CAREER PLANNING

Career Planning: Career describes an individuals' journey through learning, work and other aspects of life.

Career is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a person's "course or progress through life (or a distinct portion of life)". In this definition career is understood to relate to a range of aspects of an individual's life, learning and work. Career is also frequently understood to relate to the working aspects of an individuals life e.g. as in career woman. A third way in which the term career is used to describe an occupation or a profession

Career planning is the process by which one selects career goals and the path to these goals. The major focus of career planning is on assisting the employees achieve a better match between personal goals and the opportunities that are realistically available in the organization. Career programmers should not concentrate only on career growth opportunities. Practically speaking, there may not be enough high level positions to make upward mobility a reality for a large number of employees. Hence, career-planning efforts need to pin-point and highlight those areas that offer psychological success instead of vertical growth.

Career planning is not an event or end in itself, but a continuous process of developing human resources for achieving optimum results.

Career planning : An ongoing processHere You…•Explore your interest and abilities•Strategically plan your career goals•Create your future work success by designing

learning and action plans to help you achieve your goals.

CREATING CAREER GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES:

"Career growth" or "Job advancement" usually means a change from an entry level position to a job which has more duties and that receives more compensation. For example, a company which is large enough to allow a sequence of jobs: base worker to team leader to supervisor to vice president is a company which allows "career growth."

Just like boats put down anchors to keep them from drifting too far, individuals put down anchors to stabilize their career choices.

They are distinct pattern of self perceived talents, attitudes, motives & values that guide and stabilize a person’s career after several years of real world experience & feed back.

There are eight career anchors, they are:

CAREER ANCHORS

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Technical/Functional Competence

Would not give up the opportunity to apply his or her skill in that area and will continue develop those skills to an ever higher level.

Derive their sense of identity from the exercise of their skills

Most happy when their work permits them to be challenged in those areas

May be willing to manage others in their technical or functional area

Not interested in management for its own sake Would avoid general management

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General Managerial CompetenceWould not give up the opportunity to climb

level high Want to be responsible and accountable for

the total result and they identify their own work with the success of the organization for which they work

Ambition is to obtain generalist jobA high managerial level in a function does

not interest them

9

Autonomy/Independence

Would not give up the opportunity to define his or her work in his or her way

Wants to remain in jobs that allow flexibility regarding when and how to work

Do not stand organizational rules and restriction Turn down the opportunities for promotion and

advancement in order to retain autonomyMay even seek to have business of their own in order

to achieve a sense of autonomy; however, this motive is not the same as the entrepreneurial creativity

10

Security/Stability

Employment security/stability, the most important thing

Main concern is to achieve a sense of having succeeded so that they can relax

May involve trading personal loyalty and willingness to do whatever the employer wants for some promise of job tenure

Less concerned with the content of their work and ranks they achieve in the organization, although they achieve high levels

Always are concerned with these issues and build their entire self-images around the management of security and stability

11

Entrepreneurial CreativityWould not give up the opportunity to create an

organization or enterprise of their own, built on their own ability and their willingness to take risk and overcome obstacles

Create an enterprise that is a result of their own efforts

May be working for others while they are learning and assessing future opportunities, but they will go out on their own as soon as they can

Want their enterprise to be financially successful in order to prove their abilities.

12

Service/Dedication to a Cause

Would not give up is the opportunity to pursue work that achieves something of value, Pursue such opportunities even if it means changing organization

Do not accept transfers or promotions that would take them out of the work that fulfills those values

13

Pure Challenge

Would not give up the opportunity to search for solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems, to win out over tough opportunities, or to overcome difficult obstacle

Reason they work, as it permits them to win over the impossible

In intellectual kind of workNovelty, variety, difficulty become ends in

themselves, and if something is easy it immediately becomes boring.

14

Lifestyle

Would not give up a situation that permits him or her to balance and integrate personal needs, family needs, and requirement of his or her career

Want to make all the major sectors of their lives work together towards an integrated whole, need career situation that provide enough flexibility

May have to sacrifice some aspect of their careers Define success in terms broader then just career

successTied up with how they live their lives, where they live,

how they deal with their family situations, and how they develop themselves than they are with any particular job or organization.

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MENTORING EMPLOYEES FOR GROWTH:

Mentoring is a brain to pick, an ear to listen, and a push in the right direction.

John Crosby, American Businessman

An effective mentoring program supports the development of leaders while simultaneously fostering healthy work relationships. It helps develop the strategic direction and continuing growth of the company through succession planning. A successful mentoring program requires significant management as well as employee support and commitment.

