A career is the sequence of positions held by a person during the course of a lifetime.

Comprises of work related activities that provide continuity, order and meaning to a persons life. It also consists of the changes in values, attitudes and motivations that occur as a person grows older. Career planning is the process by which one selects career goals and path to these goals. Career goals: Future positions one tries to reach as part of a career. Career paths: These are flexible lines of progression through which employees typically move.

Features Career planning is one important aspect of human resource planning and development. Every individual who joins an organization desires to make a good career for himself within the organization. He joins the organization with a desire to have a bright career in terms of status, compensation payment and future promotions. From the point of view of an organization, career planning and development have become crucial in management process. An organization has to provide facilities/opportunities for the career development of individual employees.

Career planning is the process of planning the career of the employees of an organization. . . Career planning implies that right people with right skills and capabilities are provided career growth prospects, i.e. every potential employee gets opportunity

for advancement in his career while organization gets proper people for proper jobs at proper time. Career planning essentially means helping the employees to plan their career in terms of their capacities within the context of organization needs. Career planning is not an event or an end in itself but a process of human resource development.

OBJECTIVE OF CAREER PLANNING

To attract and retain the right type of person in the organization. To map out career of employees suitable to their ability and their willingness to be trained and developed for higher positions. To have a more stable workforce by reducing labour turnover and absenteeism. It contributes to man power planning as well as organizational development and effective achievement of corporate goals. To increasingly utilize the managerial talent available at all levels within the organization. To improve employee morale and motivation by matching skills to job requirement and by providing opportunities for promotion. It helps employee in thinking of long term involvement with the organisation. To provide guidance and encourage employees to fulfill their potentials. To achieve higher productivity and organizational development. To ensure better use of human resource through more satisfied and productive employees. To meet the immediate and future human resource needs of the organisation on the timely basis.

NEED/PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES OF CAREER PLANNING:

1) CAREER MAPPING OF THE EMPLOYEES: Career planning helps to map out careers of employees as per their ability and willingness and to train and develop them for higher positions. Achieving the proper career development of capable people so that stagnation and obsolescence of individual employees can be avoided

2) TO ATTRACT AND RETAIN THE RIGHT TYPE OF PERSONS IN THE ORGANIZATION: Career planning helps in maintaining an adequate reserve of human talents, potentiality and capability for the future needs of organization. Retention research indicates that individuals tend to stay longer where they are experiencing personal and professional growth. It is a known fact that most professionals leave an organization due to lack of career growth. Active career development initiatives by a company, is a key retention tool to keep the best talent within its fold. Thus it helps to reduce labor turnover. It is one of the greatest motivators to keep an employee happy and engaged.

3) TO UTILIZE AVAILABLE MANAGERIAL TALENT WITHIN THE ORGANIZATION FULLY: Career planning enables the organization to identify talented employees and provide education to develop them for future higher level and broader responsibilities. Career planning is a process whereby an organization ensures that employees are recruited and developed to fill each key role within the company.

4) PRODUCTIVITY AND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT: Appropriate career planning helps to achieve higher productivity and

organizational development and ensuring that the future human resource needs of the organisation will be met without detriment to the interest of the companys own people. Career planning and development of employees actually does make a difference to the productivity of an employee.

5) EMPLOYEE MORALE AND MOTIVATION Career planning also helps to improve employee morale and motivation by providing training and opportunities for promotion. Providing adequate motivation to capable performers to contribute to their best for the mission and purpose of the organisation. From the employees point of view career-planning initiatives gives them a clear focus about their career track, the blind spots that they have to overcome and the final goal to be reached.

6) GUIDANCE AND MENTORING: Career planning basically constitutes of providing guidance and assistance to employees to develop their potentials to the highest level. A mentor is, generally speaking, an older person in a managerial role offering informal career advice to a junior employee. Mentors take junior employees under their protg and offer advice and guidance on how to survive and get ahead in the organization. They act as role models. A sponsor, on the other hand, is someone in the organization who can create career development opportunities.

