Potential

Appraisal,
Career
UNIT 9 CAREER DEVELOPMENT Assessment
Development
Centres and Career
and Succession
Objectives Planning

After going through this Unit, you should be able to:

 Understand the concept of career development and its need;

 understand the needs, purposes, objectives, advantages and limitations
of career planning;
 describe the process of career planning and development;
 delineate the conditions under which career planning can
succeed in an organisation; and
 understand what is succession planning.

Structure
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Career Development
9.3 Career Planning
9.4 Career Stages and Career Anchors
9.5 Career Development Strategy
9.6 Process of Career Development
9.7 Responsibility for Career Development
9.8 Limitations of Career Planning
9.9 Strategies for making career planning a success
9.10 Succession Planning
9.11 Summary
9.12 Self- Assessment Question
9.13 Further Readings and References

9.1 INTRODUCTION
Career development is a function of human resource management which aims
at providing opportunities for people to develop their careers. This will help
them to achieve their career aspirations at the same time enable to talent
development in the organisations. Career planning and succession planning
are two major parts of career development. This is carried out along with the
other functions of HRM such as: performance appraisal and potential
appraisal. Training and development plays a major role in career
development. In this unit, the function of career development, career planning
and succession planning are explained in detail.

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Performance and
Compensation 9.2 CAREER DEVELOPMENT
Management
Career is viewed as a sequence of position occupied by a person during the
course of his lifetime. Career may also be viewed as amalgam of changes in
value, attitude and motivation that occur, as a person grows older. The
implicit assumption is that an invididual can make a different in his career
over time and can adjust in ways that would help him to enhance and
optimize the potential for his own career development. Career development is
important because it would help the individual to explore, choose and strive
to derive satisfaction with one‟s career object.

Through career development, a person evaluates his or her own abilities and
interests, considers alternative career opportunities, establishes career goals,
and plans practical developmental activities.

Career development seeks to achieve the following objectives:

a) It attracts and retains the right persons in the organisation

b) It maps out careers of employees suitable to their ability, and their

willingness to be trained and developed for higher positions

c) It ensures better use of human resources through more satisfied and

productive employees

d) It ensures more stable workforce by reducing labour turnover and

absenteeism

e) It utilizes the managerial talent available at all levels within the

organisation

f) It improves employee morale and motivation by matching skills to job

requirements and by providing job opportunities for promotion

g) It ensures that promising persons get experience that will equip them to
reach responsibility for which they are capable

h) It provides guidance and encouragement to employees to fulfill their

potential

i) It helps in achieving higher productivity and organizational development

The essence of a progressive career development programme is built on

providing support for employees to continually add to their skills, abilities
and knowledge. This support from organisation includes:

a) Clearly communicating the organisation‟s goals and future strategies.

b) Creating growth opportunities

c) Offering financial assistance

d) Providing the time for employees to learn.

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On the part of employees, they should manage their own careers like Career
entrepreneurs managing a small business. They should think of themselves as Development

self-employed. They should freely participate in career planning activities

and must try to get as much as possible out of the opportunities provided. The
successful career will be built on maintaining flexibility and keeping skills
and knowledge up to date.

Career development essentially involves the functions of career planning and

succession planning. Both these functions are carried out by HR department.

Keeping in view the organisational goals and capabilities of individual

employees subsequent sections would cover the functions of career planning
and succession planning in detail.

9.3 CAREER PLANNING

Career Planning essentially means helping the employees to plan their career
in terms of their capacities within the context of organisational needs. It is
described as devising an organisational system of career movement and
growth opportunities from the point of entry of an individual in employment
to the point of his or her retirement. It is generally understood to be a
management technique for mapping out the entire career of young
employees in higher skilled, supervisory, and managerial positions.
Thus, it is the discovery and development of talents, planned deployment
and redeployment of these talents. Some writers on organisational matters
have described it as the regulation of "blue eyed" jobs. It is also described as
a process-of synthesizing and harmonising the needs of the organisation with
the innate aspirations of the employees, so that while the latter realise self-
fulfilment, the formers effectiveness is improved.

