practitioners meet their professional/legal/statutory

obligations under legislation, practice guidelines, and given codes of practice,
they will be able to sleep easy in their beds, sure in the knowledge that they
have met their professional responsibilities to those with whom they are
working.

Who is Responsible for Career Development?

 Organization’s Responsibilities
• Entity having primary responsibility for instigating and ensuring
that career development takes place.
• Responsible for developing and communicating career options
within the organization to the employee.
• Should carefully advise an employee concerning possible career
paths to achieve that employee’s career goals.

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  Employee’s Responsibilities
• Primary responsibility for preparing individual career plans rests
with individual employees.
• Only individual knows what he really wants out of a career, and
desires vary appreciably from person to person.
• Requires a conscious effort on the part of the employee.

 Manager’s Responsibilities
• Manager should serve as a catalyst and sounding board.
• Manager should show an employee how to go about the process
and then help employee evaluate conclusions.

1.4 SUCCESS STRATEGIES FOR CAREER DEVELOPMENT

Career strategy is any behavior, activity, or experience designed to help a

person meet career goals. A career strategy represents a conscious choice by
an individual as to the type of investment he or she is willing to make in
attempting to reach career objectives. Ideally, people pursue a particular career
strategy based on the expectation that it will result in the greatest chances of
achieving personal and professional success.

Research on the effectiveness of various career strategies suggests that

developing a variety of skills and having a diverse number of work experiences
significantly improves one’s chances of attaining career success. Other
research has found that the use of strategies such as self-nomination and
networking contribute to an individual’s career success. The usefulness of a
particular career strategy is dependent on a number of factors, including the
nature of the job, the type of the industry, and the culture and norms of the
particular organization. Indeed, a career strategy that might be successful in
one case might not work in another.

Past research identifies at least seven general categories of career strategies

that can be used to enhance an individual’s chances of career goal fulfillment.
The seven strategies include attaining competence in the current job, putting in
extended work hours, developing new skills, developing new opportunities at
work, attaining a mentor, building one’s image and reputation, and engaging in
organizational politics.

 Attaining competence in the current job.

Is a basic career strategy, given that organizations make promotion
decisions, at least in part, on an employee’s present performance. In
addition, the skills acquired or honed in one job might be essential for
performance in another job either with one’s current employer or with
another organization. The concepts underlying the protean and
boundaryless career philosophies make it necessary for individuals to
have relevant skills at the times when those skills are required by

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 employers. Focusing on developing abilities in a current job can improve
an individual’s chances for employability in the future.

 Putting in extended hours.

Either at the work site or at home is a popular career strategy, especially
in the early career, when an employee is proving himself or herself to the
company. Working beyond normal hours can enhance performance in
one’s current job and can signify to the organization that one is
committed to the job and capable of taking on large volumes of work.
However, putting in extended work hours can also result in negative
consequences over the longer term, given that extra work hours during
evenings and weekends might impinge on the time a person can spend
on family or personal activities.

 Developing new skills.

Is a career strategy that involves the acquisition or enhancement of work
abilities that either improve performance in the present job or will be
required in a subsequent position. Michael Arthur, Priscilla Claman, and
Robert DeFillippi have called this strategy “knowing how.” They have
noted that skill development can involve formal occupational training as
well as experiential learning. Skill development can include activities
such as participation in training seminars, degree or nondegree
university programs, or attendance at a leadership development
workshop. Employees can also develop skills by acquiring additional
responsibilities on their current jobs, working with an experienced
colleague, or joining occupational associations that sponsor continuing
education.

 Developing new opportunities.

Includes a number of more specific strategies that are designed to
increase one’s career options. In their typology, Arthur and his
colleagues have referred to this career strategy as “knowing whom.” As
an example, self-nomination is a frequently observed strategy that
involves the willingness to inform superiors of accomplishments,
aspirations, and desired assignments. Self-nomination is intended to
enhance one’s visibility and exposure to those in more senior positions
within the organization, which can bring recognition, special
assignments, and sponsorship. Another relevant career strategy under
this category is networking, which involves the identification of and
communication with a group of relevant acquaintances and friends who
can provide information, advice, and support regarding career
opportunities.

 Attaining a mentor.
As a career strategy has received considerable attention in recent years.
Mentoring can be defined as relationships between junior and senior
colleagues or between peers that provide various developmental
functions. The mentoring role can be filled by a variety of individuals, not
by just one person. A mentor can provide coaching, friendship,
sponsorship, and role-modeling to the younger, less experienced

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 protege. In the process, the mentor can satisfy his or her need to have
a lasting influence on another person’s life.

 Building one’s image and reputation.

Is a career strategy in which the individual attempts to convey an
appearance of success and suitability. For example, being married,
participating in community activities, and dressing properly can provide
a positive public image that can bring career rewards. While this type of
strategy is not necessarily important in all or most situations, past
research has found that significant numbers of employees make the
investment in image building because of the perceived high value to
career advancement. Building one’s work reputation is an important
strategy because it is presumed that an individual’s past experiences
and accomplishments bode well for future performance. Thus, a focus
on building a strong work reputation can improve a person’s
employability regardless of the employer.

 Engaging in organizational politics.

Is somewhat similar to the “knowing why” strategy described by Arthur
and his colleagues and covers such diverse activities as agreeing with
or flattering one’s supervisor, advocating company practices, not
complaining about rules or regulations, and forming alliances or
coalitions with others in the organization. More extreme and often
personally unacceptable political practices can include sabotaging
another person’s work or spreading rumors about a colleague. In many
organizations, becoming involved in organizational politics is a career
strategy that is necessary for career advancement, although certain
behaviors might be viewed as unethical or reprehensible. Nonetheless,
regardless of the personal acceptability, engaging in organizational
politics is a career strategy that is used regularly.

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 Chapter 2

CAREER THEORY
AND MODEL

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CAREER THEORY AND MODEL
2.1 TRADITIONAL THEORY AND MODEL

Traditional career development theories often Emphasizes “person variables”

and dimensions over context and culture. Theories are often in direct conflict to
cultural values (e.g., self-determination, centrality of work, masculinity).
It reflects the view that careers are bound to single organizations (which
manage them; i.e., corporate-bound careers) or particular professions that
individuals normally join at the entry stage of their careers;

Traditional career development theories often overlook barriers:

 Racial discrimination
 Sexual discrimination
 Limited financial resources
 Parental influence
 Low grades
 Difficulty entering first job

Career Management Model

Readjust /
New Assessment
Transition

Taking
Research
Action

Make
Decisions &
Set Goals

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 The Career Management Model consists of five steps:

 Assessment:
Clarify and understand your interests, skills, values, and personality.

 Research:
Explore career or job opportunities that interest you.

 Make decisions and set goals:

Evaluate the pros and cons of feasible options and create goals and
timelines.

 Take action:
Write or update your résumé, interview, evaluate or accept a job offer,
or begin work or study toward a long-term career goal.

 Readjust or new transition:

Assess and regroup, or begin anew.

2.2 CONTEMPORARY AND MODEL

Contemporary adopts the view that career is “an individual's work-related and
other relevant experiences, both inside and outside organization, that form a
unique pattern over individual's life span”

2.3 TRAITS AND TYPE OF CAREER

Traits of Career
Personality traits are distinguishing qualities or characteristics that are the
embodiment of an individuals. They are your habitual patterns of behavior,
temperament and emotion.

Skills, on the other hand, are the learned capacity to carry out specific tasks.
They are competences or the talents to do things. These proficiencies can
include critical thinking, manual, negotiation, outdoor, presentation, or
technological. Typically, skills are special abilities that are acquired through
training and experience.

Following are traits for successful people tend to be/have:

 Attitude
The capacity to stay optimistic and positive. The first quality for career
success is “Championship Thinking.”

 Enthusiastic
The possession of intense and eager interest in a subject or cause. It is
an energy that often inspires others.
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  Ethical
The quality of having and living by a code of sound moral principles.

 Goal Focused
The ability to have clarity on the objectives that you strive for in your
personal and professional life.

 Listener
The capacity to suspend your own agenda and deliberately and
empathically allow others to be heard.

 Networked
A well-developed circle of influence of interconnected positive
relationships.

 Persistent
The ability to endure in the face of adversity. It is a patient and relenting
effort to achieve despite difficulties.

 Self-Aware
The understanding and knowledge of who you are including your skills,
values, interests, behaviors and character.

 Self-Confident
The firm belief in your abilities. Seek professional help if this is an area
of weakness – it will be worth it.

 Self-Discipline
The ability to control and restrain impulses. Energy then can be focused
and channeled toward your ambitions.

Types of Career

Are you checking out career options, looking for a new career, or thinking about
changing jobs? The more you learn about possible options, the easier it will be
to decide whether you're interested in a particular job or industry. You might
discover that you love a job, or you might find that it's something you'd never
want to do. It's always a good idea to take time to explore career opportunities,
regardless of whether you're just starting out or at mid-career looking for
something different the next time around.

Here's some information on a variety of different careers, organized by industry:

 Aviation
The airline industry is a multi-billion-dollar business. The Department of
Transportation organizes the industry into four categories: international,
national, regional, and cargo. Could your next job be in one of those
areas?

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 Arts
Love art? With a little perseverance and luck, creative types can forge
their careers in an arts-related field.

 Business
You don’t necessarily need an MBA to make it in business, although
many jobs in this category will require some education past high school
as well as an aptitude for numbers.

 Law Enforcement
Educational requirements vary for law enforcement jobs; while federal
law enforcement jobs tend to require at least a bachelor’s degree, some
police officers can get started in the field with on-the-job training or a few
years of college or military experience.

 Media
If occupational outlook is the most important factor in your search for a
career, most media jobs might seem like a bad bet. But look closer—
publishing gigs might be harder to come by, but the world always needs
clever wordsmiths. And if you’re tech savvy, your horizons are unlimited.

 Medical
Look at any list of top-paying, fast-growing jobs, and you’ll see
healthcare jobs right at the top of the ranking. Even during the depths of
the Great Recession, this industry was booming. Of course, these jobs
aren’t for everyone; it takes compassion and emotional fortitude to work
in this field, as well as the willingness to spend time and money training.

 Service Industry
If you think of wait staff or bartenders when you think of the service
industry, you’re only looking at part of the picture. There are many
different jobs that involve serving the public. Could one of these be right
for you?

 Teaching
Love teaching? Don’t assume that the classroom is the only place to ply
your trade, there are many education-related job titles out there.
Technology has made it possible to teach online, while teachers who
crave flexibility and human interaction can try subbing, working part-
time, or teaching abroad.

 Technology
The tech industry is booming, and your career can boom right along with
it. You don’t necessarily need a degree to get these jobs. Pick up the
necessary skills via online courses, boot camps, or practical experience,
and many employers will put you to work.

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 Types of Career Example
Aviation Aircraft Dispatcher, Aircraft Mechanic, Airline Pilot, Federal
Air Marshall, Flight Attendant, Transportation Security
Officer

Arts Actor, Architect, Art Appraiser, Art Auctioneer, Artist,

Museum Jobs, Music Conductor

Business Accountant, Administrative Assistant/Secretary,

Advertising, Chief Operating Officer, City Manager,
Consultant, Financial Advisor, Fundraiser, Government
Jobs, Human Resources, Insurance Agent, Investment
Banker, Lawyer, Management, Market Research Analyst,
Nonprofit Job

Law Enforcement Border Control Agent, Correctional Officer, Criminal Justice,

DCIS Special Agent, Federal Law Enforcement, Fish and
Game Warden, ICE Agent, K-9 Police Officer, Police
Dispatcher, Police Officer, State Trooper, Uniformed Secret
Service Officer

Media Book Publishing, Freelance Editor, Freelance Writer, Public

Relations, Web Developer, Writer/Editor

Medical Doctor, Forensic Psychologist, Hospitalist, Mental Health

Counselor, Nurse, Orthodontist, Paramedic, Pediatrician,
Physician Assistant, Psychiatrist, Psychologist, Social
Worker, Veterinarian

Service Industry Bank Teller, Call Center, Funeral Director, Hair Stylist,
Personal Fitness Trainer, Retail, Sales

Teaching Career Counselor, College Professor, School Jobs,

Substitute Teacher, Teacher, Teaching Abroad, Teaching
Online

Technology App Developer, Back End Developer, Computer

Programmer, Computer Systems Administrator, Database
Administrator, Front End Developer, Programmer, Software
Developer, Web Developer

2.4 SUPER LIFE-SPAN THEORY

Donald E. Super's career development theory is the most widely known life-
span view of career development. Developmental theories recognize the
changes that people go through as they mature, and they emphasize a life-
span approach to career choice and adaptation.

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These theories usually partition working life into stages, and they try to specify
the typical vocational behaviors at each stage:

 Growth
(Roughly age 4 to 13), the first life stage, the period when children
develop their capacities, attitudes, interests, socialize their needs, and
form a general understanding of the world of work. This stage includes
four major career developmental tasks: becoming concerned about the
future, increasing personal control over one’s own life, convincing
oneself to achieve in school and at work, and acquiring competent work
habits and attitudes.

 Exploration
(Ages 14-24) is the period when individuals attempt to understand
themselves and find their place in the world of work. Through classes,
work experience, and hobbies, they try to identify their interests and
capabilities and figure out how they fit with various occupations. They
make tentative occupational choices and eventually obtain an
occupation. This stage involves three career development tasks. The
first one, the crystallization of a career preference, is to develop and plan
a tentative vocational goal. The next task, the specification of a career
preference, is to convert generalized preferences into a specific choice,
a firm vocational goal. The third vocational task is implementation of a
career preference by completing appropriate training and securing a
position in the chosen occupation.

 Establishment
(25-44 years) is the period when the individual, having gained an
appropriate position in the chosen field of work, strives to secure the
initial position and pursue chances for further advancement. This stage
involves three developmental tasks. The first task is stabilizing or
securing one place in the organization by adapting to the organization’s
requirements and performing job duties satisfactorily. The next task is
the consolidation of one’s position by manifesting positive work attitudes
and productive habits along with building favorable coworker relations.
The third task is to obtain advancement to new levels of responsibility.

 Maintenance
(45-65) is the period of continual adjustment, which includes the career
development tasks of holding on, keeping up, and innovating. The
individuals strive to maintain what they have achieved, and for this
reason they update their competencies and find innovative ways of
performing their job routines. They try also to find new challenges, but
usually little new ground is broken in this period.

 Disengagement
(Over 65) is the final stage, the period of transition out of the workforce.
In this stage, individuals encounter the developmental tasks of
deceleration, retirement planning, and retirement living. With a declined
energy and interest in an occupation, people gradually disengage from

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 their occupational activities and concentrate on retirement planning. In
due course, they make a transition to retirement living by facing the
challenges of organizing new life patterns.

2.5 CAREER DECISION MAKING THEORY

Why does an individual choose a particular career path? To what extent is
career choice influenced by others? What social factors are involved in career
decision-making? The answers to these and other questions have challenged
many writers over the past century and several theories have been developed.

 Person-Environment Fit (P: E Fit) Theories

Every person has a unique set of interests and skills: different jobs (and
specialties) have different requirements for skills and personalities. If a
person with particular interests and skills can be found a job with
requirements that fit those interests and needs his skills, it would seem
likely that the individual would well match to the occupation. Person:
environment fit theories are essentially a career matching approach to
career’s guidance. Frank Parsons described this process when
establishing a vocational guidance agency in Boston, Massachusetts
(Parsons 1909).

 Developmental Career Theories (DCTs)

Developmental theories of career choice recognize that choosing and
adjusting to work is a continuous process, and use psychological
concepts to explain processes of career development. Donald Super is
widely associated with the developmental approach to career guidance
(Super 1957). He describes an individual passing through five ‘life-
stages’ (growth, exploration, establishment, maintenance and decline)
as his career progresses. Super states that as a person grows, he
develops an idea of himself, his ‘self-concept’, which can be used by the
individual to match the picture he has developed of himself against the
picture he holds of a person in an occupation.

 Structural Theories
Structural theories attempt to explain careers and career choices in
sociological terms: the social position of an individual and his family
background will influence opportunities that are open to him (Bowles &
Gintis 1976). Roberts (1968) states that social stratification is an
important determinant of career and argues that career guidance is of
limited value when social and structural forces play such an important
role.

 Community Interaction Theories

Community interaction theories describe the influence of both
psychological and sociological factors on career decision-making.
In his Community Interaction Theory, Law (1981) describes how the
community in which an individual lives and works can motivate him to a
particular career goal, or indeed how it can fail to do so. The community

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 in this context includes all the people that a person interacts with:
partners, family, friends, colleagues and others. We listen to and take
advice from such people all the time: their advice is important to us, and
it matters. Trying to make important career decisions without the input of
such important influences can be difficult and make any career decisions
more difficult too.

