Establishing Career Development Function in an Organization - Essay Example

Establishing Career Development Function in an Organization This paper is majorly aimed at establishing a career development plan within an organization. Here, the plan has never existed in the organization, so it will be its inception but will include any other program that is already promoting training functions in the organization. The plan will include a sequential or step by step procedure that will encompass its initiation stage to its final stage of re-evaluation. The plan is made in the process form. This means that, when any part of it is not included, there will rise a problem with the plan that will hinder it from achieving its goals. Establishing a Career Development Function in an Organization Jet International is an aircraft company that employs close to 300 employees. The employees are from a wide range of disciplines and expertise, hence require adequate training to manage the functions of the organization effectively. On the contrary, there is no established career development program that is already put in place by this company to find, mold and develop the careers of its employees. The employees have also been left to work with their already acquired knowledge, but, without continuous training to sharpen their skills and increase their effectiveness. This career development plan will, therefore, be made with reference to this company to help it with its employees (Berkeley, 2013). Being an international company, Jet International gives competitive and relatively good compensation and benefits to its employees. The bigger composition of its employees comprises the line managers who make 85% of the total employee population, while the remaining 15% is composed of high-ranking managers in the administrative positions. Jet has been involved in promoting within the organization, something that has seen a wide range of employees retained in the company for a very long time, hence utilizing the rich experience in them. In the management positions, the company has been giving work to its employees based on their education qualification with those with higher qualifications being made the head in their respective divisions. There is therefore a need to establish a career development function within this organization to ensure that all the employees in the management structure, from the lower to the upper management, have a solid footage and a base of what they input. It also allows growth and development in the career systems of these employees as they continually progress, diversify and work with unbiasedness. In as much as promoting within organization has been criticized for limiting talents management, it is still justified to promote within the organization so as to motivate workers and make them realize their potentials and capabilities (Randall, 2014). To facilitate the development of a new and better career development plan, it is advisable to research about developing a good design. My experience in education and management will also be of great help as I work on this plan. The requirement of human resource leadership skills will also be used to help in implementing change within this organization. The plan development process will comprise certain important stages that will include analysis stage, plan design, plan development, plan implementation, evaluation, adjustment and the re-evaluation of the plan. Analysis As this will become a new thing to the organization, there will be a requirement to analyze the need for such a plan in the organization. During this stage, there will be the proposal of the advantages and the disadvantages of this plan. This will at least make us know whether it would be beneficial or not, to have a plan in the organization. The cost benefits analysis will also be carried out in such a way to determine whether the benefits of the plan outweigh its costs, hence, an approval to proceed with the plan. The question on whether to have this plan in this organization will be very easy to answer since the organization has no training program within. It, therefore, follows that the need for this plan in this organization will be a plus to the organization. An organization that uses a training program to train its employees is sure of the quantity of input that its workforce can add to the organization. In this case, they can make viable and very informed decisions about their output. It is also very easy to plan well an organizations work schedule when the level of training is high (Career Consultants, 2013). Similarly, whether the plan will increase productivity, profits or sales in an organization are something that should not be argued upon. It is true that trained employees work extremely better that untrained employees. Therefore. It is true that better results will be achieved through employing this plan in the organization. Secondly, trained employees work more effectively and with more efficiency than untrained employees. It, therefore, meant that few employees will be needed after the training to execute the same amount of work that was being executed by the original number of workers, within the same period. It only means to the organization, that, a lot will be saved by laying down some workers and remaining with few who are cheap to maintain and cost effective. The plan will, therefore, require the corporation of the top management in order to succeed. Given that there is inefficiency in the workforce of this organization, there will be a need for a clear breakdown of the workability if the plan for the management to adopt it and follow it correctly. The plan can only fail if all the processes are not followed properly. Again, if one step is omitted, it will be hard for it to work. A closer look and monitoring will also be required to keep the plan on track. Designing the Plan This stage follows the analysis and approval of the need for the plan by the top management. As it is known that managing change can sometimes be a hard thing to do, it is, therefore, advised to involve management and the junior staff in managing such change. These parties will, therefore, be involved in the designing of the plan as they provide the input required to achieve it. Once they become part of the plan, I will be very easy to drive change. It will also be necessary to continuously conduct surveys and observation to facilitate