Literally, a career can be defined as a sequence of separate but related work

activities that provide continuity, order and meaning to a person's life. It is
not merely a series of work-related experiences, but consists of a
series of properly sequenced role experiences, leading to an increasing
level of responsibility, status, power, and rewards. It represents an organised
path taken by an individual across time and space. In the case of an
employee, career planning provides an answer to his or her question as to
where he or she will be in the organisation after five years or ten years or
what the prospects of advancing or growing are in the organisation or
building the scope for his or her career there. Career planning is not only an
event or end in itself but also an ongoing process for development of
human resources. In short, it is an essential aspect of managing people to
obtain optimal results.

Career planning takes place at different stages of ones career of an employee.

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Performance and
Compensation
Management Activity A:
Present a caselet on how career planning functions in an organisation.

………………………………………………………………………………....

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9.4 CAREER STAGES AND CAREER ANCHORS

The stages of a career (Box 1) within an organization can be described as a
career lifecycle. Hall (1984) set this out as follows.

Box 1: Career Stages

1. Entry to the organization when the individual can begin the process of self-
directed career planning.

2. Progress within particular areas of work where skills and potential are
developed through experience, training, coaching, mentoring and
performance management.

3. Mid-career when some people will still have good career prospects while
others may have got as far as they are going to get, or at least feel that they
have. It is necessary to ensure that these ‘plateaued’ people do not lose interest
at this stage by taking such steps as providing them with cross-functional
moves, job rotation, special assignments, recognition and rewards for effective
performance, etc.

4. Later career when individuals may have settled down at whatever level they
have reached but are beginning to be concerned about the future. They
need to be treated with respect as people who are still making a contribution
and given opportunities to take on new challenges wherever this is possible.
They may also need reassurance about their future with the organization and
what is to happen to them when they leave.

5. End of career with the organization – the possibility of phasing disengagement

by being given the chance to work part time for a period before they finally
have to go should be considered at this stage.

Source: Armstrong‟s Handbook (2020)

Career anchors
Some recent evidence suggests that six different factors account for the way
people select and prepare for a career. They are called career anchors
because they become the basis for making career choices. They are
particularly found to play a significant role amongst younger generation
choosing professions. They are briefly presented below:

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a) Managerial Competence: The career goal of managers is to develop Career
qualities of interpersonal, analytical, and emotional competence. People Development

using this anchor want to manage people.

b) Functional Competence: The anchor for technicians is the continuous

development of technical talent. These individuals do not seek
managerial positions.

c) Security: The anchor for security-conscious individuals is to stabilize

their career situations. They often see themselves tied to a particular
organization or geographical location.

d) Creativity: Creative individuals are somewhat entrepreneurial in their

attitude.

They want to create or build something that is entirely their own.

e) Autonomy and independence: The career anchor for independent people

is a desire to be free from organizational constraints. They value
autonomy and want to be their own boss and work at their own pace.
This also includes an entrepreneurial spirit.

f) Technological competence: There is a natural affinity for technology

and a desire to work with technology whenever possible. These
individuals often readily accept change and therefore are very adaptable.

9.5 CAREER DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY

In order to execute the career planning function, HR department in
consultation with other departments fourmulate a career development
strategy.

A career development strategy might include the following activities:

 a policy of promoting from within wherever possible;

 career routes enabling talented people to move from bottom to top of the
organization, or laterally in the firm, as their development and job
opportunities take them;

 personal development planning as a major part of the performance

management process, in order to develop each individual‟s knowledge
and skills;

 systems and processes to achieve sharing and development of knowledge

(especially tacit) across the firm;

 multi-disciplinary project teams with a shifting membership in order to

offer develop- mental opportunities for as wide a range of employees as
possible.