2.6 PERSONALITY BASED THEORY

The study of personality is one of the major topics of interest in psychology.
Numerous personality theories exist and most of the major ones fall into one of
four major perspectives. Each of these perspectives on personality attempts to
describe different patterns in personality, including how these patterns form and
how people differ on an individual level.

Learn more about the four major perspectives of personality, the theorist
associated with each theory and the core ideas that are central to each
perspective.

 Psychoanalytic Perspective
The psychoanalytic perspective of personality emphasizes the
importance of early childhood experiences and the unconscious mind.
This perspective on personality was created by psychiatrist Sigmund
Freud who believed that things hidden in the unconscious could be
revealed in a number of different ways, including through dreams, free
association, and slips of the tongue.

 Humanistic Perspective
The humanistic perspective of personality focuses on psychological
growth, free will, and personal awareness. It takes a more positive
outlook on human nature and is centered on how each person can
achieve their individual potential.

 Trait Perspective
The trait perspective of personality is centered on identifying, describing
and measuring the specific traits that make up human personality. By
understanding these traits, researchers believe they can better
comprehend the differences between individuals.

 Social Cognitive Perspective

The social cognitive perspective of personality emphasizes the
importance of observational learning, self-efficacy, situational
influences, and cognitive processes.

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 Chapter 3

KNOW YOURSELF IN
DEVELOP THE CAREER

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KNOW YOURSELF IN DEVELOP THE CAREER
3.1 DEFINITION AND CONCEPT

Know Yourself

Know yourself also known as self-awareness. Self- awareness can be defined

as the knowledge that we acquire that relate to the different facets of our
personality including our strengths, weaknesses, beliefs, interests, motivation
and emotions. It is the process that helps us to get to know ourselves better
and identify our career needs. This can help us to improve our decision making
and a range of other skills that help us choose a suitable career.

It is usually a process that takes time and should be constant throughout our
lifetime. It requires a careful analysis of one’s self, and can’t be achieved by
reading a book or blog post. Quite the contrary, if you want to become more
self-aware, we will have to be willing to get down and do some hard work.

Reason We Need to Know Ourselves in Order to Develop the

Career
 Self-awareness requires taking the time to truly get to know
ourselves and this means discovering what we like, what we don’t like,
identifying our strengths and weaknesses, what we are good at and what
we need to work on.

 From this perspective, it allows us to find our natural talent and

passion, directing us to our personal and professional growth. It
also helps us stay true to ourselves, embracing and practicing our own
moral values. It is important because it shows us the path to our true
potential.

 With self-awareness comes self-improvement. However, we need to

be genuinely interested in improving ourselves. This way we are more
likely to take actions that can challenge us and help us develop our skills.
It opens the door to new possibilities, experiences and growth.

 Perhaps the biggest enemy of self-awareness is change. While

change is inevitable to those who want to become better in any aspect
of their lives, this is what most people are afraid of. As such, they find it
easier to stick to what they already know, without trying hard enough or
exploring the ‘self’ in much depth. The truth is that change is a synonym
of risk and describes that kind of danger that can make us feel
uncomfortable. This happens because it forces us to face our fears,
identify our weaknesses and make us start again from ground zero. So,
unless we are willing to change or at least take some steps towards that
change e.g. deciding on a career, we won’t be able to get to know
ourselves better or achieve the desirable outcome.

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Ways to Know Ourselves in Develop the Career
Becoming more self-aware can be difficult, especially if we don’t know where
to start. We may find it easier to ask other people to tell us what they think our
strengths and talents are. It’s easier to focus on what we aren’t good at as
opposed to what we are. Luckily, there are many easy ways to become more
self-aware.

 Psychologists have made things a lot simpler by coming up with different

techniques that aim to get us to the depth of who we are as a person. A
prime example that can be very helpful to the quest of becoming more
self-aware is the Johari Window Model, a technique that was created
by psychologists Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham in 1955.

 Purpose of this method was used to help people understand their

relationship with themselves and others to discover their blind spots –
the areas they need to improve on.

 As a communication model, the Johari window helps to improve

understanding between individuals. It helps to build trust with others by
disclosing information about ourselves and getting useful feedback
about ourselves from them. Apart from this, it can also help us develop
on a personal and professional level, improving our relationships with
others and the way we work with them. This model manages to do this
by focusing on elements such as ‘soft skills’, behaviour, empathy,
cooperation, inter-group and interpersonal development and helping us
come in terms with or recognise our feelings, experiences, views,
attitudes, skills, intentions and motivation.

 The Johari window includes four mains ‘areas’, and each one
represents different feelings, motivation or elements as mentioned
above. These are divided in terms of whether the information is known
or unknown by you, and whether the information is known or unknown
by other people:
• Open Area – Open Self (Arena): this represents what we already
know about ourselves and the things that others know about us.
It includes our behaviour, knowledge, skills, attitudes and ‘public’
history.
• Blind Area – Blind Self (Blind Spot): this represents what we
aren’t aware of but are known by others.
• Hidden Area – Avoided Self (Facade): this represents things that
we know about ourselves, but others don’t know.
• Unknown Area – The Unknown Self (Unknown): this represents
things that are unknown to us and others.

 These four areas help to form a window of four panes like the image
shows below.

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  The goal of this method is to enlarge the Open Area to help ourselves
and others understand us better regarding who we are and what we
need. This in turn, leads to developing emotional intelligence – EQ, the
type of intelligence that allows us to recognize us and other people’s
emotions and discriminate between different feelings. It is done through
self-awareness, social awareness, self-management and relationship
management.

 Letting others get to know us more can be mutually beneficial as it can

build trust and facilitate learning. It is particularly helpful when we need
help to decide on a career, and we ask a careers adviser for guidance.
A career professional is in a better position to help us out when we are
giving them the kind of information about us that they need to know and
can help us make a choice. The more we are willing to open up the more
accurate and realistic advice we are going to get.

3.2 CAREER CHOICE

Career choice is the process of choosing a career path which can involve
choices regarding education and training for a given career. Most individuals
have an interest in or affinity toward certain career fields or occupations. Such
aspirations and preferences are formed early in life and are a product of
genetics, socioeconomic status, gender, personality, and learning history.
These early hopes and dreams are modified (positively and/or negatively) by
forces in society that act upon individuals and groups of individuals as they
make career-related decisions (e.g. labor market constraints, competitive

21
admission to schools and programs. opportunities provided by special
programs, etc.).

Career choices result when individual aspirations and preferences are re-
examined in light of the constraining forces imposed by the social environment
in which that individual lives. It is possible to differentiate several levels of
career choice based upon the degree to which that choice has been subjected
to the limitations of societal constraints. A choice implies the completion of
some actions or successful steps, and the attainment of a career is the final
outcome of the career choice process.

Factors Influence a Career Choice

In this case, career development theories help us explain why and how we
choose to pursue specific career fields.

 Childhood Fantasies.
What do you want to be when you grow-up? You may remember this
question from your childhood, and it may have helped shape how you
thought about careers then, as well as later in life. Career counselling
theories are expanding as programs related to career choice are
developed for all ages, including the very young. Ginztberg proposed a
theory that describes three life stages related to career development.
The first stage, fantasy, where early ideas about careers are formed,
takes place up to age 14. Culture is where racial and ethnic background,
as well as the culture of an individual's regional area, local community,
and extended family, may impact career decisions. Our culture often
shapes our values and expectations as they relate to many parts of our
lives, including jobs and careers. Multicultural career counselling has
emerged as a specialized field to take these influences into
consideration when counselling clients and students. We can’t attribute
the predominant characteristics of a culture to any one of its individuals,
but having an awareness of the values and expectations of our culture
may help us understand how we make our career choices.

 Gender.
Both men and women have experienced career-related stereotypes.
Gender is a factor included in multiple career development theories and
approaches including, Social Learning and multicultural career
counselling. How we view ourselves as individuals may influence both
the opportunities and barriers we perceive as we make career decisions.
Studies of gender and career development are ongoing as roles of men
and women in the workforce, and in higher education.

 Interests.
Holland's Career Typology is a widely used to connect personality types
and career fields. This theory establishes a classification system that
matches personality characteristics and personal preferences to job
characteristics. The Holland Codes are six personality/career types that

22
 help describe a wide range of occupations. You can find out your Holland
Personality Type. Understanding your Personality Type can assist your
career development in a number of ways.
• It can help you select a career field that is a good fit for your
personality.
• It can increase your awareness of your learning style so you can
better benefit from career related education.
• Understanding your personality preferences can help you better
manage Job Challenges that inevitably rise their ugly heads
during the course of our career.
• Knowing your Personality Type, and especially knowing the
specific details of your individual type can provide, will aid you in
a job search, both in marketing yourself and in evaluating
opportunities that arise.
• Social and Economic Conditions. All of our career choices take
place within the context of society and the economy. Events that
take place in our lives may affect the choices available to us and
even dictate our choices to a certain degree. Changes in the
economy and resulting job market may also affect how our
careers level.

3.3 CAREER DEVELOPMENT STAGES

Career development refers to those personal improvements which one

undertakes to achieve a personal career plan.

Career development can be analyzed based on the career stages. There are
five career development stages through which most of us have gone through
or will go through. These stages include- exploration, establishment, and mid-
career, late career and decline.

Career development also refers to those personal improvements which one

undertakes to achieve a personal career plan. Before we discuss about career
development, it will be quite in the fitness of things to first understand about the
following terms which will be used while discussing about career development.

According to Keith Davis, a career is all the jobs that are held during ones
working life.
 Career path – A career path is the sequential pattern of jobs that form a
career.
 Career planning – Career planning is the process by which one selects
career goals and the path to these goals.
 Career goals – Career goals are the future positions one strives as a
part of career
 Career management – According to French and Bell, career
management is the process of designing and implementing goals, plans
and strategies to enable the organization to satisfy employee needs
while allowing individuals

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Stages of Career Development–Classified by Decenzo and
Robbins (2008)

Decenzo and Robbins (2008) have classified career up to the age of 75 years
as follows:

 Exploration:
A career stage that usually ends in the mid-twenties as one makes the
transition from school/college to work-
• It has least relevance to organizations as it occurs prior to
employment.
• People develop expectations about their careers which are mostly
unrealistic.
• Successful exploration involves trying a lot of potential fields.
• In this stage attitudes toward work and dominant social
relationship patterns are formed.

 Establishment:
A career stage in which a person finds his/her first job-
• This period includes accepting the first job, being accepted by the
colleagues, learning the job and gaining first experience of
success or failure in the real world.
• This stage starts with uncertainties and anxieties.
• This period is dominated by two problems viz., finding a niche and
making one’s mark. Finding a niche, that is, finding the right job
may take time for many.
• This stage is characterized by making mistakes, learning from
those mistakes, and assuming increased responsibilities.
• This stage also takes a lot of time and energy but brings in a
sense of growth expectation or anticipation.

 Mid-Career:
It is a career stage shown by continuous improvement in performance,
levelling off in performance or beginning deterioration of performance-
• Many people do not experience career problems until they reach
the mid-career stage.
• Being continuously productive after reaching this stage is difficult
for some people. However, continued growth and high
performance are not the only successful outcomes at this stage.
Maintenance is another outcome. Those employees who
maintain their status quo without further advancement cannot be
called failures, they are plateaued.
• Plateaued mid-career employees can be highly productive,
though some of them may not be assertive or ambitious they are
technically competent. They are happy to contribute to the
organization’s development and they can be managed easily.
• For some, mid-career is marked by loss of both interest and
productivity at work. That is, their work begins to deteriorate.
These employees are given less conspicuous jobs. Some may be

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 demoted or even discharged. In certain cases, some may be
reenergized by shifting them to different positions. The shift may
boost their morale and productivity.

 Late Career Stage:

A career stage where the employees experience a pleasant time and
enjoy by resting on their laurels. Late-career individuals do not bother to
outdo their previous performance. Their value mostly lies in their
judgement built over the years through varied experiences.
Unfortunately, the employees who have stagnated or deteriorated in the
early stage (mid-career stage) realize that they cannot make any impact
as they expected earlier. They may even fear for their jobs. They may
look for retirement.

 Decline (Late Stage):

This is the stage at the end of one’s career, usually marked by
retirement-
• It is a difficult stage to experience for anyone, particularly for those
who experienced successes in the early stages. The successful
may find it difficult to come out of the lime-light. However, for the
unsuccessful people, retirement could be pleasant as they can
leave behind all the frustrations experienced earlier. For
plateaued people, it is easy to switch over to other activities.
• Whether one had a successful or unsuccessful career,
adjustment to retirement is a difficult process. It is a challenging
task. Nevertheless, those who are physically fit and willing to take
up jobs after retirement look at retirement a chance to do different
activities.
• Some people look for different avenues, paid or voluntary.
However, the decision depends on one’s financial security.
• Retirees with adequate funds are likely to engage in activities
which they like, but those who are financially insecure have to
seek some gainful employment to supplement their
pension/retirement income.

3.4 CAREER TARGETS

Career targets also known as career goals. It is defined as statement explaining

the profession that an individual intends to pursue throughout one’s career. It
is important for every employee or job seeker to define their career goals
clearly. It helps them to come up with effective action plans.

Setting unrealistic goals can lead to disappointment. But that does not mean
that one should avoid formulating career goals altogether. Creating resolutions
is the easiest way to keep oneself motivated to achieve your dreams.

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Breaking Down Career Goals
Setting career goals is an incredibly easy process. All one needs to do is to set
targets.

To illustrate the concept, consider a 17-year old who wants to become a CEO
of a large engineering company in the future. He must go through several
stages, the first being passing his 12th-grade exams. After passing, the
teenager will then enroll in a four-year engineering course before moving to
work in, for example, a multinational company for at least two years. Next, he
may enroll in a management course from a reputable school. Advancing his
studies is a good idea to boost his chances of getting the CEO position.

Short-term vs. Long-term Career Goals

As shown in the illustration above, there are short-term and long-term goals.
The teenager’s primary objective is to become the manager of a company. In
order to get there, he needs to achieve his short-term goals, which include
passing his high school and college exams, gaining experience by working for
a related company, and boosting his experience and skills through further
studies.

Short-term goals are those that can be achieved within six months to three
years. It may take three to five years or more to achieve long-term goals.

Ways to Set Career Goals

Defining career goals is just half the battle. An individual must set his mind on
accomplishing the goals he sets. However, if one doesn’t develop or map out
his goals properly, it will be harder to achieve them. When setting career goals,
an individual should ensure that they meet the following criteria:

 Specific
When setting goals, an individual shouldn’t just focus on being
successful. Instead, he should define what success means to him.
Ultimate success for one person may just be a milestone to achieving
bigger goals for a different person. For one individual, success may be
becoming the chief executive officer for a company. For another,
success can be attaining financial freedom.

 Measurable
As one sets his career goals, he should ensure that he also comes up
with a way to measure their outcome. This can be done by setting a
timeframe, such as “complete MBA degree within three years”. Once the
individual is able to attain the short-term goals within the timeframe he
sets, then he’s on the right path to achieving his ultimate goal.

26
  Avoid negativity
A goal must be something that an individual wants rather than a factor
he wants to avoid. So, instead of focusing on leaving a particular job or
position within the next five years, the employee should aim at where he
wants to be and think about what they can do to move toward getting
there.

 Realistic
More than anything, an individual’s career goals must be realistic. It
wouldn’t make sense for an individual to set a goal of winning a Grammy
award if he’s never performed or played an instrument.
On the other hand, the individual setting goals shouldn’t keep things too
simple. A career roadmap should be a challenge, not a walk in the park.
If the individual’s goals don’t make him a little bit uncomfortable, then he
should probably set higher limits.

 Tie actions to each goal

For each set goal, a person needs to take certain measures to achieve
it. Listing the different activities that are needed to achieve a goal makes
the whole process easier.

Ways to Achieve Career Goals

 Write them down

It may seem like an old-school technique, but it’s actually very effective.
Based on several studies, individuals who write down their career goals
see a higher likelihood of achieving them compared to those who don’t.
There are several benefits to writing down one’s goals. For one, an
individual is forced to think critically on how to achieve each goal.

 Share the plan

Another perk of writing down career goals is that it makes it easy to share
them with friends, colleagues, or even a manager. When an individual
discloses his short and long-term career goals to other people, he feels
more challenged to follow them through to the end.

