Affording career opportunities is company responsibility

It will not always be possible for you to maintain a vertical ascent in your career. What happens then? And what can you do if your company decides to undergo a reorganisation and restructuring necessitating downsizing? Like others, you will be baffled about career prospects, particularly when people start exiting from your company even before seeking to find out the facts.

The current times have thrust added responsibilities of managing careers of employees on organisational leaderships. This additional charter has imposed a need to collaborate with employees to develop their knowledge base so that both organisations and staff stand to gain. An employee may continue to serve in an organisation or decide to leave, the fact that he develops skills, benefits both him and the company for whatever time he chooses to serve with it. Companies have thus come to realise that employee training is actually an investment.

The above new refreshed opinion of career management offers organisational leaders a chance to consider their functions and charter of responsibilities in a more all-inclusive manner than ever before. They therefore, have to focus attention on employee skill sets within the extended work-scope and discern newer career opportunities for their staff. In the process, the assortment of skills possessed by employees will also come to the notice of the management for gainful application – something that they may never be able to discern under normal circumstances.

How should company leadership go about in appreciating the career management aspect of their employees? They need to do the following:

· Pilot a job-exploration procedure: Since time immemorial, job imageries and depictions have been typical apparatuses used by HR managers. However, practically none of them pronounce the expertise & capacities necessary for a specific work. They should now devote some time to study and revise the know-how, knacks, capabilities and proficiencies necessary for every job arrangement in the company. The findings should be used to define existing deficiencies, impending vulnerabilities and growth prospects.

· Formulate a chronicle of job groups: All job skills should be tabulated and those that are common for different jobs identified for the purpose of utilisation appropriately. Skills that are comparable should be categorised into job groups and efforts made to determine additional skills that would facilitate employees to work in different roles within the same job group. The need is to create a complete structural arrangement that defines the purposes, the job groups and diverse planes in each. 

· Bring out a proficiency glossary: Different jobs, depending upon the levels at which they are pitched, will have their own set of basic and technical proficiencies. Launching and circulating a proficiency glossary should be considered so that employees can cogitate over the movement and headway of different skill categories and the fields where they can be useful. It will also help in discerning training parameters to achieve different objectives.

· Plot career prospects: A strategic map indicating various career prospects should be created so that the chain of prospects available for moving from one job to another are revealed to the employees. It is important that analogous skills are distinguishable as part of a single broad-based cluster; this will help employees to unmistakably perceive opportunities as existing in the vertical, lateral and downward planes.

· Evaluate employee skills: Companies seldom do this, but it is worth the effort. In its most straightforward form, it entails completing a skill-set record in respect of all employees. Employees can be asked to fill up a format or they be put through interviews and special appraisals to discern them. It is necessary that various skills made use of in leisure pursuits are also made note of because they can often manifest new callings and show the way to novel vocations.

· Formulate a career management model: The senior management needs to sit down with its staff so that the latter comprehends and follows all guidelines related to the career management of the employees. All apprehensions related to possible exits should be laid to rest and instead the company’s focus should be to establish an employee-employer collaboration and generate concepts for their application within the organisation. The model should also encourage employees to discern their true urges and inclinations; and how they can bring their individual attributes in line with their career objectives and organisational goals.

Organisations ought to understand that their objectives and interests are looked after better if they bring about a change in their overall philosophy; one field that needs focus is safeguarding the career prospects of their employees. It has to be ensured that employee aspirations are looked into and prospects for growth made available. Besides precluding attrition, the work atmosphere will also be transformed into one of congeniality and increased productivity.