9.6 PROCESS OF CAREER DEVELOPMENT

There are two components of career planning and development: 155
Performance and A) Career Development Programme, and
Compensation
Management B) Career Planning Process and Activities
The Exhibit 1 depicts the components of process of career development

Exhibit 1: Components of Career Development

Career Development

Career Development Career planning

Programme process and activities

Internal Career Organisations HR inventory

Assessment
Employee’s potential for
Career opportunities career planning

Employee’s need and Training and Development

opportunities programme

Age balance and career paths

Review of career
development plan in action

Career Counselling

A) Career Development Programme

This involves three activities:

a) Assisting employees in assessing their own internal career needs.

b) Developing and publicising available career opportunities in the

organisation.

c) Aligning employee needs and abilities with career opportunities.

a) Internal Career Assessment: Since a person's career is extremely

important element of life, each person is to make his or her decision in
this regard. However, the HR manager may assist an employee's
decision-making process by providing as much information as possible
to the employee showing what type of work would suit him or her most,
considering his or her other interest, skill, aptitude, and performance in
the work that he or she is already doing. For rendering such help some
big organisations provide formal assessment centre/workshops where
small groups of employees are subjected to psychological testing,
156 simulation exercises and depth interviewing. The objective of such
 programmes is not that of selecting future promotees, but rather to help Career
indivuduals to do their own planning. Development

b) Career Opportunities: Knowing that employees have definite career

needs, there naturally follows the obligation of specifically charting
career paths through the organisation and informing the employees. For
identifying the career paths the technique of job analysis may help in
discovering multiple lines of advancement to several jobs in different
areas.

c) Employee's Needs and Opportunities: When employees have assessed

their needs and have become aware of organisational career opportunities
the remaining problem is one of alignment. For aligning or matching
the career needs of employees to opportunities offered by the
organisation, special training and development techniques such as
special assignment, planned position rotation, and supervisory
coaching, are used. The HR department of some organisations have
also some system of recording and tracking moves through the
organisation, and maintain an organisation chart that highlights age,
seniority and promotion status.

B) Career Planning Process and Activities

The process of career planning involves a number of activities or steps to be
undertaken as mentioned below:

a) Preparation of HR inventory of the organisation,

b) Building career paths or ladders for various categories of employees,

c) Locating or identifying employees with necessary potential for career

planning,

d) Formulation and implementation of suitable plans for training and

development of

e) persons for different steps of the career ladder or paths, and

f) Maintaining age balance while taking employees up the career path and
review of career development plan in action, etc.

a) Organisation's HR Inventory: Such an inventory is an

essential prerequisite for any successful career planning within the
organisation. This inventory should be so prepared as to provide the
following information:

 Organisational set up and its different levels.

 The existing number of persons employed in the organisation. For

this, manning tables are prepared showing the nature of positions at
different levels of the organisation and the number of persons
manning those jobs. Sometimes the age of persons holding the
jobs are also mentioned in the table to show when they are likely to

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Performance and retire and when the vacancy thus caused may be required to be
Compensation filled.
Management

 Types of existing employees, their status, duties, qualifications,

age, aptitude, ability to shoulder added responsibility and their
acceptability to their colleagues.

 Whether the existing manpower is short or in surplus to

requirements. If there is a shortage, how many more persons are
required, and for what positions.

Number of persons required in the near future, say in the next one to five
years, to meet the needs arising from expansion or diversification of
work or natural wastage of manpower. The latter includes death,
permanent disability, superannuation and retirement, discharge,
dismissal, voluntary resignation, or abandonment of the jobs.

Collection of all the above information may amount to manpower

planning, and involve preparation of manpower budget showing present
and immediate future needs.

b) Employee's Potential for Career Planning: After determining the

career path, the next logical step is to find out the suitable employees
who may have the necessary ability and potential for climbing up the
ladder and are willing to be promoted and to take up higher
responsibilities. For this the management control technique of
Performance Appraisal and Merit Rating is utilised. Periodical
evaluation and merit rating of employees is also necessary for proper
planning of manpower and career of employees in the organisation. This
can be possible only by knowing how much and what types of human
resources are available, and the potential of employees whose career is
to be planned.

c) Formulation and Implementation of Training and Development

Plans and Programmes: For making the career planning a success it is
essential that the training and development programmes should be so
planned and designed that they meet the needs of both the
management and employees. The participants of these programmes
should be the employees who are willing to be trained and
developed further to make their career in the organisation. Methods of
training and nature of skill and knowledge to be imparted may be
different for different types of employees. The emphasis may be on
improving technical skills of skilled workers and on acquiring and
improving leadership qualities, human and conceptual skills for
senior supervisors, executives and managers.