This sample presentation is intended for presentation to all employees. It is designed to be presented by an individual who is knowledgeable in mentoring and the employer’s policy and practices. This is a sample presentation that must be customized to include and match the employer’s own program, policies and practices.

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What Is Mentoring?Mentoring is a career development method

whereby less experienced employees are matched with more experienced colleagues for guidance either through formal or informal programs.

Employees (mentees) pair with more experienced co-workers (mentors) in order to gain knowledge, skills, experience, information and advice.

Anyone at any job level may participate and benefit from a mentoring relationship.

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Difference Between Mentoring and CoachingCoaching is a training method in which a

more experienced or skilled individual provides an employee with advice and guidance intended to help him or her develop skills, improve performance and enhance the quality of his or her career.

Coaching is different from mentoring in that:1.Coaching is usually used during first few

months of employment to train a new employee. Mentoring may occur at any time during the employment relationship.

2. Coaching is used by a manager to develop a direct report. Mentoring relationships are not between managers and direct reports.

3. Coaching may be first level manager uses with direct report for progressive discipline. A mentor may not use progressive discipline with a mentee

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Importance of a Mentoring Program

A mentoring program is important to an organization because it:

Encourages mutual loyalty between employee and employer. Increases employee retention. Promotes diversity. Helps new employees acclimate to job and company culture more quickly

and increases their learning curve. Improves organizational performance. Increases employee productivity. Creates a greater sense of involvement in their company and career. Increases employee morale. Supports innovative work environment. Assist expatriates and inpatriates in adapting to the language, culture

and different working relationships. Increases creativity and exposure to new ideas. Contributes to the development of a cooperative, productive and service-

oriented environment.

Developmental job assignment

(DJA) is an on-the-job development (OJD) intervention capable

of providing opportunities to the people, for learning new

behaviors, for stretching more on the job to create new

performance benchmarks, for familiarizing with the most

important but unfamiliar aspects of job roles and for ensuring

overall development of competencies so as to remain fit for

meeting any kind of unstructured or unprecedented work

challenges. The intentions behind any of the above

assignments may not be developmental but the challenges;

such assignments bring creates scope for development.

According to Ohlott (2004), a developmental job assignment is

something that stretches people, pushes them out of their

comfort zone and requires them to think and act differently.

Characteristics of a developmental job assignment

Developmental Job

Assignment Characteristics

Fluid situations

Wide scope

Higher responsibility

High risk

Unfamiliarity

High visibility

External pressures

Unprecedented problems

DJA Process DJA process will help us understand how to go about using job

assignments for development of employee capabilities. The developmental need of each employee is unique. In the same way, the developmental potential of each job is unique in itself. Placing people into difficult jobs by itself will not result in development automatically. A supportive climate of learning has to be created. Ultimately, there is no use if the organization does not have a performance culture to recognize, motivate and utilize the potential of high performers.

Process of developmental job

assignment

Identify the person

Match the personand job

Support the performance

Process of developmental job assignment

Identify the job

The Other Side of The CoinWhile enough research has been conducted to

assess the components of DJAs, the possible darker side of it is yet to be explored. Is it a suitable solution to all individuals needing development? Not necessarily. Everybody may not like to learn under the stressful situations of ambiguity, risk and unfamiliarity. Such assignments, if made compulsory, will lead to unbearable stress and burnout, higher rate of employee attrition and may even trigger suicides. Throwing someone into a stretch assignment without providing a clear understanding of what is expected is risking failure or at least a wasted growth

The Other Side of The CoinWhile enough research has been conducted to

assess the components of DJAs, the possible darker side of it is yet to be explored. Is it a suitable solution to all individuals needing development? Not necessarily. Everybody may not like to learn under the stressful situations of ambiguity, risk and unfamiliarity. Such assignments, if made compulsory, will lead to unbearable stress and burnout, higher rate of employee attrition and may even trigger suicides. Throwing someone into a stretch assignment without providing a clear understanding of what is expected is risking failure or at least a wasted growth

Possibilities for Moving People in DJA Geographical movement: Urban to rural area and vice

versa, advanced region to backward region and vice versa, hot climate to freezing climate zones, agriculture economy to industrial economy, different customer preferences, different government policy, educated population to uneducated population and home country to foreign country.

Cultural movement: Different religious values, different languages, different food habits, different life styles (say individualistic to collectivistic), power distances, time orientations, tolerance to ambiguity, different motivation styles, different leadership styles, different degree of respect for law and order and so on.

