IESEG School of Management

Final Report

by

Anastasija Gadovič

Career Development

Spring semester, 2019

Paris

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What did I learn about my own career from this course

In order to succeed in a highly competitive environment, each individual needs to

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develop his or her career development plan. Completing it, you can make the right decision,

in terms of your future career. Career planning has always been important, but nowadays, it

has acquired particular importance, as today there are plenty of jobs you can choose from,

while not a long time ago there were only regular jobs options such as a doctor, engineer,

pilot and teacher.

Before taking this course, I had a feeling that I approximately knew what I want to do

in my future and this course helped me to prove my decision in my career and motivated me

to do, even more, not just to have in mind who I what to become and what to achieve. But

how does particularly this course helped and what I realized more?

First of all, I realized that if you want to succeed in your future you should start setting

clear goals for yourself already now. The earlier you start thinking about your career, goals

you should achieve and skills, you should learn, the faster you will succeed and less

complicated it would be after graduation. It is not a secret that a lot of students do not know,

what they want to do in their life after graduation and they have a problem of finding a good

job. However, the point is that they have never been trying to understand themselves and

trying to find an internship or part-time jobs for the experience while studying. That is why

planning your future career is essential to start as sooner as possible.

Secondly, I learned that the way for success is made of 3 main factors such as goals

setting, being passionate about what you are doing, and persistence in your life. It is not

enough just setting goals and not trying to achieve them. You should be persistent, try again

and again, even at first you fail. That was the case for famous writer J.K Rowling, who was

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rejected by 12 publishers, before finding her success. Her persistence and a strong belief in

herself led her to become successful in life, therefore she fulfilled herself in life.

Finally, I found out thаt self-assessment is an extremely useful approach for

understanding yourself better. There are plenty types of different self-assessments, but in our

course, we had an opportunity to try "Holland's Theory of Careers", "Work Values

Inventories" and "Schen's Theory of Career Anchors". In Holland's Theory of Careers, people

can be categorized as one of six personality types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social,

Enterprising and Conventional. I have a three-letter code ECS, which means that I am more

Enterprising type of person, then Conventional and Social type resemble me next. Regarding

that, I am an enterprising person, the job, where I can influence, persuade the people as well

as managing and lead the organization would be the most suitable for me. Taking about the

"Work Values Inventories" test, 3 the most important priorities for me are what kind of tasks

I will be doing, salary and working hours. Moving on to the "Schen's Theory of Career

Anchors", by completing this test I found out that Lifestyle Integration and Pure Challenge is

important for me in my future work. This means that I need a balance between work and

other aspects of my life, as well as, solving difficult problems is crucial for my future work,

as I do not prefer routine.

Talking about my own career, since I've already had experience in 3 part-time jobs, I

found my last experience in the international travel company Tez Tour extremely useful for

myself. Being part of the corporate environment, I was inspired by it a lot. Consequently, I

decided that I want to open my own successful travel agency. In order to achieve my

objective, I need to work for some time in a travel agency to gain specific knowledge about

how is it structured and how does it work at all. On top of that, the self-assessment results

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helped me to understand that the path I have chosen is right. What I need to do know, is to

focus on my goal and start achieving it step by step.

How are career development practices different in companies in Lithuania

​In the modern world, the organization in which the person works is the most important

source of support for the employee in terms of their own career development. However,

depending on the country and organization itself, it might be that process of career

development in the organization is different, having their own particular features, which are

based on the vision of the company as well as specific cultural features. One of the best

examples would be the difference between Japanese career development and Lithuanian's,

which is similar to American's.

In a Japanese company, Human Resource department gives employees responsibilities,

without taking in mind person desires. It may happen that employee will be in a position that

is not their perfect option. For example, a Japanese employee doing finance in a Japanese

company is doing it because he was assigned to that job. In Japan employee has little control

over where he is enrolled in the company. However, it is important to mention that Japanese

companies gives lots of benefits to their employees. Safety and constancy are core values for

Japanese career development. After reaching a particular status level, the employee might be

suggested free housing near the office paid by the company. Also one of the main features

that distinguish Japanese from Lithuania is strong loyalty to the company, so the employee is

not switching from one work to another but stays loyal for the company for their entire life.