d) Age Balance and Career Paths: One widespread difficulty in career

planning may arise from the need to accommodate people in the
same level of supervisory and managerial hierarchy, some of whom
are young direct recruits and others are promotees who are almost always
considerably older. The latter, because of their limited education or
formal professional qualification, cannot expect to move up very high;
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 the former as they are better educated and trained have aspirations Career
for rapid vertical mobility. Promotion and direct recruitment at every Development

level must, therefore, be so planned as to ensure a fair share to either

group. Intense jealousies, rivalries or groupism may develop if this
aspect of personnel administration is neglected. Very quick
promotions which create promotion blocks should also be avoided if the
employees are not to feel stagnated or demotivated at early stages of
their careers, and think of leaving the organisation for better prospects.
Such a situation can be avoided if promotions are properly spaced.

e) Review of Career Development Plans in Action: Career planning is a

continuous activity. In fact it is a process. For effective career planning, a
periodical review process should be followed so that the employee may
know in which direction the organisation is moving, what changes are
likely to take place and what resources and skills he or she needs to adapt
to the changing organisational requirements. Even for the organisation,
annual evaluation is desirable to know an employee's performance,
limitations, goals and aspirations, and to know whether the career plan
in action is serving the corporate objective i.e. effective utilisation of
human resources by matching employee abilities to the demands of the
job and his or her needs to the rewards of the job. Some of the
questions that could be asked while evaluating the career plan might be:

 Was the classification of the existing employees correct?

 Are the job descriptions proper?
 Is there any employee unsuited to his or her job?
 Are the future manpower projections still valid?
 Is the team pulling on well as a whole?
 Are the training and development programmes adequately devised
to enable the employee to climb up the career ladder and fit into
higher positions?

Answers to all these and other questions can be found either by holding
brainstorming sessions or by undertaking a survey of career planning
activities and their impact on the working of the organisation.

f) Career Counselling: Career planning may also involve counselling

individuals on their possible career paths, and what they must do to
achieve promotions. The need for such counselling arises when
employees plan their own careers, and develop or train themselves for
career progression in the organisation. This does not mean revealing the
number of determined steps in a long range plan of the organisation.

Even if it were possible, it would be inappropriate to raise expectations

which might not be fulfilled or induce complacency about the future. In
counselling, the wisest approach is to provide a scenario of the
opportunities that might become available. The main aim should be to
help the individual concerned to develop oneself by giving him or her
some idea of the direction in which he or she ought to be heading. Some
other objectives of career counselling are as follows:
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Performance and  Enabling individuals to study the immediate and personal world in
Compensation which they live.
Management

 Providing a normal mature person with guidelines to help him or her

understand oneself more clearly and develop his or her thinking and
outlook.

 Achieving and enjoying greater personal satisfaction, pleasure and

happiness.

 Understanding the forces and dynamics operating in a system.

Activity B: Browse through web resources and illustrate a career planning

process followed in an organisation.

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9.7 RESPONSIBILITY FOR CAREER

DEVELOPMENT
A basic question regarding Career Planning arises as to whose responsibility
it is for such a planning. Is it of the employee or of the management?
Basically Career Planning is an individual's responsibility. However, in the
organisational context, it is the organisations responsibility to guide and
direct the employees to develop and utilise their knowledge, abilities and
resources towards organisational development and effectiveness.
Employees' goals have to be integrated with organisational goals.

9.8 LIMITATIONS OF CAREER PLANNING

Is not easy to implement career planning process in an organisation. It has its
own difficulties and-problems like:

It does not suit a very small organisation. There should be opportunities for
vertical mobility if career planning has to become a reality.

Career planning is not an effective management technique for a large

number of HR who work on the shop-floor particularly for those who are
illiterates, less educated, and perform jobs for which labour supply is
abundant.
Growth expectations of the members of the family in a family concern
produce adverse results. Since, the members of a family expect to move
160
faster than their professional colleagues in the career ladder they upset the Career
career planning exercise. Development

Career planning may not be so effective if it is attempted for a period

exceeding a decade. This is because in every developing country,
environmental factors like political philosophy, new concepts of
social justice, new fiscal and monetary policies, state entrepreneurship
on a large scale, intensification of social control of business,
development of backward areas, state intervention in the working and
employment conditions, etc., affect the growth of industrial enterprises
and other organisations.