Hierarchical movement: Higher level to lower level: In this approach, the salary and service conditions of the DJA holder remains unchanged. Working at a lower level helps understanding the challenges of grassroot level workers and their work roles. Here you get instructed by others rather than instructing others and get reprimanded for mistakes rather than reprimanding others.

Lower level to higher level: Higher responsibility, higher

visibility, getting the work done from others rather than

doing oneself, interacting with top level people rather than

the grass root level people and process driven work to

thought driven work.

Functional movement: Marketing to production or finance

to HR, line function to staff function, routine functions to

customized functions, facilitative functions to performance

functions supervisory functions to strategic functions or

back office functions to front line functions.

Sectoral movement: Private sector (resource crunch,

service quality and competition) to public sector

(bureaucracy, corruption, political interference, market

monopoly) service sector (dealing with people) to

manufacturing (dealing with machines) Profit sector

(borrowing repayable loans for interest) to not-for-profit

sector (raising donations), serving the able and powerful

customers for a price to helping disabled and helpless

people free.

effective learning and development is there to improve employee performance in terms of the employees ability, motivation or engagement and employee opportunities. And further more, that learning and development activities increase the amount of what is known as ‘discretionary behaviour’. That is where employees want to do well, where they go out of their way to do the best for the organisation. Jarvis et al state that this happens because L & D activities make people feel valued, give them the skills they need to do their work well, help people introduce change more easily, help people take more responsibility for themselves and helps them to take more initiative over getting results.

An important part of that is people taking more responsibility for their own learning and with this an emphasis now being placed on learning as opposed to training.

So the question from that is how aligned is the learning and development strategy?

It is the employee performance that then drives organisational performance. Cost effective HR and HRD investment will bring about results in terms of labour productivity and in the quality of the product or service delivered.

And all of that is shown in business performance outcomes. So the more effective the learning and development the higher the employee performance and the better organisational performance leading to increased business performance outcomes.

“So we have to ask ourselves are we being driven seriously by identified business needs, or are we making our own interpretation of what we think the organisation needs?”

Mayo, A., (2004), Creating a Learning and Development Strategy: The HR Business Partner’s Guide to Developing

People, CIPD

PROVIDING Learning and Development

1 •In what ways does learning and development impact on business performance?

2 •How should HRD departments be involved in developing business strategy?

Impact of L & D on Business Performance Exercise

Business Performance

Effective learning and development

Employee performance•Ability•Motivation•Opportunity

Organis-ational performance•Cost effective HR investment•Labour productivity•Product / service quality

Business performance outcomes

improves

drives

Vertical alignment

Horizontal alignment

Alignment

Vertical alignmentHow much does the learning and

development strategy of an organisation align with the overall human resources strategy?

How much does the learning and development strategy of an organisation align with the overall business strategy?

How much is the learning and development strategy aligned with the other human resources practices and policies?

When adjustments are made in one area are they also made throughout the human resources function?

Horizontal alignment

Creating an L & D strategy

Clarify organisational mission

Explore core values

Carry out SWOT or PESTLE analysis

Agree L & D strategy and strategic plan

Harrison, R., (2005), Learning and Development, CIPD

The first step is to put together a strategy development team in order to bring new ideas and expertise from all parts of the organisation and to enable debate and challenging to take place. This is important to keep the process from getting stale and old hat.

Next is to clarify the organisational mission. What is the purpose of the organisation? How does it fit in with everything outside of itself? What are its long term goals

The third step is to explore the core values. This would include how the employees perceive the organisation; what the espoused values of the organisation are and whether they are shared; who are the stakeholders and are their needs being met and how is the learning and development department and its contribution viewed

The fourth step is to carry out a SWOT and or PESTLE analysis. SWOT being strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The strengths and weaknesses being from internal analysis and the opportunities and threats being from external analysis. PESTLE being an external analysis tool that considers Political, Economic, Sociological, Technological, Legal, and Environmental influences on the organisation.

And finally is to agree on the learning and development strategy and the strategic plan. This involves agreeing on the long term goals and short term learning and development goals in order that the organisation as a whole can reach its aims, mission and goals according to its values and for all the levels within the organisation. It is also important to build flexibility into the process so that the plan can move with the needs of the organisation, its teams and its individuals.

Creating an L & D strategy

Strategic AnalysisSWOT

Core competenciesEnvironmental studies

Market projections

Strategic Goal SettingGrowth

Customer satisfactionProfitability

Market share

Chosen Routes to the Goals

ResourcesSystems and processes

CapabilityPartnership

Mayo, A., (2004), Creating a Learning and Development Strategy, CIPD

1 •What are the advantages of having a fully integrated learning and development strategy?

2 •What are the key factors to consider in creating a fully integrated learning and development strategy?