in designing the career development plan. Goal It will be very fundamental to establish goals both at individual, and organizational level when designing the plan. The goals, however, must be achievable, for the plan to be realistic. It is also important to understand the purpose of the upper management as well as what they regard as most important to them. The goal of Jet International, which is to keep up with top quality service delivery to their customer at affordable and fair rates. This goal and the goal yet to be formulated can both be achieved through good use of managerial decision-making process. Competencies It is very important during the design stage to understand the competencies of the management and the workforce. Jet International has been suffering from working at job places when the job descriptions are not even clear. Secondly, there was a problem in identification of appropriate skills and knowledge requirement for particular job positions. With the identification of competencies, clear job description will be prepared and qualified individuals are employed at appropriate positions. Training Jet did not train its workers. Therefore, it was very hard for them to think outside the box and come up with new ideas of executing duties. Training will be necessary to equip the workers with the exact technical and soft skills they will require to execute the duties theyre faced with. However, while structuring the training program, it is very important to maintain the mission statement of the organization. This will ensure that the training provided will be focused to achieving the organizations objectives. Plan Consolidation Jet international already has some running programs that this career development plan will run alongside. Some of the programs include health and safety training program. Such will be made to work concurrently with this training program to facilitate the success of the organization in its functions. Safety program will ensure the safety in taken in consideration during the training. Plan Development It would be very important for all the segments of management in the organization to be sure about the content of the career development plan. Before it could be implemented, it is, therefore, very necessary to assemble all the stakeholders in this matter to deliberate upon its conception. This is a forum where any questions or itchy issues about the plan can be addressed before its actual implementation. The human resource department will be made in-charge of this program from its developmental stage to implementation. The head of the human resource must be capable of discharging all the requirement of the plan. The human resource will then proceed to set up all the aspects of the plan. Different groups will be scheduled to take their training at different times according to the area of specialization or department. Various appropriate methods of assessment will be put in place to find out the level of intake of the trainings. Alongside this, there will be a schedule for measuring the level of success of the program. Plan implementation The implementation of the plan, once everything is made ready, is made possible when there are resources in place to drive it through. The management, therefore, will allocate enough funds for the program in the time the organizations budget is read. At the same time, the plan will be implemented, beginning the new financial year. This will be most appropriate as it will be easy to compare quarterly results from the productivity and the profitability of the organization. All the stakeholders must be duly informed when the implementation begins to put the correct measures in place. Evaluation of the Plan An important stage of the career development plan is the measure of either its failure of success. Kirkpatricks four-level evaluation model will be used to measure the level of impact that the career development plan will be having on the organizations results. With this model, it will be very easy to measure employee reaction, results and behavior from the training session. The impact of the career development plan on the production and the financial plan of the organization will also be very critical to know. At the end of the evaluation process, all the responsible stakeholders including the managers and top management will get back together to discuss and deliberate upon the results or outcomes. Clarification will be done on issues that are coming up to be unclear. Any arising questions on the same will be addressed during this meeting. Plan Adjustment During its operation, the career development plan is liable to destruction by many other upcoming or unplanned programs. In the case any organizational programs have undergone some changes; there will be a need to adjust the plan. The adjustment will also be done after the results have shown a need for an adjustment in certain areas. Re-evaluation of the Plan The need for re-evaluation will arise once several adjustments shall have been done to the plan. The re-evaluation, however, is scheduled to be carried out after a given period. The action to re-evaluate the plan will help monitor the plan to ensure that the adjustments to the program are working well with it. Conclusion Jet International initially did not have a career development plan. This created a need for one to be developed. The organization is now able to train its employees, design job descriptions appropriately and even assign tasks to workers according to their experience and knowledge. The program is even capable of measuring the performance at both individual and organizational level. With this career development plan, Jet International can save a lot of its operations expenditure, hence, increase profits. Indeed, every organization requires to have a career development plan. References Berkeley. (2013). Career Planning: Career Development Action Plan. Berkeley HR, 1-3. Retrieved November 14, 2014, from http://hrweb.berkeley.edu/learning/career-development/career-management/planning/action-plan Career Consultants. (2013). Career Development Plan. Career Consultants, 1-2. Retrieved November 14, 2014, from http://www.careerconsultants.co.uk/career-development-plan/ Randall, S. H. (2014). Developing a Strategic Vision for Your Career Plan. Quintessential Careers, 2-4. Retrieved November 14, 2014, from http://www.quintcareers.com/career_plan.html Read More