 Visualize success
One thing that high achievers do is to visualize their success. Sports
psychologists often ask their top athletes to envision themselves
crossing that finish line or kicking the field goal. It’s the same concept
with career goals. One should think about all the steps he needs to reach
his goal and plan for the setbacks that he may encounter.

27
 Chapter 4

SELF-ASSESSMENT

28
SELF-ASSESSMENT
Career assessment is a way to learn more about how well a variety of careers might
suit you. Each assessment focuses on a specific area, such as skills, interests, or
values. Typically, an assessment asks you to answer questions about what you like,
don't like, what’s important to you, and what your strengths are.

Since assessment results may relate to as many as 900 different occupations, don't
panic if your results include careers that don't interest you. Experts recommended that
you take more than one assessment to broaden your ideas before you make a
decision. It can also be helpful to talk with a career counselor, family and friends before
making a career decision.

Whether you are just starting out, or wondering if another career would suit you better,
self-assessments can help you consider different options and confirm types of careers
that might be right for you.

What Can a Self-Assessment Help You Do?

 Learn about occupations that are a good match for you

 Decide where you need more training or experience
 Identify the skills you bring to a job
 Write more personal, detailed resumes and cover letters
 Consider careers you may not have thought about before

4.1 CORE COMPETENCY

Many college students and their parents, mistakenly think that obtaining a
college degree automatically leads to a good job and a successful career.
However, graduates who are not “career ready” will find it more difficult to obtain
employment and thrive in the workplace.

The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) recently released

a fact sheet defining 7 core competencies that form career readiness:

 Critical Thinking/Problem Solving

Critical thinking and problem-solving skills are necessary components of
workplace success. According to Rod Adams, U.S. recruiting leader at
Price water house Cooper. “Reflection, analysis and planning all drive
achievement, innovation and deep understanding, which are
instrumental to success,” says Adams. “Problem solving skills are
necessary at all levels – whether you’re a millennial right out of college
or the CEO of a company.”

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 Oral/Written Communications
Some people mistakenly think that strong communication skills are only
vital for employees who write proposals and conduct presentations, but
these skills are necessary for all employees. It is important to cultivate a
clear communication style that not only gets your ideas and messages
across, but also helps you connect and convince other people.
Communicating with authenticity allows you to be engaged and
engaging.

 Teamwork/Collaboration
This is one of the skills that may be as important as technical ability or
work history. “Even if you are capable of handling the workload, your
interpersonal skills, like the ability to be a team player, build strong
relationships, and effectively manage conflict When applying for a job, it
is important to make sure your resume, cover letter and LinkedIn profile
highlight the ability to work well with others.

 Information Technology Application

The world is changing around us and fast. Businesses are feeling the
unprecedented impact of rapid demographic changes, economic shifts,
increasing resource scarcity, urbanization, and technology
breakthroughs. And as a result, he says that companies want employees
with skills in data analytics and information management because this
data helps to drive innovation and lead change.

 Leadership
Leadership is often confused with management, but according to Reese,
the two have nothing in common. Anyone can be a leader, regardless of
position.
Company looking for a resume that reflects the exhibition of leadership
skills, independent of whether the candidate ever managed people.”
Leadership skills prove that you learn from your experiences, take the
time to develop your personal approach to work, lead others to be the
best they can be, act with integrity and uphold professional standards at
all times.”

 Professionalism/Work Ethic
These skills cannot be overvalued in the job market. For recent college
graduates who are trying to prove themselves, what they do doesn’t
necessarily impress as much as how they do it.
Candidates have to use tools like LinkedIn to build their credibility and
visibility within their professional network. Branding is a journey, not a
destination – and each interaction is an opportunity to build your brand.
Make sure to be clear on what you want to be known for and be
compelling in how you share your story with others.

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  Career Management
Graduates need to be able to define their career path and recognize
opportunities that can help them achieve their personal goals.
This involves taking advantage of opportunities to learn from
professionals that they admire. Students need to engage in career
exploration early to make sure they’re on the right career path, and then
nurture and develop their careers to continue growing professionally.

4.2 INDIVIDUAL VALUES

Values are qualities considered to be the most important guiding principles that
help set priorities in your career and life. They are highly personal and define
what is purposeful and meaningful to you. Though values may change in
response to life circumstances, they are generally thought to be enduring and
provide a compass for setting goals and making decisions.

In a career context, where changes occur rapidly and decisions about

opportunities in a current work role or new job possibilities can present
themselves unexpectedly, it is critical to pause and reflect on the values that
are most essential to you.

Knowing how values are aligned with your job and the organization in which
you work is often critical to understanding career-related satisfaction and
motivation. A helpful framework for thinking about career values was developed
by Nova. In their Values Driven Work assessment exercise, career values are
clustered in four domains: Intrinsic Values, Work Environment Values, Work
Content Values, and Work Relationship Values.

 Intrinsic Values:
What motivates me to truly love my work day after day? Among a list of
these values are Achievement, Giving to Community, Status,
Independence, and Power.

 Work Environment Values:

What working conditions provide an optimum environment in which I can
do my best work? Work Environment Values include Learning, Benefits,
Fast-Paced, Comfortable Income, Structure and many more.

 Work Content Values:

What makes my work activities most satisfying and engaging to me?
Among the 18 values in this area are values such as Problem Solving,
Organizing, Public Contact, Detailed, and Creative.

 Work Relationship Values:

What characteristics of interaction with others in my workplace are the
most important to me? Work Relationship Values include Open
Communication, Diversity, Leadership, Teamwork, Competition, and
Trust.

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4.3 INDIVIDUAL INTEREST AND PASSION
Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life. It’s
great advice, but it’s not always that simple, it can be difficult to figure out what
you love and how to parlay that into a viable business or job. So, here’s a step-
by-step plan for pinpointing your passions and four ways to help you start
turning them into your career.

 Remember What You Loved as a Child

Often, our truest passions emerge in childhood, only to be squelched by
real life pressures. So, think about what you loved long before you had
to worry about your career. Writing? Science experiments? Taking care
of people? Getting back in touch with those instincts is an important step
in finding your passion.

 Eliminate Money from the Equation

If money were no object, what would you do? Would you travel? Spend
all of your time with your children? Would you start a charitable
organization to help abused women? Of course, money can’t be ignored,
but don’t let financial pressures dictate your choices. Your career should
ultimately lead to financial security, but if financial security is the defining
motivator, it’s unlikely you’ll end up doing what you love.

 Ask Your Friends for Feedback

Sometimes you’re just not the best judge of what makes you happy. Ask
the people who know you intimately when you seem the happiest and
what you do the most enthusiastically. Their answers may surprise you.

 Read through a University Course Catalog

Find some quiet time and see which courses naturally interest you. What
would you study if you could do it all over? What courses do you think
you could teach? Which subjects scare you to death, and which ones do
you find boring? Revisiting these possibilities will help point you in the
direction of subjects and topics that you love.

 Identify your Professional Hero

Of everyone you know, either personally or in your extended frame of
reference (from your dermatologist to Oprah), whose career would you
most want to emulate? Reach out to her to learn more about how she
got to where she is, or, if that’s not possible, read everything you can
about her career and life.

 Think of What You Enjoy That You Also Do Well

After you’ve done these exercises, think about what you’ve learned.
Focus on the things that you both enjoy and do well—whether you have
a way with animals, make a killer lemon tart, or are crazy for origami—
and write them down. Then, narrow the list to the top three or four things.
Keep it handy, review it often, and use it as your jumping-off point when
you’re plotting your career move.

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4.4 LIFE GOAL
Where would you like to be in one year? In five years? What experiences will
help you achieve that? What interests and skills would you like to use in your
career? Setting a career goal is about deciding where you want to head in your
career, and noting the steps needed to reach that point.

A popular acronym can help you write effective goals. Try the SMART system
for your career goal.

 Specific – Aim for a specific, concrete area for your goal or steps. For
example, “make ten job search calls following up on my LinkedIn
connections” vs. “make some networking connections.”

 Measurable – To determine if your goal is measurable, ask questions

such as: how much? How many? How will I know when it is
accomplished?

 Attainable – Goals are most attainable when steps are thought out
clearly and allow enough time. How do you intend to accomplish your
goal? Which actions follow on other actions? Is the goal realistic given
where you’re starting from? It should be a challenge, but also achievable.

 Relevant – A relevant goal is one that really matters to you and to the
end result. Is it worthwhile? Is this the right time? Does your goal relate
to other efforts or timelines? Does it require resources that are currently
available?

 Timely – A goal should be grounded within a defined time period, both

for clarity and to give your action urgency. When do you want to begin?
When do you want to complete each step?

4.5 SKILLS ASSESSMENT

Your skills describe what you like to do and what you are good at. You develop
skills by training and experience that improve your ability to do tasks. Being
able to identify and describe your skills allows you to answer key questions at
job interviews such as What can you do for my organization? and What
problems can you solve?

In the workplace, there are two kinds of skills: technical skills, and soft skills.
Both types are essential for success.

 Technical skills
Your ability to accomplish specific tasks like cooking, computer
programming, or teaching, are called technical skills. They relate to a
particular occupation. You may have learned technical skills from past
work experience, school or training. These skills are often included in job
listings to describe the tasks of a position.
33
  Soft skills
Employers also want employees who fit in and get along well in the
workplace. That requires soft skills. These are so valuable that soft skills
are often the reason employers decide whether to keep or promote an
employee. Some soft skills can be taught in school. But most you learn
in everyday life and can improve at any time.

Soft Skills Technical Skills

• communicate well • build a cabinet

• think critically • read an image
• participate as a team • operate equipment
member
• paint a portrait
• self-motivated
• write computer code
• flexible
• teach a lesson
• determined and persistent
• investigate a scientific
• quick learner question
• on time • sell products to
customers

4.6 CAREER LIFESTYLE

When you first get into the job market, the only thing you may be concerned
with is finding a way to get paid. But as time goes on, your priorities tend to
mature and you start to look for ways to find a job that fits your lifestyle, whether
that means working remotely instead of in a corporate office or not wanting to
work weekends anymore.

While having a job that pays well is really important, you also want to make sure
that your mental health, your relationships, and your personal goals are not
suffering. Unless your current job is your ideal position, then it's probably a good
idea to make sure that your work lifestyle matches with your personal one.

 Figure Out What You Want Out of Life

Before you look for another job, figure out why you're taking these steps
and how you want to improve your life. "It’s worth it to spend some time
getting very clear about what’s important to you. Do you crave a real
intellectual challenge? Do you love exercise? Do you need lots of time
with your friends? Are you motivated by money? No wrong answers
here, but each can lead you to a different job.

34
 Analyze What's Most Important
You need to be completely honest with yourself when you're trying to
figure out what's most important when it comes to your personal life. That
means knowing what's most important to you. "The next step when
you're looking for a job that fits your life and lifestyle. Start with what's
most important to you right now in your career. Is it making a salary of at
least a certain dollar amount? Is it telecommuting? Is it working on a
particular topic or issue? Is it working 40 hours a week, max, without
question? Or is it a generous vacation policy?"

 Don't Find Your Dream Job; Search for Your Ideal Job
"One of the common mistakes people making is assuming that a dream
job is the same as an ideal job. Don't believe dream jobs really exist past
the surface level. You'll still have to show up, put in the work, and do
things sometimes you really don't want to be doing. An ideal job, on the
other hand, is a job that matches up with your individual interests, skills,
and values. While a fashion job in Paris might sound amazing, it might
not fit with your top priorities. You can find happiness in a career if it's
allowing you to have a positive life.

 Figure Out What's Currently Making You Unhappy in Your Career

Before you can find the good, try to figure out what's making you
unhappy in your current position. With all of my coaching clients, I have
them start by listing what they want more of in their career right now and
what they want less of. This list helps them to understand exactly why
they may be unhappy in their current role and narrow in on what they
need out of their next position.

 Know Your Non-Negotiables

It's really important to know what you will or will not deal with at your
future position. If your boss at your last job required you to work till 9
p.m. a few nights a week, but you want to hang out with your kids, then
make sure your new job aligns with that lifestyle wish. Rank your top
three most important priorities. Your number one priority should serve as
your nonnegotiable. The other two are bonuses if a job or company
affords them.

 Understand Your Personality

"I personally love working from home, but someone who's highly
extroverted wouldn't work well from home. Ask yourself when you're
happiest and most productive to figure out what career you want," says
Laura Vanderkam, author of I Know How She Does It: How Successful
Women Make the Most of Their Time in a phone interview with Bustle.
Whether you work better alone or in groups, or you're the type of person
who doesn't like to travel for work, keep all your personality traits in mind
when it comes to finding your ideal job.

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 Chapter 5

CAREER SYSTEM IN
ORGANIZATION

36
CAREER SYSTEM IN ORGANIZATION
5.1 ORGANIZATION CAREER FRAMES

A team of leading organization science scholars has developed a very useful

model to understand the ambiguity and complexity of and influence the
behavior of organizations. The Four Frame Model of Bolman and Deal (2003)
can help those interested to better understand and approach issues about
organizational diagnosis, development, and change. Organizations can be
viewed in four frames as shown below:

 Structural frame
• It focuses on the architecture of the organization. This includes
goals, structure, technology, roles and relationships and
coordination of them. Think organization chart here.
• Responsibilities, division of labor, rules, policies, procedures,
systems, and hierarchies which coordinate an organization’s
diverse activities into a unified effort relate to this frame.
• The challenge for organizations and their leaders involves
designing, maintaining, and aligning structural forms with current
circumstances, tasks, technology, the environment, and goals.
• When structure does not line up, problems arise. Reorganization
or redesign may help remedy the structural misalignment.
Rational analysis leads to the development and implementation
of work roles and tasks and the appropriate coordination and
integration of individual and group efforts.
• The metaphor for the structural frame: factory or machine.

 Human resource frame

• It emphasizes understanding people and their relationships.
Individuals have needs, feelings, fears, prejudices, skills, and
development opportunities.
• This lens enables one to focus on and understand the fit between
the individual and the organization.
• By attending to people, the focus of this frame, the organization
can meet individual needs and train the individual to meet
organizational needs.
• The job gets done by persons who feel good about themselves
and their work.
• The metaphor for the human resource frame: family.

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  Political frame
• Organizations can be seen as jungles, arenas, or contests. This
frame emphasizes power, competition, and winning scarce
resources.
• Diverse values, beliefs, interests, behaviors, and skills provides
the rich context for the allocation of power and resources.
• People set agenda, bargain, negotiate, build coalitions,
compromise and coerce, and manage conflict.
• Think competing interests, struggles for power, and who gets
what and how.
• Political skill and acumen craft solutions. Such realities of
organizational life can be toxic or sources of creativity and
innovation.
• Effective management and leadership guide the proper
disbursement of power and influence and determine
organizational effectiveness.
• The metaphor for the political frame: jungle.

 Symbolic frame
• It captures organizational life as drama and treats organizations
as theatre, temples, or carnivals. This frame focuses on meaning
and faith.
• This context engages the heart and head of the members and it
focuses on ritual, ceremony, story, play and culture.
• Members’ roles play out in the drama of everyday efforts of the
organization. Meaning matters more than results.
• Events and processes have importance more for expression than
production. The faith built up and meaning shared by members
infuses passion, creativity, and soul.
• Rules, policies, and managerial authority matter less in this frame.
Instead, culture, symbols, and spirit provide this frame’s pathway
to organizational effectiveness.
• The focus of this frame challenges leaders to create and maintain
faith, beauty, and meaning.
• The metaphor for the symbolic frame: theatre, temple, or carnival.

5.2 CAREER AND STRATEGIC HRD

What is Human Resource Development (HRD)?

HRD is a process for developing and unleashing human expertise through

organization development and personnel training and development for the
purpose of improving performance (Swanson & Holton, 2009).

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What is strategy?
Strategy the process by which the basic mission and objectives of the
organization are set, and the process by which the organization uses its
resources to achieve those objectives (Tichy, Devanna, Fombrun and Warren,
1982).

What is Strategic Human Resource Development (SHRD)?

SHRD is concerned with the management of employee learning for the long
term keeping in mind the explicit corporate and business strategies
(Garavan,1991)

In the meantime, SHRD also can be defined as a systematic process of

developing the skills and competencies of people through talent development,
leadership development, employee development, performance development,
and training/development processes to enable the organization to sustain its.

Characteristics of SHRD
 Integration with organizational missions and goals:
HRD practices in this context are seen as a vital factor in organizational
learning, and training and development are viewed as making an
effective contribution to business goals. Barham, Fraser, and Heath
(1987) pointed out that SHRD involves a move from activities that are
fragmented to a situation where training and development is either more
systematically linked to such goals or else is so systematically integrated
with organizational needs that it is seen as a necessity for organizational
survival.

