Career Management

1. Compare employers’ traditional and career planning-

oriented HR focuses.
2. Explain the employee’s, manager’s, and employer’s
career development roles.
3. Describe the issues to consider when making
promotion decisions.
4. Describe the methods for enhancing diversity through
career management.
5. Answer the question: How can career development
foster employee commitment?
The Basics Of Career Management

Career Career
Management Development

Employees’
Careers

Career
Planning
TABLE 10–1 Traditional Versus Career Development Focus

HR Activity Traditional Focus Career Development Focus

Analyzes jobs, skills, tasks— Adds information about individual
Human resource
present and future. Projects interests, preferences, and the like to
planning
needs. Uses statistical data. replacement plans.
Matches individual and jobs based on
Recruiting and Matching organization’s needs
variables including employees’ career
placement with qualified individuals.
interests and aptitudes.
Provides opportunities for
Training and Provides career path information.
learning skills, information, and
development Adds individual development plans.
attitudes related to job.
Performance Adds development plans and individual
Rating and/or rewards.
appraisal goal setting.
Adds tuition reimbursement plans,
Compensation Rewards for time, productivity,
compensation for non-job related
and benefits talent, and so on.
activities such as United Way.

Source: Adapted from Fred L. Otte and Peggy G. Hutcheson, Helping Employees Manage Careers (Upper Saddle River,
NJ: Prentice Hall, 1992), p. 10, and www.ge.com.cn/careers/career_management.html. Accessed May 18, 2008.
FIGURE 10–1
Employee
Career
Development
Plan

Source: Reprinted from www.HR.BLR.com

with permission of the publisher Business
and Legal Reports Inc., 141 Mill Rock Road
East, Old Saybrook, CT © 2004.
TABLE 10–2 Roles in Career Development

Individual Manager
• Accept responsibility for your own career. • Provide timely and accurate performance
• Assess your interests, skills, and values. feedback.
• Seek out career information and resources. • Provide developmental assignments and
support.
• Establish goals and career plans.
• Participate in career development
• Utilize development opportunities.
discussions with subordinates.
• Talk with your manager about your career.
• Support employee development plans.
• Follow through on realistic career plans.

Employer
• Communicate mission, policies, and procedures.
• Provide training and development opportunities, including workshops.
• Provide career information and career programs.
• Offer a variety of career paths.
• Provide career-oriented performance feedback.
• Provide mentoring opportunities to support growth and self-direction.
• Provide employees with individual development plans.
• Provide academic learning assistance programs.

Source: Adapted from Fred L. Otte and Peggy G. Hutcheson, Helping Employees Manage Careers (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall,
1992), p. 56; www.ge.com.cn/careers/career_management.html; and www_03.ibm.com/employment/us.cd_career_dev.shtml. Accessed May 18,
2007.
TABLE 10–3 Possible Employer Career Planning and Development Practices

Job postings Career booklets/pamphlets

Formal education/tuition Written individual career plans
reimbursement
Career workshops
Performance appraisal for career
Assessment Center
planning
Upward appraisal
Counseling by manager
Appraisal committees
Lateral moves/job rotations
Training programs for managers
Counseling by HR
Orientation/induction programs
Pre-retirement programs
Special needs (highfliers)
Succession planning
Special needs (dual-career couples)
Formal mentoring
Diversity management
Common career paths
Expatriation/repatriation
Dual ladder career paths

Source: Adapted from Fred L. Otte and Peggy G. Hutcheson, Helping Employees Manage Careers (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1992), p. 56;
www.ge.com.cn/careers/career_management.html; and www_03.ibm.com/employment/us.cd_career_dev.shtml. Accessed May 18, 2007.
 The Employer’s Role in
Career Development

Realistic Job
Previews

Networking and Challenging

Interactions First Jobs
Employer’s
Role
Career-Oriented
Mentoring
Appraisals

Job
Rotation
Innovative Corporate Career
Development Initiatives
1. Provide each employee with an individual budget.
2. Offer on-site or online career centers.
3. Encourage role reversal.
4. Establish a “corporate campus.”
5. Help organize “career success teams.”
6. Provide career coaches.
7. Provide career planning workshops.
8. Utilize computerized on- and offline career
development programs.
9. “Catch them young”
 Managing Promotions and Transfers

Making Promotion
Decisions

Decision 1: Decision 2: Decision 3: Decision 4:

Is Seniority or How Should Is the Process Vertical,
Competence We Measure Formal or Horizontal, or
the Rule? Competence? Informal? Other?
Handling Transfers
• Employees’ reasons for desiring transfers
 Proximity to home town
 Better job prospects
 Personal enrichment and growth
 More interesting jobs
 Greater convenience (better hours, location)
 Greater advancement possibilities

• Employers’ reasons for transferring employees

 To fill positions in big cities where business is growing.
 To vacate a position where an employee is no longer needed.
 To fill a position where an employee is needed.
 To find a better fit for an employee within the firm.
 To boost productivity by consolidating positions.
 Taking Steps to Enhance Diversity:
Women’s and Minorities’ Prospects

Take Their
Career Interests
Seriously

Institute Flexible Eliminate

Schedules and Institutional
Career Tracks Barriers

Improve
Eliminate the
Networking and
Glass Ceiling
Mentoring
 Career Management and
Employee Commitment

Comparing Yesterday’s and Today’s

Employee-Employer Contract

Old Contract: New Contract:

“Do your best and be loyal to us, “Do your best for us and be loyal
and we’ll take care of your career.” to us for as long as you’re here,
and we’ll provide you with the
developmental opportunities you’ll
need to move on and have a
successful career.”
 Career Management and
Employee Commitment (cont’d)

Commitment-
oriented career
development efforts

Career Career-
Development Oriented
Programs Appraisals
 Career Management and
Employee Commitment (cont’d)

Commitment-
Career Oriented Career-
Development Career Oriented
Programs Development Appraisals
Efforts
Attracting and Retaining Older Workers

Create a Culture that

Honors Experience

HR Practices
for Older Offer Flexible Work
Workers

Offer Part-Time Work

Identify Your Career Stage
• Growth Stage
• Exploration Stage
• Establishment Stage
 Trial substage
 Stabilization substage
 Midcareer crisis substage
• Maintenance Stage
• Decline Stage
FIGURE 10–A1 Choosing an Occupational Orientation
TABLE 10–A1 Examples of Occupations that Typify Each Occupational Theme

Realistic Investigative Artistic Social Enterprising Conventional

A Wide Range
of Managerial
Occupations,
including:
Physicians Advertising
Auto Sales Military Accountants
Psychologists Executives Officers
Engineers Dealers Bankers
Research and Public Chamber of
Carpenters School Credit
Development Relations Commerce
Administrators Managers
Managers Executives Executives
Investment
Managers
Lawyers
 Identify Your Career Anchors

Technical/
Functional
Competence

Managerial
Security
Competence

Autonomy and
Creativity
Independence
FIGURE 10–A7 CareerJournal.com

Source: Wall Street Journal by CareerJournal.com. Reproduced with

permission of Dow Jones & Co. Inc. via Copyright Clearance Center © 2004.