Introduction
Competition in the corporate world coupled with ever-changing consumer needs have triggered the need for individuals to keep on developing and upgrading their careers. Currently, every employee has the duty of coming up with strategies to facilitate in developing his or her career. As organizations continue restructuring their operations systems, career hierarchies have been found to fade out. There is an increasing need for every employee to continue developing his or her career path to cope with the hasty growth in knowledge and changes that keep on emerging at workplaces. Unlike employee development that is conducted by organizational management, employees who take charge of developing their career are found to intensively commit themselves to the process (Bohlander & Snell 2010). This leads to them successfully developing the necessary skills as they undertake the process out of their will. This paper aims at giving a brief literature review on managing individual career paths.
Managing individual career path
According to Johansen, Kusy, and Rouda (1996), there are varied strategies used by individuals in managing their career paths. Individuals require assessing their current career status to determine their skills and identify the required skills. They are also able to highlight some of their benefits, knowledge, and abilities. Through this strategy, one can come up with clear information on the areas in his or her career that require to be improved. The strategy saves time that could be wasted by an individual pursuing a career skill that would not help him or her improve his/ her performance at the workplace.
After assessing one’s career status, one ought to identify the novel experiences, skills and knowledge that he or she needs to acquire. To effectively pursue these skills, one has to ensure that they are aligned to his or her private and career interests. In most cases, identifying skills that are not aligned to personal interests may lead to one not committing himself or herself to their achievement. In the end, one may end up wasting a lot of time pursuing skills that are not in the list of his priorities (Embree 2003). The goals that one intends to pursue have to be in line with organizational mission and vision. The main objective of managing individual career path is to ensure that an individual is always equipped with the experience required in solving problems arising within the organization. Pursuing skills that are in congruent with organizational goals guarantees a continued relationship with the organization. In the contrary, pursuing skills that are out of the organizational objectives may make it hard for an individual to effectively address problems affecting the organization. This may eventually lead to such a person adding no value to the organization leading to his dismissal (Kusy 1994).
To effectively manage one’s career path, it is imperative to come up with a learning purpose. Stout (1995) argues that managing individual career path entails identifying the fissure between the current circumstances and the expected outcome. One comes with a statement of purpose that highlights the need for pursuing specific experience, knowledge or skills, the different abilities or skills that one intend to pursue as well as the strategies to be used in pursuing these skills.
The desire by individuals to be versatile has led to them opting for a transitory career path. In this career path, one does not depend on a single organization. Rather, individuals equip themselves with a variety of competencies which helps them respond to different changes that arise at the workplace (Mignonac & Herrbach 2003). In this method of managing individual’s career path, an employee works with varied organizations thus acquiring different skills and experiences. This makes individuals become versatile thus being able to respond to different challenges arising in an organization.
To successfully help employees manage and develop their career paths, organizations ought to assign supervisors to individual employees. The main objective of assigning supervisors to employees is to help them get feedback from the supervisors about their progress in acquiring the different skills. With the help of the supervisors, employees can be able to identify other needs that they could have not identified (Rouda & Kusy 1995). Consequently, the undertaken development would not only benefit the employees but also the entire organization. This is because supervisors would ensure that the identified skills and knowledge are aligned to organizational objectives. In additional to seeking mentorship from organizational supervisors, individuals can get advice from their fellow workers on skills and experience they need to pursue. This method has been found to be effective in industrial environment. Employees work closely with their supervisors in coming up with career development programs. Supervisors help the employees in identifying the most relevant skills and also evaluate them to determine their progress in acquiring these skills. Unlike other human resource management processes that are aimed at helping in employee promotion and rewarding, this is developed with a sole aim of helping employees improve their careers (Sharma 2010).
Career path management model
Different models have been developed to help individuals and organizations manage their career growth. One of such models is known as decision dynamics career representation (Mansson 2010). This model works with the vibrant matching of employees to definite circumstances and organizational customs. On the individual perspective, the model helps one identify the factors that motivate him or her at the workplace. One is able to evaluate his or her career path to determine some of the available motivating factors as well as the motivating factors that have not been exploited. In due course, one is able to pursue these potential motivation elements thus being able to improve his or her career.
Apart from helping individuals evaluate and improve their career, this model helps organizations come up with employee development strategies. Through the model, human resource managers determine employee attitude towards organizational structure, its strategies, rewarding systems as well as performance appraisal methods (Stout 1995). They also determine how the different organizational strategies and systems help in developing their employees with respect to their careers.
Conclusion
Managing individual career path is a process that calls for a concerted effort from both the individual and the organizational management. Individuals need to evaluate their current career state to identify the missing skills, knowledge and experiences. They have to ensure that these skills do not contradict their interests and that they are aligned to organizational objectives. Organizational management team ought to help employees identify their desired skills so as to ensure that employees pursue career development strategies that would help the organization achieve its objectives (Torrington, Hall & Taylor 2008). It is the responsibility of the human resource managers to regularly evaluate the progress of different employees to ensure that they acquire the desired skills and experience.
Reference List
Bohlander, G. & Snell, S., 2010. Managing human resources, 15th Edition. South-Western: Cengage Learning.
Embree, M., 2003. Self-Managing your career: an alternative career workbook. New Jersey: McGraw- Hill.
Johansen, K., Kusy, M. & Rouda, R., 1996. The Business Focus of HRD Leaders: a picture of current practice. Academy of Human Resource Development Conference, Minneapolis.
Kusy, M., 1994. Introduction to Human Resource Development. Houston: University of St. Thomas.
Mansson, G., 2010. Decision dynamics career model. Web.
Mignonac, K. & Herrbach, O., 2003. Managing individual career aspirations and corporate needs: a study of software engineers in France. Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, 20(3), pp. 205-230.
Rouda, R. & Kusy, M., 1995. Needs assessment – the first step. Tappi Journal, 78 (6), p. 255.
Sharma, S. S., 2010. Managing employee career development in the 21st century.
Stout, D., 1995. Performance Analysis for Training. Niagara: Niagara Division of Consolidated Papers Inc.
Torrington, D., Hall, L. & Taylor, S., 2008. Human Resource Management, 7th Edition. New York: Prentice Hall.