 Top management support:

In many organizations, expenditure on training does not reflect
investment in a financial sense but is instead perceived as a cost. Brown,
Peccei, Sandberg, and Welchman (1989) illustrated from their research
that when management training is considered it is concentrated towards
the bottom end of the management hierarchy. Senior level managers
were often not included in training strategies. It is obvious that increased
investment in organizational learning requires the active participation of
top management.

 Environmental scanning:
Garavan (1991) argued that a competitive environment presents major
opportunities as it highlights the role of human resources as a key
component of business success. This in turn will present the opportunity
to discuss HRD strategies at the highest level and ensure that the first
characteristic discussed, that of integration, is achieved. The
environment can also act as a threat to the HRD function. Stiff
competition, if not tackled effectively, can reduce profit margins and
39
 consequently lead to a reduction in training budgets. This situation
clearly points to the need for HRD strategy to be well positioned in the
overall business context including organizational learning.

 HRD plans and policies:

Organizational learning should engage in HRD policy and plan
formulation because it acts not only as a source of information for all
managers, but also clearly sets out for employees the different types of
education, and learning and development activities that they can
undertake to help develop their skills and knowledge, and therefore it
complements career development activities.

 Line manager commitment and involvement:

The line manager is best placed to assess, on an ongoing basis, the
training and development needs of subordinates and can facilitate
identifying development routes for subordinates and is ideally placed to
provide advice, direction, and counselling to subordinates. Therefore,
the competence of line managers is vital to a successful implementation
of strategic HRD and organizational learning.

 Existence of complementary HRM activities:

Buckley and Caple (1990) rightly pointed out that in the past HRD has
adopted a closed system mode of thinking. This has had the
consequence of making it unresponsive to organizational needs,
unaware of how its activities link in with HRM activities, and lack of any
significant evaluation. HRD must view itself as one strategy available to
an organization wishing to retain, develop, and motivate its human
resources to increase the value of organizational learning.

 Expanded trainer role:

The HRD role is burdened with many role conflicts. Three types of
conflict in particular, namely the trainer's internal conflicts, managing
conflicting priorities between the HRD function and the wider
organization, and managing conflicts between line departments, were
highlighted (Garavan, 1991). These conflicts place high demands on the
skills and credibility of the HRD specialist and the probability of failure in
the role is high. Thus, it is important to expand the trainer role.

 Recognition of culture:
Culture must be viewed as a central factor in the overall process
because the HRD function has a key role in maintaining and changing
corporate culture. An examination of these various perspectives is
necessary if a strategically-focused HRD function is to establish options,
policies, and plans that fit the strategic logic and cultural web found in
the organization. Thus, HRD efforts cannot ignore the prevailing and
desired culture of an organization in the learning process.

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  Emphasis on evaluation:
A key component of the strategic learning process is that of strategy
evaluation. If the HRD function wishes to have a strategic focus, then it
must evaluate its activities. Zenger and Hurgis (1982) pointed out that
strategically-oriented HRD functions spend time evaluating their
activities, and they use measures that seem most relevant to the
management of their own organization.

Roles of HRD Practitioner

According to ASTD’s (2004) typology (Noe, 2010), there are four unique roles
of HRD Practitioner as shown below:

 Learning Strategist
Determines how HRD programs can be best utilized to help meet the
organization’s business strategy.

 Business Partner
Uses business and industry knowledge to create training programs that
improve performance.

 Project Manager
Plans, coordinates and monitors the effective delivery of training
programs that support the business.

 Professional Specialist
Designs, develops, conducts and evaluates training and development
programs.

5.3 PERFORMANCE EVALUATION SYSTEM

A performance evaluation system is a formal system of review and evaluation

of individual or team task performance. Performance evaluations can also be
called performance appraisals, performance assessments, or employee
appraisals.

There are four reasons why a systematic performance evaluation system

should be implemented:
 The evaluation process should encourage positive performance and
behavior.
 It is a way to satisfy employee curiosity as to how well they are
performing in their job.
 It can also be used as a tool to develop employees.
 It can provide a basis for pay raises, promotions, and legal disciplinary
actions.

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Process of Performance Evaluation System

 Identify Specific Performance Appraisal Goals

An appraisal system probably cannot effectively serve every desired
purpose, so management should select the specific goals it believes to
be most important and realistically achievable.

 Establish Performance Criteria & Communicate to Employees

This step requires setting the criteria to judge the performance of the
employees as successful or unsuccessful and the degrees of their
contribution to the organizational goals and objectives. The standards
set should be clear, easily understandable and in measurable terms.
Once set, it is the responsibility of the management to communicate the
standards to all the employees of the organization. The employees
should be informed and the standards should be clearly explained to the
employees. This will help them to understand their roles and to know
what exactly is expected from them. The standards should also be
communicated to the appraisers or the evaluators and if required, the
standards can also be modified at this stage itself according to the
relevant feedback from the employees or the evaluators.

 Examine Work Performed

The most difficult part of the Performance appraisal process is
measuring the actual performance of the employees that is the work
done by the employees during the specified period of time. It is a
continuous process which involves monitoring the performance
throughout the year. This stage requires the careful selection of the
appropriate techniques of measurement, taking care that personal bias

42
 does not affect the outcome of the process and providing assistance
rather than interfering in an employee’s work.

 Appraise Performance
The actual performance is compared with the desired or the standard
performance. The comparison tells the deviations in the performance of
the employees from the standards set. The result can show the actual
performance being more than the desired performance or, the actual
performance being less than the desired performance depicting a
negative deviation in the organizational performance. It includes
recalling, evaluating and analysis of data related to the employees’
performance.

 Discuss Appraisal with Employee

The result of the appraisal is communicated and discussed with the
employees on one-to-one basis. The focus of this discussion is on
communication and listening. The results, the problems and the possible
solutions are discussed with the aim of problem solving and reaching
consensus. The feedback should be given with a positive attitude as this
can have an effect on the employees’ future performance. Performance
appraisal feedback by managers should be in such way helpful to correct
mistakes done by the employees and help them to motivate for better
performance but not to demotivate. Performance feedback task should
be handled very carefully as it may leads to emotional outburst if it is not
handing properly. Sometimes employees should be prepared before
giving them feedback as it may be received positively or negatively
depending upon the nature and attitude of employees.

Characteristics of Effective Appraisal System

The basic purpose of PA system is to improve the performance of individuals,
teams and the entire organization. The system may also serve to assist in
making administrative decisions concerning pay increase, promotions,
transfers or terminations.

 Job Related Criteria

Evaluation criteria should be determined through job analysis.
Subjective factors such as initiative, enthusiasm, loyalty and
cooperation. However, unless clearly shown to be job related, they
should not be used.

 Performance Expectations
Employees must understand in advance what is expected of them. On
the other hand, if employees clearly understand the expectations, they
can evaluate their own performance and make timely adjustments as
they perform their jobs, without having to wait for the formal evaluation
review.

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 Standardization
Firms should use the same evaluation instrument for all employees in
the same job category who work for the same supervisor. Supervisors
should also conduct appraisals covering similar periods for these
employees. Regularly scheduled feedback sessions and appraisal
interviews for all employees are essential.

 Trained Appraisers
The appraisers receive training in giving and receiving feedback. The
training should cover how to rate employees and how to conduct
appraisal interviews. The training should be an ongoing process to
ensure accuracy and consistency.

 Continuous Open Communication

Managers should tell the employees how well they are performing
continuously. Continuous feedback is important to help direct, coach and
teach employees to grow and improve performance.

 Conduct Performance Reviews

A special time should be set for formal discussion between managers
and their employees regarding the employee’s performance. A
performance review allows them to detect any errors or omissions in the
appraisal.

 Due Process
Company should develop formal grievance to provide employees
opportunity to appeal appraisal results that they consider inaccurate or
unfair.

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 Chapter 6

CAREER IN
BUSINESS SECTOR

45
CAREER IN BUSINESS SECTOR
6.1 CAREER MANAGEMENT PRACTICE

Career management is conscious planning of one’s activities and engagements

in the jobs one undertakes in the course of his life for better fulfilment, growth
and financial stability. It is a sequential process that starts from an
understanding of oneself and encompasses occupational awareness.

An individual’s career is the sole source of one’s natural expression of self. One
school of thought describes work as the purpose of life and the source of one’s
expression and the purpose of being or existence. Yet others believe that there
is a wide difference between an individual’s career and his life. In any case,
career is an integral component of one’s life and therefore the need for its
management.

Career Management Model

A model is a picture or representation of reality. It is the abstraction of reality. It
is a standard or example for imitation or comparison. It contains a set of
variables that are related to each other in a specified manner so that we can
better understand some piece of the world. The career management model
describes how people should manage their careers.

The career management model consists of a few important components:

 Career Exploration
- Career exploration is the collection and analysis of information
regarding career-related issues.
- One should aware of his own talent, interest, values, the importance
of work in is total life, about alternative jobs inside or outside the
organization. Career exploration promotes awareness.
- Most people do not know themselves. “Know thyself’- is one of the
important messages suggested by the great philosopher Socrates.
They may overestimate strengths in certain areas and judge
themselves to be more talented than they really are.

 Awareness
- Exploration increases awareness. Awareness is a relatively complete
and accurate perception of a person’s own qualities and
characteristics of his relevant environment. Awareness is a central
concept in career development.
- A thorough awareness of self and environment allows a person to set
right career goals and strategies.

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 Goal Setting
- People set career goals to maintain motivation, have something to
look forward to and achieve success. Effective career goals follow
the S.M.A.R.T. model. That is, they are specific, measurable,
achievable, and realistic and have a timeline.
- Greater awareness of self and environment can help the individual
choose a career goal to pursue. A career goal is a desired career-
related outcome that a person intends to attain. The goal may be to
attain the position of assistant plant manager in a specified period of
time, to move into a project engineering position.

 Strategy Development
- A strategy is a plan chosen to bring about a desired future, such as
the achievement of a goal or solution to a problem. A career strategy
is a sequence of activities designed to help an individual attain a
career goal. A career strategy is a structured approach to developing
capabilities, tools, and resources in an organization, which will
enable people to navigate their career ‘journey’ successfully.
- The establishment of a realistic goal or set of goals can facilitate the
development and implementation of a career strategy.
- The main strategies are, for example, competence in the present job,
extended work involvement, development of skills through training,
opportunity development, development of supportive relationships
(mentors, sponsors, and peers), image building, and organizational
politics.

 Strategy Implementation
- Strategy implementation put simply is the process that puts plans and
strategies into action to reach goals. The implementation of a
reasonable strategy can produce progress toward the stated career
goal.
- It is important that you give priority and time to implementing your
career action plan, to ensure you achieve your desired outcomes and
commit to a lifelong learning strategy to stay employable.

 Feedback
- Feedback is a response towards the sender about a message. The
implementation of a career strategy can provide useful feedback to
the person.
- This feedback can enable the person to appraise his career.
- Great supervisors know that motivating employees is about more
than charisma and vision.

 Career Appraisal
- Whether or not a person is making progress toward a goal, the
implementation of a career strategy can provide useful feedback to
the person.
- This feedback, in conjunction with feedback from other work and non-
work sources, can allow a person to appraise his or her career.

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 - Career appraisal is the process by which people acquire and use
career related feedback to determine whether their goals and
strategies are appropriate. Career appraisal permits a person to
monitor the course of a career, represents adaptive, and feedback
functions of career management.
- The career appraisal process may lead to a reexamination of career
goals. The additional information obtained from career appraisal
becomes another tool for career exploration that continues the career
management cycle.

6.2 INITIATING CAREER PROGRAM

Career development is actually a collection of conditions, strategies, and
processes that must work in harmony to be effective. These include:
 A career framework that defines and describes job roles, job families,
career levels, and career streams
 Clear, flexible, and well-communicated career paths
 Competencies aligned with career paths
 Performance management aligned with competencies and career paths
 Learning programs, including Individual Learning Plans
 Coaching and mentoring
 Enabling technology

Brandon Hall Group developed a five-phase, High-Performance Career

Development Framework to illustrate these foundations:

Essential #1: Develop a Complete Career Development Framework

As stated earlier, 70 percent of organizations use some type of career
framework, although most organizations are not using all elements of a
framework. Creating a career framework that starts with a specific job role and
doesn’t take it through a job family, career level, and career stream is like
starting construction of a road and not completing it; it leads nowhere. It is just
as important for organizations that start a framework to complete it.

The process of building the framework is different for every organization. The
key is to take a wide lens and understand both organizational and employee
goals for having a career development structure and career paths. It is then
critical to involve a wide variety of stakeholders and make sure the framework
aligns with the culture and there is governance in place to guide the process.

Essential #2: Enable Career Development with Technology

As noted, career development is complex and involves a collection of
conditions, strategies, and processes that must work in harmony.

In even the simplest of organizations, there are many variables for creating a
career development architecture and career paths. Once you align career paths
with competencies in different business units and regions, and create vertical
and horizontal career paths, those variables cannot be well managed manually.

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This is where the wheels come off for many organizations. The research shows
only 23 percent of organizations support competency development with
technology and only 21 percent support career development with technology.
Comparatively, 60 percent of organizations support performance management
with technology, which is arguably far less complicated than career and
competency development.

Essential #3: Develop Career Paths Aligned with Competencies

For career paths to resonate with employees and provide value to the employer,
they must be linked to an employee’s performance. While about half of
organizations still primarily determine promotions through annual performance
reviews, 81 percent of organizations now align career paths with at least one of
five competency types.

Aligning competencies with career paths provides a clear roadmap for

employees. They can see skills they must master through experience, training,
or both. They can understand whether there must be external learning through
universities or associations and whether internal or external certifications are
required. They can understand how long they are expected to stay in a role and
the expected level of performance before they advance.

Essential #4: Enable Employees to Change Career Streams or Levels

Based on Changing Personal or Professional Priorities
In our four-generation workforce, career paths often move in untraditional ways.
Personal interests affect career choices more often than previously.
Organizations that design ways for employees to change direction—
horizontally, vertically, or into an entirely different career stream or level—have
a competitive advantage over other organizations.

Millennials often are presumed to be most likely to choose untraditional paths.

But with employees working longer, Baby Boomers who want to continue
working—though perhaps not at their current level, intensity, or job type—can
continue to make meaningful contributions when flexible opportunities are
available. Job sharing also is becoming more popular, so organizations that can
identify job-sharing opportunities can gain a competitive advantage.

Essential #5: Invest in Career Coaching

Our last essential is definitely not the least impactful. Research shows career
coaching can have enormous benefit across the career development spectrum.
Coaching has a strong positive impact in many areas: learning, performance
management, leadership development, and even wellness and well-being. It is
not surprising that career coaching has an impact on career development, as
well. However, career coaching is not nearly as prevalent as other types.
Almost one-third of organizations (32 percent) do not provide any type of career
coaching.

49
 The data show the biggest benefit from career coaching comes when it is done
informally through in-the-moment and ongoing feedback, and formally, often
through specially trained career counsellors (either internal or external), career
development portals, and targeted career development meetings.

6.3 DESIGNING THE PROGRAM

You can design career development plans with your employees by taking a few
simple steps. For career development planning to be effective, expand your
view of development and that of your employees. An outside training class is
not the only way to develop employees. The development that is provided in-
house is often more effective and a source of greater employee satisfaction.

Designing Career Development Planning Meeting

These are ideas about how you can help an employee design a career
development plan.

 Tell the employee that you want to meet with him or her to discuss career
development plans and hopes. Ask the employee to think in advance
about his or her options for growth and development and how they see
their career unfolding in your company. Encourage the employee to think
about how they’d like to see their careers progress.

 Suggest that the employee think about and come prepared to discuss
these questions: What professional job or career growth goals does the
employee hope to achieve within three years? What would the employee
like to accomplish this year? Offer opportunities for the employee to
consider as options to accomplish these goals.

 Prepare recommendations on what the employee can do to ensure that

he or she is making progress on his career path. Determine and discuss
resources and support the organization can provide so that the
employee can accomplish his or her professional job or career growth
goals.

 Determine what professional and personal goals will help the employee
improve or develop great performance in their current job. What
additional support can this organization provide so that the employee
can accomplish these goals?

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 Hold the Career Development Planning Meeting
 Hold a meeting with the employee to discuss these questions and
formulate a plan with the employee's involvement. Be flexible because
the employee may have other avenues that he or she wants to discuss.
As a manager, your job is to know all of the options available to the
employee such as job shadowing, mentoring, and coaching on particular
skills.

