The Various Occupation Roles and an individual undertakes throughout the Life - Essay Example

Career Management Table of Contents Answer to Question No: 1 2 Answer to Question No: 2 5 Primary Research 5 Research Findings and Analysis 5 Answer to Question No: 3 8 Answer to Question No: 4 10 Answer to Question No: 5 11 Answer to Question No: 6 12 Reference 13 Appendix 15 Appendix 1 15 Appendix 2 16 Answer to Question No: 1 Career has been defined as the various occupation roles that an individual undertakes throughout his life. Career includes either paid and self employment; or the different occupations that a person has over the years and also during periods of unemployment. Unpaid occupations like that of students, voluntary workers and even parents may also be considered as careers (Patton & McMahon, p.26). The present scenario has been defined as a “do-it-yourself career management” (Patton & McMahon, p.26) where the individuals are faced with the challenge of constructing their career in the changing environment. It is seen that the choice of occupation is not a onetime decision. Rather it can be considered to a process of development which occurs through a number of stages and sub stages. Young children start believing that they can do almost everything. While the adults’ decision or the career choice is based on factors like skill sets, economic factors or their education and training requirements. John Holland (1960) was one of the major contributors in the field of career development. His contribution to the field was the creation of a hexagonal model that is based on the perspectives put forward by Parsons. According to Holland, the workplace was divided into six work environments and the populace was comprised of six types of personalities, namely “realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising and conventional” (Virtual Habitats, p.1). The hexagon has been presented in the figure below. Figure 1: Holland's six environment/personalities (Source: Virtual Habitats, p.2) The ideas which are included in the theory are as follow: Most of the people can be assigned one of the categories of the six types of personalities. The work environments are also of six types, namely “realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising and conventional” (Virtual Habitats, p.2). The work environments that people search for depends on their skills and abilities, expression of values and attitudes, and their views on different roles and problems. The behaviour of an individual is an outcome of the interaction of his personality with the environmental characteristics (Virtual Habitats, p.2). The more close a person comes towards a work environment that he finds compatible to his abilities, the greater will be his satisfaction. The recent scholars have been increasingly focusing on the process of decision making and its relationship with career development. The cognitive information process (CIP) as put forward by “Peterson, Sampson, Reardon and Lenz” (Virtual Habitats, p.4) are the three domains based on which the choice of career is made. The decision making skills domain comprises of the five information processing skills which are communication, analysis, synthesis, valuing and executing (Virtual Habitats, p.4). The CIP model is illustrated the figure below. Figure 2: The CIP model (Source: Virtual Habitats, p.2) The base comprises of self knowledge and knowledge of the occupations. The nature of information with people regarding themselves and the work usually differs from one another. Scholars claim that this self knowledge is more based on the perceptions than in facts. It involves analyzing ones interests, abilities and skills. The individuals’ needs require thorough analysis though the decision making phase which should be suited for his unique personality (Wasylow, Mellott & Martin, p.1). It also involves analysis of the occupation itself like places where the occupation exist, the payments they make or their outlook. It requires thorough analysis of the labour market. Answer to Question No: 2 Primary Research The primary research was conducted on three individuals belonging from three different job roles. The people individuals comprised of a sales executive, a human resource executive and an IT professional. The purpose of choosing the individuals from three different job roles was that it would allow easy identification of the determining factors influencing their career choice. The research was conducted using the interview method for which a questionnaire was developed. The questionnaire comprised of both open and close ended questions relating to the individual’s career needs and requirements (Refer Appendix 2). Research Findings and Analysis The answers following from the questions (Refer Appendix 3) reveal that the determining factors influencing ones’ career decisions or that has been responsible in shaping their careers are different from one another. It is primarily based on ones individual’s skill sets and abilities. Also, some of the external factors are responsible for giving shape to their career. The individual’s tastes, preferences and personalities are also seen to play a big role in determining their career choice. According to the sales executive, his personality has been the key factor which prompted him to take up a job in the field of sales. This reveals the enterprising work environment as presented in the hexagonal model presented by Holland. According to him, the enterprising work place is considered to be one which he finds compatible to his personality. On the other hand, the sales executive chose his career based on his skills and abilities while the IT professional considers the external environmental factors. This bears relevance with Holland’s proposal that people tend to look for such environments which allows them to exercise ones’ skills and abilities and allows them to express their values and attitudes. It is also seen that the prime factors determining the career decisions of the sales executive, HR executive and the IT professional are the competitive environment, labour market conditions and job prospects respectively. This predominantly reveals the close association of one’s’ personality with the nature of the external environment. The HR professional reflects the choice for a realistic environment and seem to be practical and sensible as he considers the labour market conditions before making a choice. The IT professional reflects an efficient and orderly personality when he considers the conventional working environment. The sales professional’s ambitious and extroverted nature