Career Management

Career

A career is a sequence of positions held by a

person during the course of a lifetime.

Factors shaping a person’s career:

Performance, education, experience,
influential groups, caste links and some
luck.
 Features of a career

1. A career develops over time.

2. It is the individual who ultimately must
judge the success of his career.
3. Important element: experiencing
psychological success.
4. A typical career includes many positions,
transitions and organisations.
 Career stages

Exploration Mid
career Late career
Establishm Decline
ent
PERFORMANCE

25 35 50 60 70
AGE
 Career choices: individual characteristics

1. Interests
2. Self-image
3. Personality
4. Social background
 Career anchors
• Distinct patterns of self-perceived talents, attitudes,
motives and value that guide and stabilise a person’s
career after several years of experience and feedback.
• Managerial competence
• Technical competence
• Security
• Creativity
• Autonomy
• Dedication to a cause
• Pure challenge
• Lifestyle
 Career Planning

• Process by which one selects career goals and

the path to these goals.

• Features:
1. Focus: integrate own goals and opportunities in
organisations.
2. Pinpoint and highlight areas that offer
psychological successes.
3. A continuous process of development.
 Objectives

1. Attract and retain people

2. For effective use of human resources
3. Reduce employee turnover
4. Improve employee morale and motivation
5. Meet immediate and future needs of the
organisation.
 Process of career planning
1. Identifying individual needs and aspirations.
2. Analysing career opportunities.
3. Aligning needs and opportunities
4. Action plans and periodic review.
 Career development
• Personal actions one undertakes to achieve a
career plan.
• Some important steps:
1. Performance
2. Exposure (visibility)
3. Networking
4. Leveraging (Resigning)
5. Loyalty to career
6. Mentor
7. Key subordinates
8. Expand ability
 Organisational Career Development
(assistance from managers and HR
department)
1. Self-assessment tools: Career planning
workshop, career workbook
2. Individual counseling
3. Information services: Job posting, skills
inventory
4. Career ladders and career paths, career
resource centre
5. Employee assessment programmes:
assessment centre, psychological tests,
promotability forecast, succession planning
5. Employee development programmes:
Seminars, workshops, job rotation,
mentoring

6. Career programmes for special groups:

dual career couples, outplacement services,
employees with disabilities, etc.
 Career management

• Includes both organisational actions and

individual efforts aimed at setting career
goals, formulating and implementing
strategies and monitoring the results.

• A balanced approach
• Both - complementary
 Advantages of career planning

1. To employees: set realistic career goals

and take appropriate steps to achieve it
2. Benefits to organisation: plan career
growth for each employee
3. Relations: More cordial
 Limitations

1. Not suitable for small units

2. Environmental factors affect career
planning: government policy, laws,
reservation policy, union demands
3. Neglect of any career-related issues lead to
problem
 Effective career planning: steps

1. Support from top management

2. Corporate goals
3. Reward performance
4. Placement
5. Career paths
6. Continuous tracking
7. Publicity
 Succession Planning

• The process of ensuring a suitable supply of

successors for current and future senior or
key jobs arising from business strategy, so
that the careers of individuals can be
planned and managed to optimise the
organisations’ needs and the individuals’
aspirations
• The purpose of succession planning is to
identify and develop people to replace
current jobholders in key positions.
• Through succession planning, companies
assure a steady flow of internal talent to fill
important vacancies.
• Succession planning encourages ‘hiring
from within’ and creates a healthy
environment, where employees have careers
and not merely jobs.
• It becomes easy to groom qualified
candidates for future vacancies
 Succession Planning at Monsanto

The succession planning process at

Monsanto involves looking at each position
at Monsanto and identifying successors
(including cross-functional successors) in
three time frames (‘Ready now’/ ‘Ready in
1-2 years’/ ‘Ready in 3-5 years’). Succession
plans are then rated depending on their
strength of succession (Red: poor
succession/ Yellow: marginal succession/
Greeen: strong succession).
• Depending on the succession status, broad
action plans are made to speed up and
strgthen succession for all positions where
succession is weak/marginal. The people
manager has overall responsibility for the
succession for each role. At a country level,
the accountability rests with the country
manager.
• Specific action plans are made depending
on succession plan status. These could
include training, cross-functional exposure,
cross country exposure, mentorship etc.
This is reviewed on a half yearly basis, and
monitored to ensure that a strong pipeline
of talent is available. Where there are gaps,
high potential candidates are hired and put
on a fast track.