 Make sure that you're up to speed and can talk knowledgeably about all
of the training and development options that exist for your reporting staff
members. Many employees don’t consider development in any other
sense beyond taking a class, and it helps to share with them all of the
additional available options for training.

 Create and fill out a form that details the employee's career development
plan and turn it into Human Resources for review, additional input, and
filing.

Carrying Out the Plan

Employee development is a great concept but it is not without issues. The best
plans keep the responsibility for follow-through squarely on the shoulders of
employees. Otherwise, if an employee does not complete their development
opportunities, he or she may choose to place blame on management, which is
counter-productive for all of the involved parties.

 Steer the employee in certain directions, but don't do the work for them.
Make it the employee's responsibility to find a great class in listening if
he or she's a poor communicator. If it turns out to be a poor choice, the
employee is responsible. If the class doesn’t produce the desired results,
the employee cannot place blame on anyone else. Both the Human
Resources department and a manager can help the employee explore
his or her options, but the employee is ultimately responsible for the
choice and follow-through.

6.4 IMPLEMENTING THE PROGRAM

Career development programs today are no longer optional. Employees want

development, and they want it through their workplace. Providing a great career
development program is a gateway for improving employee engagement,
increasing employee retention, and creating good company culture. This makes
a formal program crucial to the employee experience.

Here are 6 best practices for implementing career development programs.

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 Ask Employees What They Want
Before you make your career development plan, it’s best practice to ask
your employees what they want out of it. This information can guide you
in program creation. If you implement an initiative that the employees
feel is not beneficial, they won’t participate.

Asking for your employees’ opinions also promotes a great company

culture. The open channel of communication will let your employees feel
heard. This builds workplace trust and employee satisfaction, which
benefits the whole organization.

 Make a Career Development Plan

Creating a specific and comprehensive career development plan should
be done after you know what your employees want. Take their feedback
into consideration by building a program that fits their needs. Improve
the likelihood that this program will succeed by taking the time to plan it
out before implementation.

When planning this program, you should be sure to physically write your
plan down. Brainstorming and talking is great, but you are 42% more
likely to achieve your goals if they are written. Once your career
development plan is written, you have the blueprints for a great career
development program.

 Mix and Match Career Development Strategies

Like we said, career development programs take many different forms.
This means you can leverage various career development strategies
under your overall career development package. For example, career
workshops and access to training materials for different job roles and
functions should be available.

You can also diversify your career development program by offering

personal development opportunities as well as leadership skill
development. Leadership development is necessary to your
organization’s future, as individuals leave their jobs every day. It is also
desired by your employees.

 Be Transparent
44% of employees rank organizational communication as very
important, but only 29% are very satisfied with it. You can increase
employee satisfaction, and overall company culture, by communicating
your goals from the beginning. Making your goals known to the whole
organization is a best practice for successful career development
programs.

Employees should be given information about relevant career

development activities that will help them move into these roles. Also
consider offering employees the ability to study the organizational
structure and open opportunities. Let them learn about the different types
of careers and roles available to them.

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 Offer Tools and Resources
If you implement your career development plans without guiding your
participants, you are setting yourself up for failure. Instead, offer them
tools and resources to be successful. It’s best practice to provide some
assistance to steer your program in the right direction.

A great way to do this is through training. Mentoring and coaching

training can help your participants make their relationships more
beneficial early-on. You should also make information about each role
available to everyone. This allows employees to access this information
on their own time or during the work day.

As with career availability, career development software is a great way

to maintain all this information. It can manage all participants,
relationships, and goals to make the job of the program administrators
easier.

 Measure Your Success

Measuring your success is fundamental in maintaining your career
development program. Without numerical proof that the program is
effective, your stakeholders and investors may lose faith and pull
funding.

Outcomes can be measured and tracked from career development

sessions with software. The reports pulled from this can validate the
effectiveness of your program. At the organizational level, you can also
measure your success directly with employee retention statistics.

Additionally, real-time tracking and reporting at regular intervals

throughout the program can indicate success. Software can help you
survey participants and manage the results. You can also check in
during sessions to see how they are doing.

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 Chapter 7

ROLES OF TRAINING
AND DEVELOPMENT

54
ROLES OF TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT
7.1 DEFINITION AND CONCEPT OF TRAINING

Training
- Activities designed to provide learners with the knowledge and skill needed
for their present job.
- For example, showing a worker how to operate a lathe machine.

Development
- Learning that goes beyond today’s job and has a more long-term focus.
- It prepares employees to keep pace with the organization as it changes and
grows.

Differences between Training and Development

Training and Development Process

Step 1: Determine specific T&D needs

 The first step in the T&D process is to determine specific T&D needs.
 Helps companies determine whether training is necessary.
 It may be determined by conducting analyses on three levels, which
include organization analysis, task analysis and person analysis.

55
 Step 2: Establish specific T&D objectives
 T&D must have clear and concise objectives and be developed to
achieve organizational goals.
 Without them, designing meaningful T&D programs would not be
possible.

Step 3: Select T&D methods

 Management can determine the appropriate methods and the delivery
system to be used such as classroom method, e-learning, case study,
behavior modelling, role playing, training games, in basket training, on
the job training, apprenticeship training and team training.

Step 4: Implement T&D programs

 Participants must believe that the program has value and will help them
achieve their personal and professional goals.
 It is important to maintain training records, including how well employees
perform during training and later on the job.

Step 5: Evaluate T&D program

 There are four criteria was developed for evaluating training and
development.
 Reactions Training
Evaluation criterion focused on the extent to which trainees liked
the training program related to its usefulness, and quality of
conduct.
 Learning
The extent to which an employee understands and retains
principles, facts, and techniques.
 Behavior Change
Change in job-related behaviors or performance that can be
attributed to training.
 Organizational Results
Typically, training outcomes such as enhanced productivity, lower
costs, and higher product or service quality.

7.2 FUNCTIONS OF TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

 Orientation
 New employee orientation is an important part of the hiring
process.
 It prepares the employees for new roles
 According to SHRM, employees who go through an orientation
process feel more connected to their job.
 The focus and length of orientation sessions are often determined
by the employees' positions in the company.

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  While hourly employees may be in orientation for one day,
manager-level employee orientation can last up to two weeks.

 Compliance
• This encompasses workplace violence, sexual harassment, drug
and alcohol, and safety in the workplace.
• This training assures employees know how certain situations are
handled.
• Policies and procedures are outlined, and the consequences are
clearly spelled out.
• Offering this type of training puts employees on alert, and helps
the company avoid costly lawsuits.

 Leadership
• Offering leadership training helps the workforce grow. It prepares
employees for the challenges of management, and begins the
succession planning process.
• Succession planning helps fill high-level positions by molding
current employees.
• Retirement is inevitable, and some positions are difficult to fill.
• Succession planning allows employees to train for certain roles,
and when the time comes, they can successfully fill the vacant
position.

 Career Planning
• Training and development also deal with employee career
planning.
• Counselling employees is an effective way to determine their
career goals, and can help them remain a part of the organization
for years to come.
• Companies that offer career counselling show they care about
their employee's future.
• According to SHRM, career counselling is an important
component of succession planning.

 Research
• A large component of the HR training function is research.
• Skill development programs are ever-changing.
• Conducting research should be an on-going training activity.
• It will assure the programs are fresh and relevant.
• Assessing the needs of incumbent employees will better shape
them for future success.
• This, in turn, guarantees the success of the company.

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  Needs Assessment
• The training and development staff are particularly adept at
conducting needs assessments.
• They identify employee skill sets and determine the kind of
training employees need to meet the organization's workforce and
staffing goals.
• Needs assessments are critical for organizations in their growth
phase because training an existing workforce saves the money of
hiring new staff at higher wages.

7.3 TYPES OF TRAINING

 Induction or Orientation Training

Introducing a new employee to the organization’s environment
comprising of a day to day functioning, products, services, rules and
regulations are termed as Induction or orientation training. The purpose
of such training is to reduce the nervousness of a new employee, by
making him accustom to the working environment. It is also called as an
orientation training, which means giving a fair idea to the new employee
about, what he is supposed to do in the organization.

 Job Training
This training is job specific and is given to the employee who has to
perform that job. Under this training, the information about the machine,
the process of production, methods to be used, the safety measures to
be undertaken, etc. are explained. Through this training, the employee
develops the confidence and the necessary skills, that enables him to
perform his job effectively and efficiently.

 Safety Training
The safety training is given to the employees so as to minimize the
number of accidents caused due to the handling of machines or other
equipment. Under this training, the employees are given the safety
instructions on the usage of machinery and the other dangerous devices.

 Apprenticeship Training
Under this training, the worker earns while learning. This training is
generally given to the technical staff, craftsmen, plumber, etc. who are
required to work under the superior for a relatively longer period, until he
gains the expertise in that particular field.

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 Internship Training
Under this type, the educational or vocational institutes have an
arrangement with the industrial institutes to provide practical knowledge
to its students. Sometimes, the companies also offer the pre-placement
offers to the trainees on the basis of their performance during their
internship program.

 Refresher Training or Retraining

As the name implies, the retraining or refresher training is given to the
old employees with the purpose of improving their efficiencies. They are
introduced to the new methods and technologies that would result in the
increased productivity and reduces the monotony in their daily work.

 Promotional Training
This training is given to the potential employees, who can be promoted
to the senior position in the organization. The promotional training is
given in advance so that employee gets accustomed to the new roles
and responsibilities and do not get nervous at the time of promotion.

 Remedial Training
This training is given in order to overcome the shortcomings in the
behavior and performance of old employees. Due to the invention of
technology, the employees may resist to accept the change and cause
a disturbance in the organization. Therefore, such training is given to
make them understand the importance of change and its necessity in the
operations of business. This training is generally given by the
psychological expert.

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 Chapter 8

PROFESSIONAL
RESPONSIBILITY

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PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY
8.1 ROLES OF THE SUPERVISOR IN CAREER DEVELOPMENT

Roles Details
Motivate  Supervisors play an essential role in motivating employees to
employees enhance their skills with time and acquire new learnings.
 Supervisors must ensure their team members do something new
each day.
 Make your employees realize that their job is not to come in the
morning, mark their attendance, leave on time and receive their
paychecks.

Provide the  Give them correct feedbacks. A supervisor can give correct feedback
right guidance only when he knows what his employees are up to? Performance
monitoring is essential.
 Review the work of your employees at the end of every month.
 Suggest them new courses, websites, study materials which would
help them enhance their skills and knowledge.

Give the extra  Give the extra push to your employees to participate in employee
push to development activities.
employees  Respect other’s ideas. Let people come out with new ideas.
Information sharing helps in development of employees.
 Encourage discussions on an open forum where employees can
share their views on various topics and gain from each other’s
knowledge.

Design  Supervisors ought to design relevant employee development

development activities as per needs and requirements of employees.
activities  Create an environment in your organization where each employee
feels motivated to learn something new each day.
 Be a good leader to them. There is absolutely no harm if a supervisor
also participates in various training programs.

Allocate  Supervisors should ensure to allocate enough resources for trainings

enough (in house or outsourced), team building activities, seminars,
resources conferences, or any other employee development initiatives.
 Provide ample opportunities to your team members to develop and
polish themselves.
 Give some time to your employees so that they can participate in
employee development initiatives.

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8.2 MENTORING
Mentoring is a system of semi-structured guidance whereby one person shares
their knowledge, skills and experience to assist others to progress in their own
lives and careers. Mentors need to be readily accessible and prepared to offer
help as the need arises - within agreed bounds.

Mentoring can be a short-term arrangement until the original reason for the
partnership is fulfilled (or ceases), or it can last many years.

Mentoring is more than ‘giving advice’, or passing on what your experience was
in a particular area or situation. It's about motivating and empowering the other
person to identify their own issues and goals, and helping them to find ways of
resolving or reaching them - not by doing it for them, or expecting them to ‘do it
the way I did it’, but by understanding and respecting different ways of working.

Mentoring is not counselling or therapy - though the mentor may help the
mentee to access more specialized avenues of help if it becomes apparent that
this would be the best way forward.

Types of Mentoring
Type Details
Induction  A mentor should be assigned to you as a new member of staff, to
mentoring help you orientate yourself to the department and its procedures,
policies, personnel, sources of help and information, location of key
equipment — and to help you ‘survive’ your first few weeks in a new
post.
 They may act as a neutral and impartial confidante for any concerns
or difficulties you may have in settling down, and help you to work out
strategies for success.
 Generally, they will not be someone in direct authority over you, and
usually someone from outside your immediate circle is found, though
preferably doing a similar or related role.

Peer  As you progress, colleagues can ‘peer-mentor’ each other either in

mentoring particular areas (such as teaching observation or project
management) or for general support.
 Peer mentoring should still be about progress and development, and
be equally supportive of each partner.
 Peer mentors should hold each other accountable for their action
plans, and help each other to achieve their goals.
 Some of the courses offered by PPD (e.g. Springboard) facilitate
peer-mentoring, as well as helping you to network and find suitable
mentors.

Developmental  Developmental mentoring is about the synergy that two (or more)
mentoring people can create between them to generate solutions, strategies
and action plans, to build on success.

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  Mentoring provides individuals with role models and may be a means
of providing information about career and training opportunities
(internal and external).
 Mentoring widens the support network, provides motivation and can
improve confidence.
 With developmental mentoring an experienced mentor helps you to
develop your strengths and potential, and identify your changing
needs, values, aspirations, and what's most important to you.
 The mentor works with you to plan your professional development,
and your next career steps.

Benefits to the Mentor

Becoming a mentor can enrich your life on a personal and professional level by
helping you do the following:

Benefits Details
Build your  It helps you develop your ability to motivate and encourage others.
leadership This can help you become a better manager, employee, and team
skills member.

Improve your  Because your mentee may come from a different background or
communication environment, the two of you may not "speak the same language."
skills This may force you to find a way to communicate more effectively as
you navigate your way through the mentoring relationship.

Learn new  By working with someone less experienced and from a different
perspectives background, you can gain a fresh perspective on things and learn a
new way of thinking – which can help in your work life as well as your
personal life.

Advance your  Refining your leadership skills can strengthen your on-the-job
career performance, perhaps helping you get that promotion to higher
management – or into management in the first place. Showing that
you've helped others learn and grow is becoming more and more
essential to advancement in today's business world.

Gain personal  It can be very personally fulfilling to know that you've directly
satisfaction contributed to someone's growth and development. Seeing your
mentee succeed as result of your input is a reward in itself.

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Benefits to the Mentee
A trusted mentor can help you do the following:

Benefits Details
Gain valuable  Mentors can offer valuable insight into what it takes to get ahead.
advice They can be your guide and "sounding board" for ideas, helping you
decide on the best course of action in difficult situations. You may
learn shortcuts that help you work more effectively and avoid
"reinventing the wheel."

Develop your  They can help you identify the skills and expertise you need to
knowledge and succeed. They may teach you what you need to know, or advise you
skills on where to go for the information you need.

Improve your  Just like your mentor, you may also learn to communicate more
communication effectively, which can further help you at work.
skills

Learn new  Again, you can learn new ways of thinking from your mentor, just as
perspectives your mentor can learn from you.

Build your  Your mentor can offer an opportunity to expand your existing network
network of personal and professional contacts.

Advance your  A mentor helps you stay focused and on track in your career through
career advice, skills development, networking, and so on.

Mutual Mentoring

It's often the case that, within an organization or a network, there are more
people looking for a mentor than there are those offering to be one. A practical
solution to this is "mutual mentoring."

Although it is probably useful to have a mentor who has "been there and done
that", you might have to wait a long time for such a person to come along.
Instead, why not try working with a less-experienced but willing person, who will
still be able to encourage you to think about what you want from your career,
challenge you to commit to goals, and help you to review your progress towards
them?

If you do the same for them, you have the basis for a strong and mutually-
beneficial relationship.

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 Key Points:

 Mentoring partnerships can be mutually beneficial and rewarding – on

both professional and personal levels. Mentors can develop leadership
skills and gain a personal sense of satisfaction from knowing that they've
helped someone.

 Mentees can expand their knowledge and skills, gain valuable advice
from a more experienced person, and build their professional networks.
And both partners can improve their communication skills, learn new
ways of thinking, and, ultimately, advance their careers.

 Mentoring relationships can be mutual, or two-way, with each person

being both the mentor of and mentee of the other person. Alternatively,
they can be one way only, although an individual may have his or her
own mentor while also acting as a mentor for others at the same time.

8.3 ORGANIZATIONAL SUPPORT SYSTEMS

How to Support Employee Growth and Professional

Development

 Give Recognition and Rewards.