finds compatibility with an environment which is enterprising. This also gives the reasons why he works best in conditions of strict deadlines, while the IT professional looks for a quiet and calm environment. The next question aims to find the extent of external factors influencing the reasons of shift in their careers. It is also seen that the sales executive’s decision to shift jobs can be attributed to the growth prospects, while job satisfaction played an important role in the career of the HR executive. Lastly, income levels have prompted the IT professional to make career shifts. The extroverted and adventurous personality of the sales executive shows the reason why he considers networking to be an important way of making advancement in his career, while the persistent and genuine personality of the HR executive prompts him to improve his skill sets and personality to make advancement in his career. The IT professional considering the training and development needs throws light on his Conscientious and Conforming attitude. Following are the results from the open ended questions. Each of the three personalities have unanimously agreed to the fact their own skills, abilities, passions and personalities have played the predominant role in choosing the organisation they belong to. As claimed by scholars, the combination of self knowledge and occupation knowledge determines which direction an individual would choose in his or her career. On asking whether the individuals would be interested to work in a government organisation, it was found that the HR executive and the IT professional were optimistic about it while the sales executive was not. The reasons they provided proved a very important point. The HR and IT professionals were looking for jobs that would be more secure even though they would be less paid. They were found to be more averting to accepting external shocks like the financial recession or the economic downturn. For the sales executive, the changing environment was perceived as a challenge which is why he felt that working in a government organisation would not befit his personality. The next question revealed that the IT professional was able to find a job of his choice promptly after completing his education. The most difficult times were faced by the sales professional before he could find the right job. This was primarily because the number of sales jobs had shrunk and there was a fall in the overall level of employment in the economy. The reason provided by the HR executive was that the fall in unemployment led to the shrinkage of the HR departments in organisations and increased the difficulty in finding the relevant job. The sales executive opted to work in a competitive and challenging environment while the HR and IT professional were keener to work for a stable and secure workplace. For the HR this was primarily because of the hassles he had faced during the periods of high unemployment. The booming IT infrastructure was one of the reasons of choosing tat industry for the IT professional. Lastly, the HR executive and the It professional had aspirations to see themselves as managers in their respective fields while the sales executive aspired to become the head of his region in a few years. This reveals the fact that despite the changing environment, his personality played the predominant role of determining his career. Answer to Question No: 3 It is suggested that organisations become more active in the implementation of career development programs. Such programs should also be developed with the view of reducing employee turnover, prevention of job burnouts and obsolescence, and also to improve the quality of work life of the employees (Bernardin, p.272). Various organisations like Chevron, Sears Information Services, Cigna, Turner Broadcasting and Marriott International have begun to sharing their strategies for the creation of career-resilient workforce. It is recommended that employers provide their employees with the required opportunities and tools which would help to enhance their expertise and skills. The aim should be the development of a career resilient workforce. This would develop a workforce which would be self reliant and which would be capable enough to reinvent themselves along with the organisational changing (Bernardin, p.272). Companies can conduct regular interviews for assessing the competencies and aspirations of employees against the future needs of the business. This can be included among the regular activities of the firms or can be outsourced to the specialised outplacement firms. One of the companies successfully doing this is Altadis in Spain. The company undertakes a career development program which is built around the database of the employee’s qualifications and description of their positions in the organisations. The company undertakes career counselling for the employees, which is conducted by economics or psychology graduates (OECD, p.43). Companies can also hold workshops for career planning. This may focus on the interests and skills of employees and the contributions that are inherently present in the current job of the individual. Such a program has been incorporated in IBM where employees are allowed to study the jobs components and improvise on their work to make it more challenging (Cheryl, “What are the components of a career development program?”). The organisations can also implement proper succession planning. This would look into the planned replacement of employee within the organisation. This should be focussed on each position and then extended to the senior management positions as well. Companies can also undertake job postings and notifications for internal vacancies. In case of the above two methods, it should be ensured that the system remains transparent and provides equal opportunities for all (Jackson, p.38). One of the important examples of successful succession planning is that of Federal Aviation Administration which created proper succession planning for employees moving in or out or even retiring (Rothwell, p.378). Answer to Question No: 4 Recently, there has been a gradual shift in focus from organisational development to individual development. More emphasis is given to the development of individuals and their contribution towards the organisations than the overall development of the organisation. A trend has emerged which has equipped individuals in organisations to learn and act effectively according to environmental changes. Greater attention is provided to the self understanding of an individual of being a self organising and active system (Patton & McMahon, p.329). The social and global macro economic factors have provided impetus to the development and changes in career development programs in organisations today. The benefit of such steps is that it would develop a favourable attitude of an individual towards the organisation. Not only would it benefit the organisation on the whole, but also the individual’s career. An enhanced growth opportunity of the individual would result in greater job satisfaction consequently resulting in less turnovers and absenteeism. Most importantly, career development programs would help to remove job insecurity of employees. This would also equip them to adjust to external shocks. A very recent change has been noticed with regard to the present relationship existing between employee and employers in organisations. There has been a change in the psychological contract between employees and employers. Individual’s beliefs which are given shape by organisations with regard to the exchange agreements between the individuals and the organisations. Organisations today demonstrate a radical shift in the view about offering a “secure environment for all” to “opportunities for development” (Baruch, p.2). Answer to Question No: 5 While doing the project, it was found a number of factors contribute shaping an individual’s career development process. Predominantly, ones’ individual needs and aspirations determine which direction one would like to proceed in his career. The decision to choose a career is primarily influences by the individual’s skills, abilities and interests and personality. Apart from this, he also has certain eternal influences which indirectly influence his career decisions. This includes the level of employment in the economy, changes in the external environment etc. Economic factors like economic and financial downturns compel individuals to pursue careers which offer more stability than growth prospects. In such cases individuals may even go against his preferences and choose a career against his will. Moreover it also seen that differences in personalities may reflect through their career choices. This can be shown through the primary research which was conducted on three individuals belonging to three different fields. It was seen that the sales executive career choice was least influenced by external factors. In fact the economic downturn was seen as a challenge in his job decision. On the other hand the IT professional and the HR executive were more drawn towards stable jobs. Lastly, the major recommendations provided in favour of organisations are that they should focus on the individual requirements and needs for developing career development programs. They should concentrate on the career growth path of individuals through proper succession planning or job postings etc, to combat turnovers and absenteeism. Lastly, a major change has been noticed with regards to change in focus from organisational development to individual development. Answer to Question No: 6 Following is a brief description of five actions that an HR executive would undertake for the development of his career (Refer Appendix 1). Reference Baruch, Y. Career development in organizations and beyond: Balancing traditional and contemporary viewpoints. 2006. March 02, 2011. < http://mycahs.colostate.edu/Rich.Feller/edco%20500%20den%20fa09/pre%20class/documents/cd%20in%20organizations%20and%20beyond%20%20baruch.pdf>. Bernardin, H. J. Human Resource Management 4E. Tata McGraw-Hill. 2007. Cheryl, H. What are the components of a career development program?. No Date. Career Development in the Workplace. ERIC. March 02, 2011 from < http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-9212/career.htm>. Jackson, T. Career development. CIPD Publishing. 2000. Patton, W. & McMahon, M. Career development and systems theory: connecting theory and practice. Sense Publishers. 2006. OECD. Education Policy Analysis 2003. OECD Publishing. 2003. Patton, W. & McMahon, M. Definitions. 2006. Career Development and Systems Theory. March 02, 2011. . Rothwell, W. J. Effective succession planning: ensuring leadership continuity and building talent from within. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn. 2010. Virtual Habitats. Introduction – Career Theory Overview. 2003. Career Development Theory and Process. March 01, 2011. < http://www.virtualhabitats.com/Students/CareerCounselorWebquest/Overview%20of%20Career%20Dev.pdf >. Wasylow, B., Mellott, R. & Martin, W. E. 2006. The Impact of Vocational and Personality Factors on Career Development of First-Year College Students. March 02, 2011. < http://www.counseling.org/Resources/Library/VISTAS/vistas06/vistas06.49.pdf>. Appendix Appendix 1 Steps Action Step 1 Indentifying one's own areas of interests, skills, abilities and personality Step 2 Identifying the behaviors which needs to be exhibited in this specific competency or skill Step 3 Taking up the required educational course, coaching in the relevant area Step 4 Analyzing the external environment which shows prospects in the relevant field Step 5 Taking up additional training and acquisition of skill sets which would enhance the individual's knowledge and expertise in the field Appendix 2 Questionnaire Part 1: Name: Age: Gender: Career Status: Type of Organisation: Part 2: 1. What is the key determinant of your career plan? a. Your skills and abilities b. Your personality c. External environment 2. Which of the three determinants would have influenced your career decisions most? a. Job prospects b. Competitive environment c. Labour market conditions 3. You perform best in a working environment where a. strict deadlines are to be met b. There is little supervision and greater creativity required c. In a quiet and calm place 4. What are the factors which have influenced your shift in career choice? a. Job satisfaction b. Income level c. Career growth d. Other benefits 5. What preparations would you consider for advancing in your career? a. Acquiring more training b. Networking c. Improving your skill sets and personality d. Acquiring greater experience in the field of your choice 6. What influenced your choice of the type of organisation you belong to? 7. Will you be interested to work in a government organisation? Give reasons. 8. After completion of your education how long did you have to wait before being hired in an organisation? Give Reasons. 9. What kind of environment would consider ideal for working? Give reasons. 10. 10 years down the line, where would you like to see yourself in your career. Give reasons. Appendix 3 Answers following from the close-ended questions Read More