CAREER PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT

What is Career planning?

 is the systematic process by which one selects career goals and path
to these goals
 In the context of organization, it means helping the employees to
plan their career in terms of their capacities within the context of
organization’s needs.
 It involves designing an organizational system of career movement
and growth opportunities for employees from employment stage to
the retirement stage
 Individuals who can fill planned future positions are identified and
prepared to take up these positions.
Career planning terminology
• Career goals: the future positions on strive to reach as part of a
career
• Career path: the sequential pattern of jobs that form a career
• Career progression: making progress in one’s career through
promotions
• Career counselling: guiding and advising people on their possible
career path
• Career development: the personal movements an individual makes to
achieve
• Career management: the process of designing and implementing
plans to enable the organization to satisfy employee needs and allow
individual to achieve their career goals
 Characteristics of career planning
• Career planning is a process of developing human resources rather
than an event
• It is not an end in itself but a means of managing people to obtain
optimum results
• Career planning is a continuous process due to an ever changing
environment
• Career planning is an individual’s responsibility. Nevertheless it is the
responsibility of an organization to provide guidance and counselling
to its employee in planning their career and in developing and
utilizing their skills and knowledge
• The aim of career planning is integration of individual and
organizational goals.
Objectives of Career planning
• To attract and retain the right type of persons in the organization
• To map out careers of employees suitable to their ability and their
willingness to be trained and developed for higher positions
• To ensure better use of human resources through more satisfied and
productive employee
• To have a more stable workforce by reducing labour turnover and
absenteeism
• To increasingly utilize the managerial talent available at all levels
within the organization
• To improve moral and motivation by matching skills to job
requirements and by providing opportunities for promotion
• To achieve high productivity and organizational development
 Process of Career Planning
• Identifying individual needs and aspirations: an objective analysis of
the hopes and aspirations of different categories of employees is
done. It is necessary to identify and communicate the career goals,
aspiration and career and anchors of every employee. Appraisal of
employee is carried out to identify employee having the necessary
potential for climbing up, promoted and take up higher
responsibilities
• Analyzing career opportunities: future plans and career system of the
employees are analyzed to identify the career opportunities available
within it. Career path can be determined for each job for each job
position. It is necessary to analyze career demands in terms of
knowledge, skills, experience, aptitudes
• Identify match and mismatch: identify congruence between
individual current aspirations and organization career system is
developed. Specific jobs are related to different career opportunities.
Such matching help to develop realistic career goals for both long and
short-term
• Formulating and implementing strategies: alternative strategies and
action plans for dealing with mismatch are formulated and
implemented e.g. creating new career paths, changing employee
needs and aspirations, training and development o suitable people so
s to meet needs of individual and organization.
• Review career plans: a periodic review of career plans is necessary to
know whether the plans are contributing to effective utilization of
human resources in which direction the organization is moving.
 Advantage of career planning
• Help an employee know the career opportunities available in a
organization
• Enable employee to select the career most suitable to his potential
and aptitude
• Retain hard-working and talented employees
• It anticipate future vacancies that may arise due to retirement,
resignation, death etc.
• It facilitate expansion and growth of the organization- people to fill
job vacancies in future can be identified and developed in time
 Making career planning successful
• Top management support
• Clear goals
• Proper selection-selection of right job is essential for career planning
• Proper age balance –unbalance age structure causes promotion
blocks which hampers career planning
• Fair promotion policy
• Continuity-career planning and development should be carried out on
a continuing basis so as to take care of changing needs of both
individual and the organization