ADVANTAGES OF CAREER PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT

In fact both individuals and the organization are going to benefit from career planning and development. So the advantages are described below:

For Individuals 1. The process of career planning helps the individual to have the knowledge of various career opportunities, his priorities etc. 2. This knowledge helps him select the career that is suitable to his life styles, preferences, family environment, scope for self-development etc. 3. It helps the organization identify internal employees who can be promoted. 4. Internal promotions, up gradation and transfers motivate the employees, boost up their morale and also result in increased job satisfaction. 5. Increased job satisfaction enhances employee commitment and creates a sense of belongingness and loyalty to the organization. 6. Employee will await his turn of promotion rather than changing to another organization. This will lower employee turnover. 7. It improves employees performance on the job by taping their potential abilities and further employee turnover. 8. It satisfies employee esteem needs.

For Organizations

A long-term focus of career planning and development will increase the effectiveness of human resource management. More specifically, the advantages of career planning and development for an organization include:

1. Efficient career planning and development ensures the availability of human resources with required skill, knowledge and talent. 2. The efficient policies and practices improve the organizations ability to attract and retain highly skilled and talent employees. 3. The proper career planning ensures that the women and people belong to backward communities get opportunities for growth and development. 4. The career plan continuously tries to satisfy the employee expectations and as such minimizes employee frustration. 5. By attracting and retaining the people from different cultures, enhances cultural diversity. 6. Protecting employees interest results in promoting organizational goodwill.

CAREER PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

Chart1.1: Career planning & Development process

1. Identifying individual needs and aspirations: Its necessary to identify and communicate the career goals, aspiration and career anchors of every employee because most individuals may not have a clear idea about these. For this purpose, a human resource inventory of the organization and employee potential areas concerned.

2. Analyzing career opportunities: The organizational set up, future plans and career system of the employees are analyzed to identify the career opportunities available within it. Career paths can be determined for each position. It can also necessary to analyze career demands in terms of knowledge, skill, experience, aptitude etc.

3. Identifying match and mismatch: A mechanism to identifying congruence between individual current aspirations and organizational career system is developed to identify and compare specific areas of match and mismatch for different categories of employees.

4. Formulating and implementing strategies: Alternative action plans and strategies for dealing with the match and mismatch are formulated and implemented.

5. Reviewing career plans: A periodic review of the career plan is necessary to know whether the plan is contributing to effective utilization of human resources by matching employee objectives to job needs. Review will also indicate to employees in which direction the organization

is moving, what changes are likely to take place and what skills are needed to adapt to the changing needs of the organization

LIMITATIONS OF CAREER PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT

Despite planning the career, employees face certain career problems. They are: 1. Dual Career Families:With the increase in career orientation among women, number of female employees is on increase. With this, the dual career families have also been on increase. Consequently, one of those family members might face the problem of transfer. This has become a complicated problem to organizations. Consequently other employees may be at disadvantage.

2. Low ceiling careers:Some careers do not have scope for much advancement. Employees cannot get promotions despite their career plans and development in such jobs.

3. Declining Career Opportunities:Career opportunities for certain categories reach the declining stage due to the influence of the technological or economic factors. Solution for such problem is career shift.

4. Downsizing and careers:Business process reengineering, technological changes and business environmental factors force the business firms to restructure the organizations by and downsizing.

Downsizing activities result in fixing some employees, and degrading some other employees.5. Career planning can become a reality when opportunities for vertical mobility are available. Therefore, it is not suitable for a very small organization. 5. Others:Several other problems hamper career planning. These include lack of an integrated human resources policy, lack of a rational wage structure, absence of adequate opposition of trade unions, lack of a good performance reporting system, ineffective attitudinal surveys, etc.

Definition Of Career Development

Career development refers to all the activities undertaken by the individual employee and the organization to meet the career aspirations and job requirements.

The features of career development consist of: Formal and organized effort The whole process should be well organized to receive full support from employees who will clearly see the advantages. It is mutually beneficial to the employee as well as the employer. . Aspects like what, when, why, where, who all and how, have to be clearly captured as a part of the development plan and communicated effectively, says Anshuman Ray, HR, Country Manager, Synopsys (India). Enables company to help employee

Career development programmes enable a deeper focus on an employees aims and aspirationsfrom identification of the handicaps being faced by an employee in accomplishing his goals to the solutions in terms of re-skilling or reassignment. This focus acts as the significant motivator for an employee to excel and exceed the targets. It facilitates powerful personal and professional development. Improves quality of work life The process of career planning gives the employee job satisfaction, social status, power, position, popularity, ego satisfaction that are all cherished by an individual. Career advancement and greater authority, influence at top level, achievement and recognition are expected of a career development. Affirmation action It is mutually beneficial to the employee as well as the employer

STAGES IN CAREER DEVELOPMENT

i.