Giving recognition and rewards to your employees can motivate them,
and it encourages loyalty — which are driving forces behind employee
growth. When workers feel valued and their efforts recognized,
performance levels increase.

 Provide Feedback in Real-time, Not Just During Annual Reviews.

Organizations need to implement processes that help management
organize and assess the strengths and weaknesses of their employees
on an ongoing basis. These managers need to then communicate the
results of those assessments throughout the year — either weekly,
monthly or quarterly.

 Encourage Mentoring and Coaching.

Organizations can support the growth of their employees by creating a
management culture that encourages communication and training.
Managers shouldn’t be afraid to ask employees if they need help, and
they should relish in the opportunity to pass on skills or knowledge to
their employees.

 Identify and Develop Soft Skills.

Soft skills refer to the personal traits and non-technical attributes that
help you succeed in your career. These skills can include areas like time
management, delegation, active listening, and communication, among
others. Organizations that offer training and educational resources for

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 soft-skill development can increase the productivity of their entire team
– not just the employee.

 Continue to Look for Developmental Opportunities.

To mitigate employee turnover and decreased productivity,
organizations must find creative ways to engage workers and increase
their loyalty. Employee growth initiatives and skill-development
programs are two long-term strategies that provide the foundation for
improved employee experiences.

Benefits of Organizational Support

 Encourage teamwork.
 Allow employers to draw from a wider talent pool.
 Help ensure business continuity.
 Employees tend to be more loyal when they have a flexible schedule.
 Lower turnover and hiring costs.
 Helps ensure and promote continued diversity in the workplace.
 Employees are more satisfied.

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 Chapter 9

MANAGING CAREER
DEVELOPMENT AND
CHANGE ISSUES

67
MANAGING CAREER DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE
ISSUES
9.1 DUAL CAREER CAOUPLES

Definition
Dual Career Couples (DCCs) are families in which both heads of households
(husband and wife) pursue careers and at the same time maintain a family life
together. Both have high degree of commitment to their career.

Advantages of Dual Career Couples

 Increase in equality.
A dual career couple have better balance in their relationship,
understanding and more advanced in solving problems for each other,
than any normal couple.
Since both of them work, a better opportunity is created in which both of
them are able to help each other in the time of need regarding their work,
thus decreasing each other’s stress level by few percent. Since in dual
mode, both the partners are working, a sense of equality is developed
which leads to an excellent communication of various issues arising due
to their work.

 Good financial stability.

Since in dual career couple both the couples are working, the financial
crisis is decreased. Moreover, these dual career couples get a better
advantage of providing their offspring with better future, education and
lifestyle than those couples who have only one partner earning. While
getting more focused on their work, these couples are more likely to get
awarded for their commitment. With both the couples working, financial
worries are reduced drastically.

 Good socialization.
Nowadays everyone wants a spouse with high educational background
and a stable income to act as an extra support system for the family.
Due to this, socialization becomes a vital part to consider. With dual
career families, socialization becomes a piece of cake. In fact, everybody
would love to meet a couple who are not only financially stable with high
education level, but also socialize well with others.

 Equal management of household chores.

Now that both the couples are working, management of house becomes
a duty of both the couple, not only for the female counterpart. Therefore,
working together in harmony gives rise to better understanding of each
other’s problems as well as increase some rare abilities such as
patience, and decrease some useless habits like laziness or ordering
each other around.

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 Additionally, they get a better view of each other’s individual lifestyle and
tend to solve problems with increasing efficiency.

 Sharing common aims.

The biggest benefit of being a dual career couple is that you get to share
a common goal which changes their individual lifestyles. Not only have
they got to enjoy an individual lifestyle, but also having a common aim,
work harmoniously together to reach the goal effectively. Also, a greater
sense of accomplishment is achieved for both of them.

 More responsible offspring.

Having a dual career path implies giving less time to the children. Thus,
this can be a negative aspect. But the positive thing is slowly children
learns to be less dependable on their parents and tend to go for finding
out solutions for their problems by their own rather than sticking to their
elders for advice all the time. So, children learn to become self-sufficient,
self-reliable and less dependent on parents for their daily decisions. This
increases their efficiency and gives them a lesson to handle world on
their own.

 Greater potential to increase opportunities.

In dual career mode, you get exposed to varieties of opportunities in the
market for further enhancement of lifestyle. Since nobody is dependent,
diverse opportunities open for each of them to work out.
Opportunities give rise to challenges which removes boredom and
lethargy, enhancing better exercising of body and mind for both of them
to work better and efficiently, accomplishing their daily goals and get
better benefits out of their opportunities.

Disadvantages of Dual Career Couples

 Increased stress on personal life.

Many dual career couples pursue their career while simultaneously
running their family. In such couples each spouse’s career is equally
important and there is no question of any superiority. Due to such high
level of commitment from both the spouses it sometime becomes difficult
for them to maintain a healthy personal life unlike traditional families
where each member enjoys their freedom and duties alike. Thus,
increasing stress level in their personal lives.

 Difficulties in maintaining family and job life.

It’s a classic professional versus personal life situation in which both the
spouse has to choose between personal advancement and the welfare
of the family. The very definition of the term states that dual career
couples are serious about their career, so the conflict is not about
whether career or family but it is more like who will be sacrificing what
and to what extent in order to run the family.

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 Difficulties for couple coming from familiar background.
Spouses having different education, working skills and career
advancement have very fewer problems as they have less difficulty in
getting job at the same place or same organization. But for couples who
come from same background needing similar types of job it becomes
difficult for both of them to land a job because it is very rare for an
organization to have two vacancies for similar types of job at the same
time. So, probability of landing a job that would require both of them
together becomes a hectic process.

 Role expectation problems.

The worst thing that hurts a person is when his or her better half doesn’t
stand up to his or her expectation. This usually happens when a person
assumes certain responsibilities to be carried out by the other by default.
This makes it even worse; they don’t come upon to agree on a common
point which creates a situation of stress and uncertainty regarding the
future of the spouses. Thus, increase in expectations brings about
worsening of personal relation.

 Socialization of roles.
In a society a man is generally considered to be the bread earner while
the woman is considered to be a homemaker. Thus, it gives external
responsibilities on both man and woman. This creates an unwanted
tension to man to earn more while for woman to perform her household
duties. This type of stereotyping affects a lot to the relationship in which
both are pretty serious about their career and role in society. Thus, living
in a stereotypic society becomes a mammoth task.

 Compromise in the growth of career.

Due to shared load, responsibilities and will to pursue individual’s career
becomes difficult for both of them to achieve the best in their career.
Often one has to sacrifice a bit in handling the domestic affair so that the
other partner can concentrate on more important work of career
advancement. But if no settlement is reached regarding the share of
duties then it causes a strain to develop in between two partners. Thus,
creating a discord among each other.

 Trailing spouse.
With present scenario where most of the employees are male, it is very
depressing situation for women as in most of the cases where both the
partners having same experience and qualification are applying for
similar jobs, the male counterpart gets to land a job while the female
counterpart is given a job of less importance. This type of situation is
known as trailing spouse. Though, with efforts the female counterpart
gets to acquire her desired position in the organization but it usually hurts
the pace of her achievement rate and somewhat delays her progress in
career.

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  Commuter couple.
In order to overcome the problem of compromise in the career growth,
many prefer a lifestyle widely known as dual career commute couples.
This gives couple the liberty to choose their own career path but at the
cost of living apart. Each one of them is satisfied about their work life but
it puts the two into long-distance relationship. There also exist a lot of
other problems.

How Companies Can Provide Support

To foster the success of employees in DCCs, companies should make sure that
these employees enjoy access to opportunities for professional development
and career advancement, support for maintaining work–life balance, and
sponsorship opportunities. Specifically, companies can take the following
actions:

 Provide supportive managers and ensure equitable growth

opportunities, especially for lower-level workers.
Overall, employees in DCCs are more likely than those in Single Career
Couples (SCCs) to have managers who help them balance work and
personal demands, develop new skills, and identify opportunities for
growth and development. The majority of employees in DCCs and
SCCs, however, do not report having managers who possess these
attributes. Fortunately, this situation seems to improve as workers
advance through the ranks.

 Encourage ambition by making top positions seem feasible.

Workers in DCCs tend to progress steadily through the ranks but often
view top-executive responsibilities as potentially inflexible and daunting.
If companies can openly offer flexible schedules—even to those at the
highest ranks—and other top-level support for work–life balance, these
workers might be more eager to reach their companies’ top ranks.

 Create a culture that encourages work–life balance.

Employees in DCCs are more likely than their peers in SCCs to have
managers who help them balance work with personal demands. Parents
in DCCs are especially likely to receive such support. But fewer than half
of workers in couples—whether SCC or DCC—say that they have such
support from their managers.

 Ensure consistent access to sustainable sponsorship.

Having a sponsor who is an advocate and mentor can play a major role
in career success, but most employees do not have sponsors. Of all
workers at all career levels, senior-level women in DCCs are most likely
to have sponsors, but even in this group, only about a quarter have one
or more sponsors.

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9.2 ORGANIZATION CAREER DEVELOPMENT POLICIES
Inside an organization, career planning is often about using discussions and
advice to inform a personal plan or sense of direction. However, further
discussions and negotiation are often needed to gain support from others in the
organization who have the power to give access to work or learning
opportunities.

Figure 9.1: Career development from the individual’s perspective

The bottom of Figure 9.1 links career planning to taking action, both in terms of
accessing work experiences, including making job moves, and accessing
formal and more personalized forms of learning. Such action involves
navigating a range of formal and informal processes, and gaining support from
a range of people. Individuals need career skills to achieve such action, just as
much as they do to frame their own career plans or decisions.

All these areas of thinking and action can reasonably be considered to be

included within ‘career development’ for individuals in employment. From the
employer’s point of view, supporting career development means supporting
individuals in all these aspects, not just in thinking about careers but also in
taking career action. Employers will only do this if they can see career
development as supporting the needs of the business, not just the desires of
employees.

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Implications for employers and public policy
Five key areas which employers might usefully focus on are:

 Understanding the positive business outcomes of career

development, especially in growing scarce skills, deploying existing skills
more flexibly, and motivating employees. Employers should develop
clearer career strategies and policies for all employees, not just those
seen as having ‘high potential’.

 Using their core employment processes, especially job design, job

filling and training, to develop employees over time and not just in their
current jobs.

 Encouraging employees to have informal as well as formal career

discussions with a range of people who can help them.

 Connecting several stands of career support – what we might call a

‘web’ of career support. This web should include at least one way of
accessing career support which is additional to the support provided by
the individual’s line manager. The organization should also appoint
someone to co‐ordinate career development policy and practical
support.

 Skilling managers to support careers and skilling employees to

manage their careers.

Six key national and public policy challenges, for consideration by

government and other national stakeholder groups are:

 Providing career support for employed adults who are neither seen as
‘high potential’ (already prioritized by employers) nor low skill (the current
priority of government).

 Positioning public guidance services to focus on work as well as

learning, and to widen the learning agenda beyond qualifications and
formally assessed learning.

 Delivering on the development of career skills in the population at all

ages.

 Clarifying whether public career services should advise employers on

workforce development and, if so, with what intentions and in whose
interests.

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  Clarifying whether public career services should offer career advice in
the workplace for employees and, if so, how then to deal with the needs
and possible concerns of the employer.

 Consider which providers might be best placed outside the employing

organization to give career guidance to employed adults, including those
in high skill and specialist labor markets and those working in small firms.

9.3 AGING LABOR WORKFORCE

What is the Aging Workforce?

The aging workforce is – as its name suggests – the part of working individuals
that has reached a certain age and beyond. It used to be defined as those who
are 40 years or older.

Since we’re dealing with huge numbers of baby boomers turning 65 on a daily
basis, however, 40 seems a bit young to be speaking about an ‘aging workforce’
(it would also mean that an even bigger percentage of the working population
qualifies).

Reasons Why the Workforce is Getting Older

 Financial.
A lack of a proper pension plan or retirement savings forces a lot of
people over 55 to continue to work. Simply because they can’t afford to
retire.

 People live longer and are healthier.

Despite what you may think, the life expectancy for both men and women
in the developed world generally increases.

 Talent shortage.
The generation that came immediately after the Boomers – the so-called
Baby Bust, those born between 1965 and 1976 – is a lot smaller. As a
result, there aren’t enough people to take over the jobs of retiring Baby
Boomers. This means the latter are often asked to stay.

 Enjoy work and productivity.

Believe it or not, many people enjoy the social aspects of having a job
and they like to feel productive. It seems that where Millennials are
looking for ‘purpose’ in their jobs, Baby Boomers want to feel productive.

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Challenges of Aging Workforce
 Bias.
A big one to start with. Older workers are less flexible, less motivated,
too slow, they take more sick days, etc. These are just a few of the many
stereotypes people – older workers included – have about senior
workers. As such, bias is one of the toughest aging workforce
challenges.

 Absenteeism.
Absenteeism is an aging workforce trend. Whether it is because their
health isn’t as good as it once used to be or because they have indeed
lost their motivation doesn’t matter, it still costs the company money. But
before jumping to conclusions about the reasons for the higher
absenteeism rates among your older employees, try to find out the real
reason.

 Postpone retirement.
This is another popular aging workforce trend. But before you approach
every employee who’s above a certain age and ask them to delay their
retirement, you may want to sit down and think again. Think about it the
same way you think about your top talent, your high potentials.
Because when it comes to your aging workforce, you want to keep your
top talent too. After all, they are the ones who will have to (co) train the
younger employees to make sure they’ve got what it takes when
eventually retirement does come.

 Succession.
This is why you want to choose wisely who you ask to postpone their
retirement. One of the most important tasks – and perhaps a future trend
– of the aging workforce is to transfer their knowledge and experience to
their younger colleagues. So, this is yet another thing to think about
because even if they’ve delayed their retirement (for now) time is still
ticking for your older workers.

 Attract and retain younger employees.

In the end, this is where it all starts. No matter how long your older
workers stay or how much you reduce your absenteeism, eventually they
will retire. Which means you’ll need to have a new generation ready to
take off where their predecessors left off.
And so, things have come full circle. We’re back to Millennials and
Generation Z and how to attract, hire and keep them. But that’s
something for another article.

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9.4 DOWNSIZING, OUTSOURCING AND OFFSHORING

What is Downsizing?
Downsizing or layoffs is the term used to refer to the practice of firing employees
for various reasons in organizations. These reasons can range from poor
performance by the employees, the poor performance of the organizations in
economic downturns that necessitates laying off employees to save costs, and
for disciplinary reasons. There are other reasons as well which include the
shuttering or the closing of the organization.

Whatever be the reason, downsizing is a painful process for both the

employees and the organization and more for the former. Therefore, the Human
Resources Function must handle downsizing with utmost care and caution and
with sensitivity.

Benefits of Downsizing

 Improve efficiency (by replacing employees with machinery).

 Reduce costs.
 Right size resources relative to market demand.
 Take advantage of cost synergies after a merger.
 Increase profits by reducing overhead costs.
 Respond to a decline in demand for the company’s products or services.

What is Outsourcing?
The practice of having certain job functions done outside a company instead of
having an in-house department or employee handle them; functions can be
outsourced to either a company or an individual.

Outsourcing has become a major trend in human resources over the past
decade. It's the practice of sending certain job functions outside a company
instead of handling them in house. More and more companies, large and small,
are turning to outsourcing as a way to grow while restraining payroll and
overhead costs.

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Benefits of Outsourcing
 Increased efficiency.
Companies can concentrate on their core competencies and work more
efficiently.

 Optimal scalability.
Outsourcing increases the availability of labor. As a result, maximum
output can be achieved and production guaranteed – even in the event
of seasonal or non-operational capacity fluctuations.

 Quicker response.
You are more responsive to change because you can pass these tasks
on to specialized third-party companies.

 Quality improvement.
Outsourcing often brings quality improvements. For instance, in
manufacturing a good factory or workshop can improve the quality of
products.

 Save costs.
External companies have a high degree of specialization with regard to
their services. They can work much more cost-efficiently and therefore
offer discounted rates.

 Lack of know-how.
New processes and operations in companies are often necessary, but
the employees often lack the know-how and implementation skills
required. Outsourcing is an alternative to hiring skilled workers for this.

What is Offshoring?

Offshoring is the process of relocating a business or business process to

another country in order to benefit from reduced labor costs or a more beneficial
regulatory environment.

Benefits of Offshoring

 Business Growth.
Offshoring allows you to reduce one of the most expensive parts of your
business, the labor costs. Freeing this up will allow you to reinvest funds
into your business and give you the opportunity to expand your offerings
and service. Essentially working on your business rather than in your
business.

