The task of choosing a career path is very challenging for an individual; however within a certain career path several challenges are encountered. Many organizations face the challenge of high staff turnover as a result of lacking an upward mobility program. Upward mobility program is a program whereby employees get an opportunity to advance their career to a certain desired level (Rothwell, 2005).
Since many organizations lack an upward mobility program, employees have a tendency of moving to better paying positions or organizations (Ellis, 2003). To retain best talented clients, organizations have opted for education assistance, succession planning or shareholder programs to retain employees.
Education Assistance
In career planning, organizations should train their employees as a method of equipping them with necessary skills to undertake their jobs or new jobs. Education assistance entails offering in-house training or paying for specialized education to be offered to your employees.
Organizations which offer education assistance are better placed to have employees who have a set of different skills and this is beneficial to the organization since these employees can move up or change careers easily within the organization (Ellis, 2003).
Educational assistance affords employees the opportunity to learn new skills apart from which they already had or were employed with. For instance an organization with engineers could train their engineers on management and thus when a management opportunity suffices; engineers could be promoted to these positions instead of outsourcing other employees (Coetzee, 2006).
An example of an organization that offers educational assistance as part of an upward mobility program is Toyota. Toyota offers educational assistance to its entry levels employees and it does so through educational centers and successful employees are considered in the future upward mobility program.
Succession Planning
Succession planning is very important is sustaining an upward mobility program within an organization. Succession planning involves laying down structures, systems that allow entry level employees to scale up the career ladder within an organization.
Some of the succession planning systems includes conducting promotion interviews, exams, performance assessments (Ellis, 2003). By offering succession planning organizations can easily retain talent as plans are undertaken to offer promotion to all employees within an organization.
Succession planning programs such as offering promotion interviews to existing employees for new positions at an organization help in retaining talent. Organizations like Wal-Mart and Deloitte offer succession planning programs to employees who excel well in their performances for the organization (Rothwell, 2005).
Organizations such as governments which offer permanent employment terms, these organizations categorize their employees based on job levels and employees are promoted based on number of years of service and through exam promotions.
Organization involvement
Organizational involvement in shaping the career path of their employees is very important in retaining employees through upward mobility programs. Organizational programs such as shareholder programs, retirement programs and better pay packages.
Through offering employee ownership programs to long serving employees, employees feel appreciated and thus it becomes easily to retain talent. Some organizations offer better retirement benefit packages to long serving employees and through such programs employees feel obliged to remain at the organization (Coetzee, 2006).
Wal-Mart is an example of an organization that employees the use of shareholder program whereby long serving employees are awarded stakes/shares in the company to their hard work. Other organizations like tend to offer wage increment based on the number of years of service the employee has served the company (Rothwell, 2005). These programs are successful in retaining employees in an organization.
References
Coetzee, M., 2006. Career Planning in the 21st Century: Strategies for Inventing a Successful Career in a Workplace without Jobs. Pretoria, SA: Juta and Company Ltd.
Ellis, D., Toft, D., Lankowitz, S. & Stupka, E., 2003. Career Planning. London: Houghton Mifflin.
Rothwell, W., 2005. Career planning and succession management: developing your organization’s talent–for today and tomorrow. Boston, MA: Greenwood Publishing Group.