Exercise

Mayo, A., (2004), Creating a Learning and Development Strategy: The HR Business Partner’s Guide to Developing People, CIPD

Jarvis, J., Lane, D., and Fillery-Travis, A., (2006), The Case for Coaching, CIPD

Harrison, R., (2005), Learning and Development, CIPD

References

This resource was created by the University of Plymouth, Learning from WOeRk project. This project is funded by HEFCE as part of the HEA/JISC OER release

programme.

This resource is licensed under the terms of the Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales license (

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/).

The resource, where specifi ed below, contains other 3 rd party materials under their own licenses. The licenses and attributions are outlined

below:

1. The name of the University of Plymouth and its logos are unregistered trade marks of the University. The University reserves all rights to these items beyond their inclusion in these CC resources.

2. The JISC logo, the and the logo of the Higher Education Academy are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution -non-commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK England & Wales license. All

reproductions must comply with the terms of that license.

Author Jane Stubberfield

Institute University of Plymouth

Title Learning and Development Strategy

Description Creating a fully integrated learning and development strategy

Date Created 17.01.2011

Educational Level 7

Keywords

UKOER, LFWOER, Learning from WOeRK, UOPCPDLM, Continuous Professional Development, CPD, Work-based Learning, WBL, Learning, development, strategy, alignment, business performance

Back page originally developed by the OER phase 1 C-Change project

©University of Plymouth, 2010, some rights reserved

Defining the Psychological Contract

Kotter (1973): “An implicit exchange between an individual and his organisation which specifies what each expects to give and receive from each other in their relationship.”

Herriot & Pemberton (1995): “The perceptions of both parties to the employment relationship, organisation and individual of the obligations implied in the relationship.”

Defining the Psychological Contract

Rousseau (1995): “Individual beliefs, shaped by the organisation, regarding terms of an exchange agreement between individuals and their organisation”

Guest and Conway (2000): “The perceptions of both parties to the employment relationship, organisation and individual of the reciprocal promises and obligations implied in the relationship”

Unpacking the language of psychological contract definitions

PromisesObligationsExpectations

Promises: Made by one party to another to engage in specific action

Obligation: Commitments to be delivered by party in receipt of promise

Expectation: Less binding language than promise and obligation

Psychological Contracts Characteristics

Define the employment relationshipManage Mutual Expectations

VoluntaryReciprocalEvolving/DynamicSubjectiveRelationalTransactional

The Changing Psychological Contract

Characteristic Old New

Focus Security Employability

Duration Structured Flexible

Scope Broad Narrow

Underlying prin. Tradition Market-focus

Intended Output Loyalty & Commitment

Value Added

Employer’s key responsibility

Fair Pay for good work

High pay for high performance

Employee’s key responsibility

Good performance in present job

Making a difference

Types of Contracts

LEVEL

PERSPECTIVE

Individual Group

Within

Outside

PsychologicalBeliefs that people have about promises made,accepted and relied uponbetween themselves andanother

NormativeShared psychological contract that emerges whenmembers of a social group,organisation or work unithold common beliefs

ImpliedInterpretations that third parties make regarding contractual terms

SocialBroad beliefs in obligationsassociated with a society’sculture

Types of Psychological Contracts

Transactional: Transitional(e.g. retail clerks hired at xmas) (Ee experiences during merger- Low ambiguity change or acquisition)- Easy exit/high turnover - Ambiguity/uncertainty- Low member commitment - High turnover/termination - Little learning - Instability

Balanced: Relational:(e.g. High involvement team) (e.g. family business members)- High member commitment - High member commitment- High Integration - High affective commitment- Ongoing development - High integration/identification- Mutual support - Stability- Dynamic

Specified Unspecified

Performance Terms

Duration

Short-term

Long-term

Employer Perceptions of Psychological Contract

Based upon research by Guest & Conway (2001)

84% of managers had heard of psychological contract

36% of managers used it to help them manage the employment relationship

Promises to employees fell into three groups: Information and development (most made), rewards and context for work (least made)

Employer Perceptions of Psychological Contract

Promises most likely to be kept are in relation to not making unreasonable demands on employees and opportunities for promotion

Promises least likely to be kept are in respect to safe working environment and a range of rewards other than promotion, such as fair pay and job security

Promises less likely to be kept in large organisations and in public sector

Employer Perceptions of Psychological Contract

Employee Involvement in decision-making is low – 52% not involved, 24% involved

Managers report poorer outcomes where there is a recognised trade union in the organisation

Organisational management of promises and commitments has positive effect on employee attitudes and behaviour