 Access to Staff.
Access to a young and vast pool of talent. In particular to English
speaking foreign countries, who are highly skilled and university
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 educated. With the current pressure to find employees with the right
skillset in already developed countries, implementing offshore teams will
complement the existing staff. The wide skill availability for knowledge-
based processes through offshoring becomes an advantage for any
business looking to fulfill specific requirements.

 Greater Availability.
Having a different time zone and a workforce ready for 24×7 operation,
gives you an outstanding opportunity to support your clients when they
need it and fulfill their ever-changing needs. This results in a better level
of service and higher level of customer experience with quicker and
direct contact to your business. Increasing the competitive edge in your
industry.

 Reduced Risk.
To have multiple teams in different countries helps to reduce your risk,
provide a greater marketing opportunity and allows you to support your
clients when they need it.

 Control.
Many businesses may not want to relinquish control of part of their
operations and production to an external party. Offshoring allows you to
have dedicated staff to work for your company only. You provide the
direction, train the staff and everything is done the way you want it to,
which leads to accountability internal of the business.

9.5 CAREER DEVELOPMENT IN A TEAM ENVIRONMENT

Teams are increasingly being considered as a unit of work world over.

Organizations seek harmony, coordination and oneness in teams for growth
and prosperity. More emphasis is laid on group and team dynamics, still
however career development issues concerning the teams are neglected
somewhere, which is truer for organizations in the developing world and
multinational corporations.

Teams play a very important role in the individual and career development of
the team members. If team dynamics are understood and exploited properly,
individual and collective development will happen exponentially. For example,
one simple way of development of team members would be through
benchmarking with team members who exhibit better competencies and skills.
Teams can use these member skills and competencies to develop the same in
other members who lag behind in certain areas where others excel.

Teams can thus be geared towards acting as a very powerful tool for individual
career development, where team members can enhance their own work skills
and those of their peers. One strong reason why team fail is an inappropriate
staff / member selection for the team, which creates barriers for skills transfer.
Once this is overcome development issues within a team is taken care of.

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 Chapter 10

MANAGING GLOBAL
AND WORKFORCE
DIVERSITY

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MANAGING GLOBAL AND WORKFORCE DIVERSITY
10.1 GLASS CEILING INITIATIVES

Glass Ceiling is defined as the unseen and yet unbreakable barrier that
prevents women and minorities from reaching to the higher positions in the
organization, irrespective of their achievements and qualifications.

When the behavior of the top management changes to be very subjective, it

leads to the occurrence of Glass Ceiling. Under this approach, interpersonal
skills and the comfort levels are considered while selecting. As the senior level
management does not let the new person to take charge the key and important
roles of the organization.

In their way to success and to climb the ladder of hierarchy in the organization,
the challenges and the assignments that are being assigned to women and
minorities are not competitive. The assignments related to human resource or
public relations are preferred for women rather than the roles in business
ventures or production startups.

Reasons for the Glass Ceiling

 Women take on more childcare and household duties than men do.
Mothers who also do paid work face what is called the motherhood
penalty. This refers to the fact that on average, women who have
children are paid less, are less likely to be promoted, less likely to get
raises, and more likely to be perceived as less competent and less
committed (to both work and family) than are fathers, men without
children, and women without children.

 A problem called "covering".

Covering refers to employers’ expectations that workers downplay or
actively avoid aspects of their identify, specifically those that identify
them as a member of a minority. Covering is discrimination, and it
prevents employees from being seen as full human beings and can
hinder professional growth if the employee fails to “cover.”

 Sexual harassment is very real.

The Institute for Women’s Policy Research estimates almost a quarter
to more than eight in 10 women will experience sexual harassment at
work. Forty-six percent of those women who are sexually harassed will
leave their jobs or even careers. For some, this could mean job hopping
that prevents career ladder climbing. For others, it means leaving high-
paying careers for lower-paying ones to escape the problem and the
employers who fail to address it.

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  Discrimination is also very real.
While most of the factors that contribute to the glass ceiling aren’t illegal,
workplace discrimination absolutely is. The reality is that discrimination
does happen at work. This could mean that women and minorities are
actively passed over for promotions and raises, are refused key projects
in favor of non-promotable work, or are even paid less or fired because
of their race, age, gender, sexual orientation, or minority status.

 Cultural stereotypes harm everyone.

Like it or not, stereotypes still exist and their effects on the careers of
women and minorities are detrimental and long-lasting.

Strategies to Break the Glass Ceiling

 Take parental leave.
The more we allow and encourage women and men to take time away
after the birth or adoption of a child, the less opportunity there will be for
this to be used as a means to keep the glass ceiling in place.

 Employers, be good to parents.

Make it easier for both women and men to take time off after the birth or
adoption of a child. Offer flexible schedules and work from home options
to make it easier for parents to care for their kids. Encourage workers to
take the time available to them. Normalize this across your organization.

 Pay all employees equally for equal work.

Take a look at where women and minorities work in your organization
and how much they earn. Recruit equally across all levels and
departments and pay accordingly. Do the work to close your gender pay
gap.

 Talk about how much money you make.

Women know they’re paid about 20 percent less than men, but on an
individual basis, few women know whether they make less than their
male counterparts and if so, by how much. The first step to closing the
gender pay gap—which both contributes to and is also a result of the
glass ceiling—is to talk about compensation.

 Hire and promote women and minorities.

What’s creating your gender pay gap has to do with the levels where
women and minorities work within your organization. Hire and promote
with diversity in mind.

 Review a company.
How well companies do things like promote women to leadership roles,
provide equal opportunities for women and men, address allegations of
sexual harassment, and more. By adding your voice to the conversation,
you can help other women find companies that support them in
shattering the glass ceiling.

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The Alternative Arguments for Workplace Diversity
Some of the alternative arguments related to workplace diversity is that, some
of them does not show interest in forming groups or who usually do not have
the information about the updates happening around in the organization, and
this could be the reason for they lagging behind the opportunities. The people
who are very much interested in discussing about the office politics tend to have
updated information about the promotion opportunities in the organization,
which are not known usually until it is declared officially.

In some organizations there might be some groups, where the members of the
group feel that they are being excluded as they are not comfortably accepted
by the other employees. The advantage that is associated with these types of
groups is that they tend to adjust or compromise with the prevailing culture of
the organization and thus feel encouraged. These types of groups usually yield
more productivity.

In order to overcome the problems and issues that emerge out of the concept
of glass ceiling, several companies have designed different solutions. The
solution that is being suggested by many of the organizations is that pace at
which the promotion is declared in the organization is being increased by
providing relevant training to the managers and added to this some affirmative
actions are being included. This result in:

 The performance objectives are being supervised.

 Mentoring programs are being organized.
 Networks within the groups are being motivated.
 Providing assistance to the employees for planning their career.

The performance and how these actions have resulted is still to be analyzed.

An organization that works for advancement of women into business, known as

Catalyst have summarized the tactics which can be used by the employers for
addressing the issues related to glass ceiling. The tactics are being
summarized as follows:

 Measure women’s advancement.  Promote women.

 Move women into line positions.  Get women into non-traditional work.

 Find mentors for women.  Promote women in professional firms.

 Create women’s networks.  Support customized career planning.

 Make culture change happen.  Make flexibility work.

 Measure women’s advancement.  Promote women.

Among these tactics, some of which are related to the career management of
the organization. Initially the career paths that are presently prevailing in the

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 organization are being identified and selected and then the most talented are
being routed by assigning the tasks which seems to be more progressive.

10.2 GLOBAL TRENDS IN CAREER DEVELOPMENT

Emerging Trends in Career Management

 Personal health management will have an increasing career
impact.
A career management trend to watch is the increasing awareness of
taking care of one’s health as individuals work more and more hours per
week. Americans typically take far less actual vacation time than their
counterparts around the world; indeed, their connectedness to their work
can sometimes encourage 7-day work weeks.

 Emotional Intelligence will rise in workplace importance.

Emotional intelligence (sometimes called EI or EQ) is the awareness
someone has of his or her emotions and how they affect others. EI can
be developed through greater self-awareness of one’s own emotions.

 New technology and career management tools are replacing

human thinking, which is not a good thing.
The danger of technology and predictive tools like this is that it becomes
too easy to stop thinking for ourselves. The fact is the very best career
management tool you have is your brain. By thinking things through first,
you can ask the right questions, and consequently be more intentional
about the way you manage your own career.

 Employees will take greater control of their careers.

Many employees may start looking for their next opportunity while
settling into a new job, believing that job hopping is now accepted as a
natural occurrence. In other words, instead of going to work each day
believing that the employer will continue employment for them,
employees are pro-actively planning their future career path, which
includes an employee-driven exit strategy.

 Nanodegrees could assure ongoing career relevance.

Nanodegrees are short “online learning courses aimed at providing up-
to-the-minute qualifications in specialized tech subjects,” though any
specialized skill or area of knowledge could be learned using this
approach.

 Desire to do well is not enough.

Employees who couple desire with interpersonal adaptability will enjoy
much greater workplace and life success. Employees committed to
improve their interpersonal effectiveness can really place their careers
on a faster track.

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10.3 SUCCESSION PLANNING

What Is Succession Planning?

Succession planning is a strategy for passing on leadership roles—often the
ownership of a company—to an employee or group of employees. Also known
as "replacement planning," it ensures that businesses continue to run smoothly
after a company's most important people move on to new opportunities, retire,
or pass away.

Succession planning can also provide a liquidity event enabling the transfer of
ownership in a going concern to rising employees.

How Succession Planning Works

Succession planning evaluates each leader’s skills, identifying potential

replacements both within and outside the company and, in the case of internal
replacements, training those employees so they’re prepared to take over.
Succession planning is not a one-time event; succession plans should be
reevaluated and potentially updated each year or as changes in the company
dictate.

In addition, businesses might want to create both an emergency succession

plan, in the event a key leader needs to be replaced unexpectedly, and a long-
term succession plan, for anticipated changes in leadership.

Strategies for Successful Succession Planning

 Be proactive with succession planning.

It can take time to find and prepare a promising candidate for a
leadership role. As such, don’t dawdle with this part of your plan. Even if
you don’t think you’ll need a replacement in the near future, prepping
someone to assume an important role creates an invaluable safety net.

 Keep an open mind.

While the obvious successor may be the second in command, don’t
disregard other promising employees. Look for people who best display
the skills necessary to thrive in higher positions, regardless of their
current title.

 Make the vision known.

Include potential managers in strategy conversations to help them
acquire planning and leadership skills, as well as a broad vision of the
organization and its objectives. Consider sharing your succession
planning with human resources and your board of directors.

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  Offer regular feedback to proteges.
When someone uses well-honed presentation skills or outperforms on a
project, make note of it. Keep track of these achievements in a top-
performer file so you have something to reference the next time a
management position opens. Diligently chronicling topics like strong
work and achievement will also come in handy during performance
reviews.

 Provide training to peak performers.

As you identify your top performers, offer mentoring relationships, job
shadowing and training, which are true articles of value to help them
develop new skills and refine existing ones. Remember that good
leaders not only need technical acumen but also strong interpersonal
skills, including standout verbal and written communication abilities, as
well as tact and diplomacy.

 Do a trial run of your succession plan.

A vacation is a great time to have a potential successor step in to assume
some responsibilities. The employee will gain experience while you learn
how prepared the person is to take on a bigger role.

 Use your plan to develop a hiring strategy.

Once you’ve identified internal employees as successors for key roles in
your organization, take note of any talent gaps. In this way, the
succession planning process can help you identify where to focus your
recruiting efforts.

Benefits of Succession Planning

 Employees know that there is a chance for advancement and possibly
ownership, which can lead to higher satisfaction.
 Knowing that the company is planning for future opportunities reinforces
career development among employees.
 Management's commitment to succession planning means that
supervisors will mentor employees to transfer knowledge and expertise.
 Management keeps better track of the value of employees so that
positions can be filled internally when opportunities arise.
 With succession planning, leadership and employees are better able to
share company values and vision.
 With Baby Boomer business owners and leadership retiring in huge
numbers, a new generation of leaders will be needed.

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10.4 CAREER IN GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT

Career Opportunities in Global Environment

Immediately after the vacancies are announced, the people with high talent and
potential are considered and preferred for these vacancies. This is because of
the HRIs Technology influence, according to which,

The vacancy in an organization should be matched with the pool of

programmed skills obtained by a candidate, and such a candidate is being
selected for the opening.

In the past it was considered that the career of the manager has gone into
banish when the manager was sent overseas on project. But in today’s
business world, the manager when sent to overseas on project is most likely to
reach the top of his career.

Global Business Environment is the main reason behind this drastic change in
the career. It is the large organizations which accept the latest technology and
providing training to the internal staff and career development. Organizations
would always prefer for identifying the best internally from HR rather than
searching out the candidates outside.

The most talented and highly qualified managers are multinational levels are of
huge demand and this demand has laid out some of the revised principles of
internal career management.

Principles of Internal Career Management

 The employees are selected who are willing to contribute to the
organizations and whose career will be beneficial to the organization.

 The selected employees are trained only for some of the specific and
important international assignments. The training before the employees
leaves overseas is usually on the aspects such as technical expertise,
cross cultural social life, religion, language etc.

 The experience gained overseas should help him in directing towards

the career planning. The essential part of success is where the overseas
plan will take the employee to, in terms of his career. This is very
important for the employee to get over the feeling of demotivation and
quit.

 All the changes and updates about the company such as changes in
policies, current projects being worked by the company and the changes
in the staff are to be communicated to the employee. This enables the
manager to have all the updated information about the company and
makes his job easy when he re-enters.

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  For the manager to re-enter the organization looks for the value-added
skills and experience which has being gained by the manager and would
be useful for the organization in the due course of action. The manager
can be examined on those lines by conducting discussions with forum
where manager is allowed to share the experiences.

 The managers should be trained on a continuous basis. Training should

not be a one-time activity. As training facilitates the manager to learn the
value of the experience he gained overseas and the different ways in
which he can make use of the experience.

The principles are not put into execution. The reason behind this is that, it is
being found that most of the managers once go overseas are following a trend
of leaving the companies. To overcome this situation, managers who have been
identified for overseas projects, a thorough evaluation should be done by the
higher management to ensure that there should not be any negative impact by
sending the managers to international assignments.

Opting for a Foreign Assignment

There are some important factors that are to be considered before opting a
foreign assignment. They are as follows:

 Geographical Location.
 Culture.
 Customs.
 Political Status of the place.

All these factors are meant to ensure the adjustment of the manager to the new
geographical region. Even international careers are not left with some of the
contradictions. The main contradiction is that the demand for the managers who
understand business from the perspective of different nations is being
increasing.

Also, there are many uncertainties like whether the migrant manager works
effectively and efficiently. This has made the organizations to look out for the
local managers in countries in which they operate. This will reduce the cost and
uncertainties associated with the managers being sent to overseas.

10.5 NEW GENERATION EMPLOYEES

The Demands of New Generation to Have at a Workplace

In recent years, the notion of workplace and work has changed because of the
new generation of employees – millennials. The population of millennials has
increased in workplaces, and they have brought some remarkable changes with
them. A remote workplace phenomenon, technological adaptations, and
workplace flexibility are some of the many changes they introduced. From a
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millennial perspective; here is what the new generation demands to have at a
workplace.

More employers are getting to realize the benefits of hiring this new generation
of employees. However, it’s also essential for you to understand that this new
generation of employees doesn’t operate in the old system. They have some
demands at the workplace, and it’s essential that every employer meets such
requirements if they want to enjoy the millennials productivity fully.

 A beautiful and modern workplace.

Gone are the days when employees were willing to work in small and
undecorated offices. Nowadays, situations have changed, and
employees show more concern for the looks of their working
environment. As an employer, you need to provide a modern and well-
furnished workplace if you want to attract these environmentally-
responsive folks.

There are various ways to create a perfect workplace for your employees
since millennial employees cannot cope with the old office environment
where isolation is encouraged in the form of cubicles and corner offices.
To design the perfect millennial-friendly workplace, you need to:

• Design offices with open spaces for different teams where

collaboration encourages innovation, and employees can feel like
they are part of something.

• Allow employees to interact with company leaders as this will

allow millennial employees to have access to frequent feedback
and exchange of ideas (e.g. all the employees have an
opportunity to walk straight to the boss and dwell on which things
should better be changed for a company’s prospering).

• Encourage the vanishing office trend whereby millennial

employees can do their work in familiar and comfortable
environments like communal workspaces or home offices.
Companies can support the new and innovative vanishing office
trend by making arrangements to outfit homes or satellite offices
for remote workers.