Probably, particularly these feature makes them being professional in their sphere of working

creates a strong trust among employee and the company.

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In comparison, Lithuanian's career development is similar to American's. The core

values for the Lithuanian's employees is not safety and they are not aiming to stay in one

company for the entire life. The most important values are interpersonal relations and ability

to express yourself. For the employees it is essential to have pleasant working environment,

where they will not feel uncomfortable or unneeded. However, depending on the company

and how they manage career development with their employees, depends on how loyal are

employees.

Having the experience to work in the international travel company Tez Tour, I find out

that career development in this company is developed extremely strong, that is why

employees, who start working for this company stay loyal for a long time. First of all, when

you are just start working, you have 3 months of the learning period. Everyone is helping you

to infiltrate into the working environment and help you with any questions and doubts you

are facing. Secondly, every spring company has a set of development seminars for the

partners, who are the representatives of the company. Thirdly, during the whole year,

different types of seminars are organized for employees of the company. Such kind of

seminars like "How to deal with conflict situations", "Cold Calling", "How to increase sales

by phone", motivation seminars. Also, there is another type of seminars, regarding hotels.

Representatives from other countries come to share their experience and knowledge about a

particular chain of hotels. On top of that, the company has a very pleasant and warm working

environment. There is tradition to celebrate birthdays of every employee and other

celebration, such as New Year's Eve, Christmas, Valentine's day, Tourism day, National

Independence Day. Also, the company is trying to create a strong relationship between

employees by organizing Team buildings, participating in marathons together, cycling,

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skiing, surfing, going to the concerts and theatre together and all is at expense of the

company.

To conclude, it is also worthy to mention, that there are specific benefits for the

employees, such as good discounts for trips. The company is encouraging its employees to

live interesting and take the maximum from their life.

The main points I learned in this course about managing employees career development

Career development from the organization perspective is one of the main and essential

parts of the organization. As I was mentioning before, working conditions and working

environment play a huge role and do a significant impact on the employee. Employee expects

from the company, that it will give him the opportunity for professional growth,

improvement of living standards, a crucial degree of pleasure from work and definitely

express personal professional perspectives. In every company, it is known how important the

motivation and involvement of employees is, but in most organizations, managers fail to

achieve this. And when they fail to do so, the performance of the whole company suffers.

That is why the key question is how should you manage your employees to stay motivated

and loyal?

As far as I learned from this course: job placement, transfers, training, counseling,

performance appraisal, and promotion are the activities, which can impact on the overall well

being of the employee. All in all, I think there are 3 main points of career development in the

company. First of all, it should be crucial for the company to help individuals improve their

performance. That is why different types of training, seminars should be organized, in order

to give employees the opportunity to grow professionally. Secondly, the company should

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reduce uncertainty among employees. It means that, by setting clear options for the employee

how he can grow within the company. For example, starting at first as a right hand for the

manager, then becoming a manager, after that - supervisor. Lastly, focusing on employee

plans upon the organization where they are working in. By doing this company and the

employee will avoid mismatch, therefore both will stay happy and will save their time and

strengths.

However, as I mentioned before working environment plays a significant role in

employee satisfaction. When I will have my own company, I will try to make it as pleasant,

comfortable and warm as possible. Firstly, by giving benefits to my employees, such as 4

times in a month giving an opportunity working from home. If these will be successful,

flexibility in terms of work will be implemented gradually. The main goal would focus on

completing the tasks. Also, one of the benefits would be sports activities. At the beginning of

the year, using the survey, employees could choose an activity, such as tennis, boxing, yoga

or golf which they would like to do during the year together. This will make a strong and

warm relationship between employees. Talking about the trainings, concerning that nowadays

knowing languages is important in every business, language lessons will be a good idea.

English would be mandatory for every employee to have an opportunity of practicing it.

Others languages might be suggested, depending on the business and employees needs.

Another essential and final point, I would like to mention is that the vision and values of

the company should motivate and inspire employees as well. The working place should

become a 2nd home, where employees can feel support and appreciation. Only if the work

becomes the second home and the place where you are not struggling, but feeling full of

motivation to do your job, employees will stay loyal and the company will prosper.