Importance of Career Development In Organizational Success

[Reyed Mia (Apprentice, DIU)]

Importance of Career Development In Organizational Success

In celebration of National Career Development Association?s National Career Development Day, we wanted to mark the occasion with a blog post dedicated to the importance of career development and remind organizations to invest in more structured career development platforms for their employees.

Hi Megan to a study conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2012), individuals hold an average of 11.3 jobs between the ages of 18 and 46 years old. While this may be surprising to older generations where it was common for someone to begin and end a career at the same company, many employees see job-hopping as the best opportunity for growth and material gain. Particularly in an environment where the economy has been blamed for a number of pay freezes and lack of budget for career development, employees may feel like the only way to move up is to move on.

Although this job-hopping mentality has become more common, smart organizations recognize this trend and take counteractions to foster an atmosphere of growth where employees are able to recognize the opportunities for gain and advancement that exist within the organization. They help employees chart a path that may carry them through the entirety of their working life, knowing that when they hire an employee, it?s benefitting both the employee and employer if this new position is seen as a career and not simply a job.

The Importance of Seeing a Career as Stages of Development This idea of looking at an employee?s career as a whole and designing different sets of formal training, developmental activities, and relationships at each stage is known as career development (Noe, 2010). This is the evolution of thinking about improving employee performance. Traditional training programs focus on improving specific competencies related to the employee?s current job, employee development programs target skills, knowledge, and behaviors that better prepare the employee for future positions; career development encompasses both training and development.

The combination of specific job training, employee development, and a more complete career development plan requires a high level of strategic thinking and planning; such an overarching plan cannot be expected to come from the employee. It takes strong direction and broad perspective to be able to recognize what training and developmental experiences are necessary for employees to grow in their positions so that they fit in the organizational hierarchy and support the organizational vision. While this might require some level of investment on the part of the organization, understanding and supporting career development, impacts the organization?s ability to attract and retain high performance employees, a combination that can lead to an organization-wide competitive advantage.

Sources: https://goo.gl/nkRM4S