Career development essentially means the process of increasing an employee’s potential for advancement and career change. In other words, it is a process of planning the series of possible jobs which an individual may hold in the organisation over time and developing strategies designed to provide necessary job skills as the opportunity arises.
Therefore, career development relates to the readiness for progression through a series of positions during an individual’s working life. Career development may be differentiated from career planning and career management. Career development is a systematic process of guiding the movement of human resources of an enterprise through different hierarchical positions, whereas career planning is a process of establishing career objectives for an employee (or by the person himself) and developing planned strategies to achieve them including activities which help in making choices with respect to occupations, organisation’s job assignments and self development measures. Career management, on the other hand, relates to specific human resource management activities, such as recruitment, selection, placement, and appraisal to facilitate career development.
Reasons for career development
- Changing environment is now making jobs more complex. A suitable career development
programme enables employees to be better prepared for future positions in the
organisation. It also gives the opportunity to identify prospective managers from within.
Manning vacancies from within is cost efficient and at the same time the system motivates
employees.
- A suitable career development programme enables the organisation to receive maximum contribution from employees. Since this helps employees to enhance their skills for higher positions, both under utilization of employee’s potential work energy and their underemployment can be avoided.
- Career development makes employees more adaptable to changing requirements of the organisations. The requirements may either change due to new technology [Computer Numerically Controlled Technology (CNC), Numerically Controlled Technology (NCT), Direct Numerically Controlled Technology (DNCT) and Flexible Manufacturing System (FMS)], or new management philosophy and style (like, just-in-time manufacturing, total quality management, etc.).
- It provides an objective basis to describe the steps of progression in a given organisation,
and therefore, minimizes unfair promotion practices of employees reducing the chance of
‘promotion by discretion’. Thus, a suitable career development programme avoids
employees’ resentment on promotion issues, which has now become a major causal factor
of industrial disputes in India.
- Most of the organisations are now also manned by women and other minority classes of employees. A career development programme ensures equitable opportunity for career progression of these classes of employees also. Thus it meets the requirements of equal employment opportunities for all.
- A career development programme gives opportunities to employees to acquire more skills, obtain desired jobs, share increased responsibility, enjoy scope of job mobility and derive increased job satisfaction.