Career Development

Because the organization and the individual have joint responsibility for career planning and development, both will suffer significant consequences if planning isn't done successfully. Individual employees go through a series of career stages as they progress through their work life. Within each of these stages, the employee has different needs that the organization must meet so that the relationship between the two can remain stable and the worker will continue to be motivated to produce for the organization. Organizations must respond successfully to individual employees based on the employee's current career stage. Let's discuss the commonly identified stages of career development first identified by Donald Super and Douglas Hall. You can see them summarized here. The first career development stage, called the exploration stage, is the period of time during which the individual is identifying the personal needs that will be satisfied by a particular type of work, the types of jobs that interest them, and the skill sets necessary to be able to accomplish those types of jobs. This stage is usually identified as being between the ages of 15 and 24. In the second stage, called establishment, this is the period of time where an individual enters into a career and becomes concerned with building a skill set, developing work relationships, and advancing and stabilizing their career. In the establishment phase, we see the individual begin to make significant personal contributions to their career in the organization and begin to create relationships or alliances with co-workers that allow them to become more secure within the organization. This stage is usually identified as covering approximately age 25 through mid-40s. Maintenance is the third stage of career development. This stage covers the period of time from the mid-40s to age 60 years or older. In the maintenance stage, the individual typically continues to advance but begins to seek personal satisfaction in jobs that they perform for the organization. This is the phase where we see individual employees begin to act as mentors or trainers to their younger co-workers and to act to improve organizations and its processes as well as policies because they see a need to do so. Finally, the fourth stage is identified as the disengagement stage. This stage typically shows lower levels of output and productivity as the individual prepares for life after work. During this stage, because of the desire to balance non-work activities with work, the individual may begin to choose to work only on efforts that they feel necessary or worthy of their attention. They may continue to mentor or sponsor other individuals in the organization as those others progress through their own careers. So you now know a bit about why it's important to create career paths for employees within organizations and provide employee development opportunities. If we do things successfully, we end up with a series of positive consequences for both the organization and the individuals involved. We have better productivity, better job satisfaction, and employee engagement, which results in lower absenteeism and turnover. However, if we fail to do these things successfully, a series of negative consequences can occur that ultimately cost both the organization and the individual time and money. Employee development is a critical piece of the organizational puzzle in order to provide for long-term success.