EXPLORATION: Exploration stage implies a period of self-assessment of alternatives. Almost all candidates who start working after college education start around midtwenties. Many a time they are not sure about future prospects but take up a job in anticipation of rising higher up in the career graph later. This stage refers to the time when the employee joins the organisation.

ii.

ESTABLISHMENT: This career stage begins with the candidate getting the first job getting hold of the right job is not an easy task. In this stage the employee becomes comfortable with the job. Candidates are likely to commit mistakes and learn from their mistakes. The establishment stage includes being accepted by Microsofts peers, learning the job and gaining tangible evidence of success or failure. Slowly and gradually they become responsible towards the job. Ambitious candidates will keep looking for more lucrative and challenging jobs elsewhere. This may either result in migration to another job or he will remain with the Same job because of lack of opportunity.

iii.

MID-CAREER STAGE: -

This is a stage that is typically reached in the age of 35 45. This career stage represents fastest and gainful leap for competent employees who are commonly called climbers. There is continuous improvement in performance and a better possibility to achieve success. On the other hand, employees who are unhappy and frustrated with the job, there is marked deterioration in their performance. In other to show their utility to the organization, employees must remain productive at this stage. Climbers must go on improving their own performance. Authority, responsibility, rewards and incentives are highest at this stage. Employees tend to settle down inn their jobs and job hopping is not common.

iv.

LATE CAREER: This career stage is pleasant for the senior employees who like to survive on the past glory. Here the employee knows the organisation inside out. There is no desire to improve performance and improve past records. Such employees enjoy playing the role of elder statesperson. They are expected to train younger employees and earn respect from them.

v.

DECLINE STAGE: This career stage represents the completion of ones career usually culminating into retirement. After decades of hard work, such employees have to retire. New opportunities fail to attract them. Employees who were climbers and achievers will find it hard to compromise with the reality. Others may think of life after retirement.

BENEFITS OF CARRIER DEVELOPMENT

There are many benefits of carrier development system both for the organisation and for the individual employees. The following table indicates the benefits of a career development system: Benefits of Career Development No. To MANAGERS/ To EMPLOYESS To ORGANISATION

SUPERVISORS 1 Increased skill in careers Helpful assistance in Better career decision 2 Greater retention use of own

employees skill of

of Enrichment of present Dissemination job

valued employees 3 Better communication 4 More realistic

information at all levels upward Better communication

downward Better communication staff More planning expectations realistic

within the organisation goal Greater retention of

development

and valued employees

Productive appraisal

performance Better

feedback

on Public image as HR developer

performance

Greater understanding of Greater information on Increased effectiveness the organisation the firms objectives of personnel system

and future plans 7 Higher reputation as a Greater people developer responsibility personal Greater clarification of goals of the

organisation

Thus the career development is beneficial to the organization as well as the employee, and individual employees are bound to take it as a motivation for them to contribute their best for the organizational objectives. Developing human resource is, therefore, an important job in connection with human resource planning. Career management is a partnership between the employee, the managers, and the company.

Employees are responsible for actively managing their careers, increasing their skills and experience, and maintaining a high level of performance.

Managers are responsible for actively encouraging and supporting staff in their career planning, using the available tools and processes to help employees find the best match between their talents and the needs of the campus.

The company is responsible for creating and providing opportunities for advancement based on performance excellence, talent, and potential, and for encouraging mobility between job families and departments. Career Planning and Career Management is no longer a luxury it is a necessity

to an organizations long-term success and operation. With increase competition for talent, both domestic and international, there will be increasing pressures and challenges for organizations to keep intellectual knowledge within their own organizations and not their competitors. Managers need to identify and understand the developmental needs of their employees. They must ensure that all key employees understand their career paths and the roles they are being developed to fill. Career Planning & Development Help employees become active participants in planning their future, and the future success of employees company. Career planning lets employees create a roadmap, with development report cards along the way, to personal success. Career development and career planning go hand in hand. When they are linked to the organization's vision, employees can align their personal aspirations to the

organization's current and future needs, creating a mutually beneficial environment. Career development and career planning synergy creates happier and more productive employees in a growth-oriented company. Hence the ongoing business strategy incorporates retention and career planning as part of the systemic structure. Viewing career development in conjunction with career planning provides the organization and the individual with what is needed and wanted by both employer and employee.