Political intervention, favouritism and nepotism in promotion may make

it difficult to have systematic career planning.,

 Other constraints or obstacles that may hamper career planning are:

Practical problems of maintaining a balance between the promotes
and recruits, and the absence of integrated personnel policy and plans
which is quite common in many enterprises; difficulties in identifying
suitable persons for career planning; lack of suitable manpower and
rational wage structure; lack of sufficient opportunities for vertical
mobility; difficulties in forecasting replacement needs; assessment of
long- term potentials and absence of a clearly matched system of
performance reporting; inability of the administration to manipulate
changes; difficulties in writing job descriptions and conducting
attitudinal surveys and lack of employee trust in such surveys.

9.9 STRATEGIES FOR MAKING CAREER

PLANNING A SUCCESS
What is most needed to make career planning a reality and success is a
strong and inflicting conviction of the top management in career planning and
their ability to their enthusiasm down below. The path may be tiring, but once
determined steps have been taken, the success will be seen lying ahead
making the management effective and its human resources most
productive, benefiting all in the organisation. Some of the other factors and
measures which can contribute towards the success of career planning are:

a) Business Enterprise should be expanding if career planning is to be

feasible, as in such organisations long-term projection of the
requirements of the HR, and it can provide ample opportunities for
vertical mobility or promotion.

b) An organisation must have clear corporate goals for the ensuing five,
ten and fifteen years, and on the basis of its corporate plans it
should conduct analysis periodically; to determine the types of changes,
its functions, activities, procedures, technology and materials. If this is
not done, an organisation cannot develop the manpower development
system, thus reducing the need for career planning.
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Performance and c) Interested, goal-directed, motivated and hard working employees are
Compensation essential for making a career planning programme effective. An
Management
organisation can create an environment and show genuine concern for
the development of the employees, but the employees must be willing
to make use of the resources and opportunities available. There are
instances when employees are not interested either in further developing
themselves or in making use of the training and developing facilities
provided by the organisation. As they are contented with what they are,
the question of planning their career further does not arise.

d) Selection of right person for the right job is an essential pre-requisite for
career planning. The right person should not only be qualified and
have necessary experience for the job applied for, but he or she should
also have enough potential and urge to develop and grow further in the
organisation.

e) Maintenance of proper age balance in career planning is also necessary

to avoid rapid promotions and promotion blocks caused by an age
structure which is over balanced either on the side of age or that of the
youth. Such blocks will not only create problems and difficulties for the
smooth working of career plans, but may also affect the growth and
effective functioning of the organisation. The latter must have both the
process of continuity and renewal in the management function and
personnel. Career planning work can be made effective by harmonising
the needs of the organisational growth with the normal growth and
aspiration of individual employees.

f) Management of career stress: Many employees experience stress at

work which is as damaging to an individuals' career as it is to an
organisation. Such a stress may manifest itself in the form of apathy,
withdrawal, dissatisfaction, absenteeism, increased accident proneness,
hypertension and heart disease. This tension is generally caused
either by blockage of career or lack of control when one feels that he or
she is on the way out, either because of impending retirement, or
because one is out-paced by younger employees. The management can
help the employee to get over this stress either by offering career stress
management programmes for getting back in control, and clarifying
uncertainties. The management can also help him or her by increasing
the level of participation in decisions that clearly affect how and when
one does his or her job, or by making him or her aware to what other jobs
one can switch over, and how gainfully one can keep oneself occupied
after retirement.

g) Career planning will be made effective when it takes the form of a Fair
Promotion Policy supported by systematic training for those who are
trainable, willing and eager to learn a higher skill.

h) Internal publicity: A career plan should be given wide publicity if it is

to be a success. The employees for whom this plan is intended should
know what it is and what are the career paths they can and what

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 training and development facilities are available within and outside the Career
organisation for preparing them for higher or added responsibilities. Development

9.10 SUCCESSION PLANNING

Succession planning is an ongoing process that identifies necessary
competencies, then works to assess, develop, and retain a talent pool of
employees, in order to ensure a continuity of leadership for all critical
positions. Succession planning is a specific strategy, which spells out the
particular steps to be followed to achieve the mission, goals, and initiatives
identified in workforce planning. It is a plan that managers can follow,
implement, and customize to meet the needs of their organisation, division,
and/or department.

