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Unit 7
CAREER DEVELOPMENT PLANNING
A career development program is a plan for meeting the company’s future employ-
ment needs by systematically preparing current employees for future positions in
the company. Human resources personnel are responsible for implementing the
career development program, but they need the support of all parts of the company
for the program to be successful. A career development program requires a long-
term organizational plan, career paths, effective employee performance reviews,
career counseling, and training and development for employees.
LONG-TERM PLANS Career development starts with the job opportunities in a com-
pany. Companies must determine what jobs will be available in the future, how
many people will be needed in each job, and the knowledge and skills those em-
ployees will require. In the previous section, you learned that companies study
their external and internal environments to identify business opportunities and
needed changes in the organization. One part of that study includes employment
needs. The HR department works with that information to project specific job
opportunities in each part of the company and the requirements employees must
meet for each job.
CAREER PATHS A career path is a progression of related jobs with increasing skill
requirements and responsibility. Career paths provide opportunities for employ-
ees to advance within the company, make additional contributions, and receive
greater satisfaction from their work.
Traditionally, a career path moved an employee from an entry-level position
into management. However, companies also offer career paths that allow em-
ployees to advance into nonmanagement positions. Some people do not want to
be managers, and companies usually have relatively few management positions.
Therefore, companies often make other opportunities available so that employ-
ees do not get locked into one job if they choose not to become managers or are
unable to qualify for management positions. Examples of a management career
path and a nonmanagement path are shown in Figure 25-2. Companies should
identify a variety of career paths. Each job should be part of a career path, and
employees should be aware of the paths available to them.
Success tip PERFORMANCE REVIEWS Employees need accurate information on their skills and
abilities to make good career decisions. When employees know how well they
are performing, they can determine what skills they need to improve to meet
current job requirements or to qualify for another job in a career path. In an
Employees need to take effective career development program, the manager carefully evaluates an em-
responsibility for their own ployee’s performance and regularly reviews the information with the employee.
performance improvement. The manager and employee can determine whether the employee needs addi-
They should focus on tional training to improve performance and to advance in the organization. The
(1) committing to achieving results of performance reviews should be compared to new job requirements as
performance goals, (2) solic- the company makes changes, so that employees know what is expected of them.
iting performance feedback
and coaching, (3) communi- CAREER COUNSELING For career development to be effective, employees must be
cating openly and regularly aware of opportunities and plan their career paths. The human resources depart-
with the manager, (4) collect- ment offers career information and counseling services as part of the career devel-
ing and reviewing perfor- opment program. Many companies have made career counseling part of every
mance data, and (5) preparing employee’s performance review conference. Managers are often trained to provide
for and participating effec- career information to the employees they supervise.
tively in performance review Career counseling may result in an individual career plan, which identifies the
conferences. jobs that are part of the employee’s career path, the training needed to advance
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