• Design offices to encourage natural lighting so that millennial

employees would not have to feel cut off from the outside world.

 Modern technology.

Millennials know the importance of technology, and they utilize it to the

maximum in every aspect of their life. The workplace is, in fact, one of
the areas where they often need more of modern technology. They
require a new generation of computers together with smart software.

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 Millennials want more automation devices and wireless devices around
the workplace. One of the ways through which you can attract and retain
them is by ensuring that you provide them with the kind of technology
they want.

If you want to engage and retain your millennial employees, you need to
embrace new technology. Incorporating social and digital technologies
in the company is a must for a millennial employee, especially since
millennials are all about communal workspaces, telecommuting to work,
and remote working.

Employers who can recognize the advantages of technology and

embrace emerging social and networking technologies will surely thrive.
Beyond using social technologies and sites like Facebook or intranet for
internal communication, employers should also be open to incorporating
future technology like robotics, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality
into the workplace.

However, while embracing modern technologies, employers should also

take note of the distractions of advanced technology. These distractions
are part of what is making companies that employ millennials to consider
implementing and creating employee apps that are specific to the
workplace or the company.

 Attractive salary and benefits.

Millennials want attractive salaries, but don’t get it twisted by thinking

they work solely for the money. It’s actually about having something nice
as a reward for the excellent job they do. Millennials don’t just want to
enjoy pay raises and attractive salaries; they also want to feel like they
are growing, not only professionally but also personally.

Millennials also need assurance that they are productive, which is why
employers should set up a sound reward system to reward and
acknowledge their growth. Also, you should give your millennial
employees fringe benefits and other types of employee benefits to
appreciate them. All these will attract them and make you enjoy the best
of their loyalty.

To retain millennial employees, employers also need to think of ways to

promote their career and professional growth. Many millennials are
attracted to companies that have a framework in place to help
employees grow. Employers can develop leadership, management, and
skills training programs via on-site or virtual training programs.

Millennials also care about family benefits or medical benefits.

Therefore, companies hoping to employ and retain millennials should put
in place, comprehensive benefit plans for pregnancy, maternity,
parenting, healthcare, etc. A company can also stand out from other

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 companies by providing non-traditional benefits that millennials
appreciate such as in-house gyms, quiet rooms for napping, tech labs
with cutting-edge software and hardware technology, barbing and hair
care salons, libraries and cafeterias with organic and vegetarian food
options.

Employers should also provide investment opportunities and pension

plans, which is part of what millennials look for. Millennials usually have
personal plans for marriage and raising a family, and they need financial
security to implement these plans.

While millennials are interested in a wide range of benefits, they also

care about company culture. Therefore, employers should also set up a
healthy and millennial-friendly corporate culture to retain their millennial
employees.

 A social workplace.

This new generation of workers craves for a more significant social

workplace. Nowadays, work goes beyond just sitting at your desk all
through the working hours. It goes beyond having a cup of coffee at your
desk during breaks. Employees value interaction with co-workers.

Millennials always want a social environment where they can interact

with everyone around, including their employer. As an employer, you
should apply some tips to create a social workplace for you to get and
retain more millennials.

 Flexible work pattern.

The millennial workforce wants some level of flexibility in work pattern.

The introduction of modern technology has automatically made some
modes of working obsolete, and it won’t be proper to lay down rules that
still mandate this new generation to work using old methods.

Give them the chance to do certain things using their own methods.
Virtually all the old modes of working now have better ways. Employers
should realize this and avoid being too rigid on how employees should
work. More millennials will readily work for you if you make your work
pattern flexible.

The traditional workplace practice of working from nine to five may not
really work for millennials. Millennials consider this traditional practice an
expired and regimented approach that constricts and reduces their
productivity. And since millennials are the next workforce generation,
employers need to start incorporating flexible work patterns and options
to their workplace to attract and retain millennials.

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 To engage your millennials with flexible work options, there are six
flexibility options available:

• Telecommuting: (Also known as working from home, or e-

commuting) is a work arrangement in which the employee works
outside the office, often working from home or a location close to
home (including coffee shops, libraries, and various other
venues).

• Part-time work: Millennials are allowed to work a number of

hours rather than the full hours that other traditional employees
have to work.

• Flexible schedules: Millennials can work full or part-time as long

as they meet a number of hours weekly or monthly, and they meet
their deadlines.

• Alternative work schedules: For millennials with other

responsibilities or even a side hustle. This kind of work schedules
allows millennials to work outside the traditional nine-to-five
working hours as long as they reach a certain level of productivity.

• Freelance work: Here, millennials are allowed to take on

contracted projects in the company, even though they are not
permanent employees at the office (ex. Freelance writer position
at essay writing service like College-Paper.org).

• Remote work: Millennials are allowed to work from different

places other than the office. This way, millennials like digital
nomads can travel around the world and complete their tasks and
work based on deadlines.

 Regular feedback.

Regular feedback is also one of the things millennials demand. They

wish to know how they are performing. They want to know your level of
satisfaction with how they work. They crave for your feedback, although
they may not tell you directly.

Your comment is what they use for adjusting how they operate. When
you fail to comment for a long time, the millennials think you don’t like
how they work. Let them know how they are doing by giving them sincere
comments from time to time.

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 Support.

Millennials want you to have their back and give them genuine support.
This a key determinant of whether they will stay working for you or go
elsewhere. We can attribute this peculiarity to their upbringing. Right
from their childhood, all through the stage of writing custom essays in
college, they have always enjoyed support from people around them.
Now that they are working, they still crave for that support. As an
employer, give them your support as it will help in retaining them and
attracting other millennials out there.

Millennials have been known to leave a company because they want to

try a different career path, learn advanced skills, or exercise their unused
talents in a new field. A great way to retain millennials is to provide
opportunities for them to switch departments. Millennials can also be
allowed to temporarily work with other departments on a rotational basis
to allow employees to explore new fields. The rotation approach helps
to reduce the turnover rates in some professions like technical
professions.

 Appreciation.

Recognize their accomplishments. Praise them when they deserve it.

Their high productivity should never go unappreciated. There are some
ways of showing appreciation to your employees. You appreciate them
when you say thank you. Also, you can buy them gifts occasionally.

Acknowledge them in meetings and let other employees realize their

contributions. Recognizing their achievements publicly can also
encourage a little friendly competition in the company. It will also allow
millennials to realize that you sincerely appreciate them. Your
appreciation will not only help to retain millennials but also make them
put in more efforts in their work.

Apart from praising your millennial employees, a great way to show

appreciation for good productivity is to develop a reward system for your
employees. Your rewards can be in the form of cash, gifts, or
experiences. You can reward millennials with office perks, better parking
spots, free lunch, holidays on the company, festival or event tickets,
cruise, a spa day, conference opportunities, paid Uber or Lyft rides,
technology accessories like a smartwatch or headphone, etc.

Another way to show appreciation to millennials is by remembering their

birthdays and other special occasions in their lives. Employers who can
remember special events in the life of their employees endear
themselves to their employees. A little gift of little cost as a birthday gift
can go a long way to help you create employee loyalty and increase your
employee retention rate.

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 Transparency.

A lot of people know millennials to be very transparent. Being

transparent kind of people, they often want people to be equally
transparent with them. Being an employer who wants their services, you
must be totally transparent with them. Never attempt to play upon their
intelligence or lie to them. Remember that even if you lie to them to
employ them, you won’t be able to keep retaining them with lies. Be as
plain as possible, and give a chance for them to trust you.

 Refreshment facilities.

Here we don’t just mean light meals and drinks alone; we also require
recreational activities that refresh the body. Create a particular area in
your workplace for recreation to make your workers have a feeling of a
place not just for work alone. For instance, if your job involves a lot of
writing that makes it appear much like essay service work, you can
create a refreshment zone to take off that feeling of writing only.

Stress is one of the obstacles restricting millennials from performing

better. To prevent burn-out or low productivity rates, employers should
arrange for refreshment facilities like a quiet room for napping, gyms,
game rooms, etc. Companies should also set aside specific days in the
months for recreational activities like parties, camping trips, movie
nights, etc.

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FINAL EXAMINATION

COURSE : CAREER DEVELOPMENT FOR HRM

COURSE CODE : PHR3183

DURATION : 02 HOURS

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES:

1. This question paper consists of ONE (1) part : PART A (02 questions)

2. Answer ALL questions from PART A.

3. Please check to make sure that this examination pack consists of:
i. The Question Paper

4. The answer must be in writing. Please write your answers using a ball-point pen or a
foolscap paper. The answer needs to be submitted to your respective lecturer either
using:
i. CamScanner Apps. Scan and email the answer, OR
ii. WhatsApp. Snap / Take picture and send your answer OR,
iii. Upload the PDF file to OLES or Edmodo

5. Plagiarism, copying and cheating will not be tolerated where no marks will be given and
disciplinary actions can be taken.

MYKAD NO : _____________________________________________________
ID. NO. : _____________________________________________________
LECTURER : _____________________________________________________
SECTION : _____________________________________________________

DO NOT OPEN THIS QUESTION PAPER UNTIL YOU ARE TOLD TO DO SO

The question paper consists of 03 printed pages

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SEPT2020/B/PHR3183

Case

1. (20 points)
Career planning training has always been a low priority item for KK Laundry. This is because
“just getting workers to come to work and then keeping them is already a big problem.” Yet, KK’s
Consultant Manager Jen Ko thought that it might be a good idea to start a career planning
program for the employees.

Many employees have been with the company for years in dead-end job, she frankly felt bad for
them. “Perhaps we can help them to have a better perspective on what they want to do,” she
said to herself. And she believed that the store management group needed better career
direction if the company wanted to develop and grow.

a. As Kwik & Kleen consultant, Jen Ko has to understand the concept of training on
development to develop career planning program. Define training and development to help
Jen Ko conduct the program effectively. (4 points)

b. KK laundry put a low priority on aspect of career planning for employees. Consultant
Manager, Jen Ko, request a favour on you to advise him on career planning program.
Explain any TWO (2) importance on career planning program to him. (4 points)

c. Discuss SIX (6) types of training that can be implemented in Kwik & Kleen Company.
(12 points)

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2. (20 points)
Mr Freddy, 46 years old is a Store Manager in a manufacturing factory. With his unhealthy
conditions., He decided to go for pension at the age of 50 years old. Mr Freddy was very
respected by his employees for his good and positive attitude in handling the company’s issue,
either in terms of financial or non-financial matters. “He was the best employer I have ever met in
my life”, Said Mr Dereck’s, 35 years old, a customer service executive in the company. Mr Freddy
was once invited to a career talk by a lot of Media to share his experience in handling employee’s
issues in the factory until he brings the company performance to the current its level. “There’s
nothing more important rather than have a good succession planning, everyone is a performers,
is my duty to enlighten them to be the one”, “As a manager, we should know the emerging trends
in the career management, which can help them improve in their performances as well” said Mr
Freddy. “There’s always a barrier or glass ceiling to our career”. Added Mr. Freddy. Mr Freddy
realizes that he plays important role in developing his employee’s career to the next level and the
career management is very essential.

Based on the case study, answer the following question:

a. “There’s nothing more important rather than have a good succession planning, everyone is
a performers, is my duty to enlighten them to be the one”. Based on the conversation
above, Discuss FOUR (4) benefits of succession planning. (8 point)

b. Describe THREE (3) emerging trends in career management as said by Mr Freddy.

(6 Point)

c. “There’s always a barrier or glass ceiling to our career”. Based on the conversation above,
Describe THREE (3) reasons of the Glass Ceiling. (6 Point)

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FINAL EXAMINATION

COURSE : CAREER DEVELOPMENT FOR HRM

COURSE CODE : PHR3183

DURATION : 03 HOURS

INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES :

1. This question paper consists of THREE (3) parts : PART A (12 questions)
: PART B (02 questions)
: PART C (03 questions)

2. Answer ALL questions from PART A, PART B and PART C.

3. Please check to make sure that this examination pack consists of :

i. The Question Paper

4. The answer must be in writing. Please write your answers using a ball-point pen or a
foolscap paper. The answer needs to be submitted to your respective lecturer either
using:
i. Cam Scanner Apps. Scan and email the answer, OR

ii. WhatsApp App. Snap / Take picture and send your answer, OR

iii. Upload the PDF files to OLES, Edmodo or Google Classroom

5. Plagiarism, copying and cheating will not be tolerated where no marks will be given and
disciplinary actions can be taken.

MYKAD NO : _____________________________________________________
ID. NO. : _____________________________________________________
LECTURER : _____________________________________________________
SECTION : _____________________________________________________

DO NOT OPEN THIS QUESTION PAPER UNTIL YOU ARE TOLD TO DO SO

The question paper consists of 06 printed pages including cover page

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 CONFIDENTIAL

MARCH2022/C/PHR3183

PART A: MULTIPLE CHOICE

1. (1 point)
_____________ is a relatively complete and accurate perception of a person’s own
qualities and characteristics of his relevant environment.
A. Career exploration.
B. Awareness.
C. Goal setting
D. Strategy development.

2. (1 point)
Goal setting theory describe the goal may be to attain the position of assistant plant manager
in a specified period of time, to move into a project engineering _____________.

A. position
B. work
C. job
D. task

3. (1 point)
Development of complete career framework involved a wide variety of stakeholders and
make sure the framework aligns with _____________the and there is governance in place to
guide the process.

A. norms
B. rules
C. policies
D. culture

4. (1 point)
In order to design a programme to the employees, the ____________ is provided in-house
often to be more effective and a source of greater employee satisfaction.

A. task
B. lesson
C. development
D. training

5. (1 point)
Career development ______________is a great way to maintain all this information. It can
manage all participants, relationships, and goals to make the job of the program
administrators easier.

A. tool
B. software
C. analysis
D. process

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6. (1 point)
__________________development is necessary to your organization’s future, as individuals
leave their jobs every day.

A. Emotional
B. Behavior
C. Communication
D. Leadership

7. (1 point)
What is the definition of training?

A. Has a more long-term focus

B. Determined by conducting analyses
C. Learning activities that goes beyond today’s job
D. Learning activities that focuses on present job

8. (1 point)
Which of the following pair is TRUE for defining the term development?

A. Short term and future focus

B. Less number of participation and career oriented
C. Prepare for future challenges and job oriented
D. Educational process and to improve current performance

9. (1 point)
“It must be developed clearly and concisely to achieve organizational goals”. This
statement refers to _____.

A. evaluating the program effectively

B. implementing the program efficiently
C. selecting appropriate methods
D. establishing specific objectives

10. (1 point)
“The extent to which an employee understands and retains principles, facts, and techniques”.
Which level of training evaluation does this statement refers to?

A. Result
B. Reaction
C. Learning
D. Behavior

11. (1 point)
How many analyses available to determine the needs of training and development?

A. 2
B. 3
C. 4
D. 5

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12. (1 point)
Which of the following is the best benefit for conducting research in training and
development?

A. Assure the programs are new and relevant

B. Care about employee's future
C. Allows employees to train for certain roles
D. Assures employees know how certain situations are handled

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PART B: STRUCTURED

1. (5 Points)
As human resource manager in ABC Company, you have an obligation to monitor career
development plan of employees.

Explain any TWO (2) ideas on how you can help an employee design a career
development plan.

2. (6 points)
The Kirkpatrick Model is a globally recognized method of evaluating the results of training
and learning programs. It assesses both formal and informal training methods and rates
them against four levels of criteria.

Explain any THREE (3) levels of criteria based on the Kirkpatrick Model of training
evaluation.

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PART C: ESSAYS

1. (11 points)
The employee, the manager, and the employer all play roles in planning, guiding, and
developing the employee’s career.

Classify FIVE (5) roles of the supervisor in career development.

2. (13 points)
Dual-career couples are those in which both people in the relationship are focused on
advancing their careers. Instead of there being just one breadwinner, both people are
invested in their own professional endeavors. This lifestyle can create both challenges and
opportunities, depending on the field of work and compatibility of career types.

Assess any SIX (6) advantages of dual career couples specifically for the participated
employees.

3. (13 points)
Glass Ceiling is defined as the unseen and yet unbreakable barrier that prevents women and
minorities from reaching to the higher positions in the organization, irrespective of their
achievements and qualifications. When the behavior of the top management changes to be
very subjective, it leads to the occurrence of Glass Ceiling. Under this approach,
interpersonal skills and the comfort levels are considered while selecting. As the senior level
management does not let the new person to take charge the key and important roles of the
organization.

As a senior manager of human resource, how would you solve the issue of glass ceiling by
discover SIX (6) strategies to break it.

END OF QUESTIONS PAPER

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