The continued existence of an organization over time require a succession of

persons to fill key position .The purpose of succession planning is to identify
and develop people to replace current incumbents in key position for a
variety of reasons.

Some of these reasons are given below:

 Superannuation: Employees retiring because they reach a certain age.

 Resignation: Employees leaving their current job to join a new job
 Promotion: Employees moving upward in the hierarchy of the
organization.
 Diversification: Employees being redeployed to new activities.
 Creation of New Position: Employees getting placed in new positions at
the same level.
Succession can be from within or from outside the organization. Succession
by people from within gives a shared feeling among employee that they can
grow as the organization grows. Therefore organization needs to encourage
the growth and development with its employee. They should look inward to
identify potential and make effort to groom people to higher and varied
responsibilities. In some professionally run large organizations, managers and
supervisor in every department are usually asked to identify three or four
best candidate to replace them in their jobs should the need arise. However,
the organization may find it necessary to search for talent from outside in
certain circumstance. For example, when qualified and competent people are
not available internally, when it is planning to launch a major expansion or
diversification programmes requiring new ideas etc.. Complete dependence
on internal source may cause stagnation for the organization. Similarly
complete dependence on outside talent may cause stagnation in the career
prospects of the individual within the organization which may in turn
generate a sense of frustration.

Succession planning provides managers and supervisors a step-by-step

methodology to utilize after workforce planning initiatives have identified the 163
Performance and critical required job needs in their organization. Succession planning is pro-
Compensation active and future focused, and enables managers and supervisors to assess,
Management
evaluate, and develop a talent pool of individuals who are willing and able to
fill positions when needed. It is a tool to meet the necessary staffing needs of
an organization/department, taking not only quantity of available candidates
into consideration, but also focusing on the quality of the candidates, through
addressing competencies and skill gaps.

9.11 SUMMARY
Continuous self and staff development are instrumental for to continuous
performance improvement. One‟s own self-development needs to be related
to your personal strengths and weaknesses and to the career aspirations. This
requires planning of career progression and setting career goals. This can be
achieved by identifying potentialities of employees with the help of potential
appraisal and various methods. Hence career development has become an
essential function of HR department in order to retain HR by providing them
future career planning. It is an integral part of performance management and
training and development functions in line with organisation‟s goals.

9.12 SELF ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS

1) What is career planning? Discuss its needs, purpose and objectives.
2) Write a comprehensive note on succession planning citing suitable
examples.
3) What are the limitations of career planning?
4) Enlist the guidelines for making career planning a success.

9.13 FURTHER READINGS AND REFERENCES

Aswathappa, K.: “Human Resource and Personnel Management”, (1999)
Himalaya Publishing House, New Delhi.

Davar, Rustom: “The Human Side of Management”, (1994) Progressive

Corporation. Ghosh, P.: Personnel Administration in India, (1990).

Gupta, C.B., “Human Resource Management” (1997), Sultan Chand & Sons,
New Delhi.

Jucius Micheal, J.: “Personnel Management”,(1995) Richard Irwin.

Micheal, V.P.: “Human Resource Management and Human Relations”

(1998), Himalaya Publishing house, New Delhi.

Monappa, Arun and Saiyadain, Mirza S.: “Personnel Management” (1996),

Tata McGraw-Hill, New Delhi.

Saiyadain, Mirza S.: “Human Resource Management”(3rd Ed.),2003, Tata

McGraw- Hill, New Delhi.

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Tripathi, P.C.: “Human Resource Development”, 2003, Sultan Chand, New Career
Delhi. Philip, Tom: “Making Performance Appraisal Work”, 1983, McGraw Development

Hill, U.K.

Jyothi, P. and Venkatesh, D.N. (2006), Human Resource Management,

Oxfordlatest reprint book is also available

Gupta, C.B. (1997), Human Resource Management, Sultan Chand

Armstrong, Michael (2020), A Handbook of Human Resource Management

Practice, Kogan Page
IGNOU SLM/Unit-16, „Career Planning‟, TS-7 Human Resource
Development, Block-2 Human Resource Development

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