designing career development system

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DESIGNING CAREER DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM

Organizational career development process includes both individuals and institutions.Individuals plan their own careers whereas institutions or organizations manage thecareers of the employees. Career planning by an individual includes several sub processes

such as occupational choices, organizational choices, job assignment choices and career self-development. While the major sub processes of career management by organizationsinclude recruitment and selection, human resource allocation, appraisal and evaluationand training and development. In order to have effective career development attempts bythe organizations, designing automated career development systems plays a crucial roleas it integrates a series of activities related to individual career planning andorganizational career management involving employees, management and theorganization.

An individual’s career is a series or sequence of work-related activities as well as his or her future aspirations. It is affected by several factors such as his or her behaviour,

attitude, values, ambitions and desires and opportunities and threats and weaknesses andstrengths plus the outer environment and economic conditions. It is a deliberate processfollowed by an individual depending upon his or her desires and aspirations over the spanof one’s life.

Career management is an ongoing process that takes into account a particular job

title or designation while preparing, implementing and monitoring succession

planning depending upon the future requirements of an organization. Obviously, italso takes human factors in account but the entire process is directed and operated as per the needs and convenience of an organization. The best planning takes into account bothorganization’s and individual’s aspirations and creates a perfect mix where both the

parties can be benefited.

Designing Career Development Systems

Designing career development systems according to specific needs and requirements of an organization can help HR specialists in bringing efficiency to the entire process of career management. Since the system tries to integrate all the activities of an employee,management as well as an organization, it has to be tailor-designed. There is nothing thatfits all since the nature of the every business is different and aspirations of everyemployee in every industry are different. Most companies along with career management programs also involve career assessment process by the employee. If they havesupportive environment such as a facilitator and properly automated system, they will properly assess their careers and fill genuine information about themselves.

Most organizations such as Xerox, IBM, Wal-Mart, Lincoln electric and Bell Atlantichave their own specific career development systems. Along with this, they provide their employees with supportive environment and a culture that supports the whole process of career development. This is the reason why these companies are considered as the best places to work. Since they manage the careers of their employees seriously and treat them



as the most valuable assets of the organization, a very high percentage of universitygraduates prefer joining them even if they offer low compensation.

While designing career development system for an organization, the nature of their business, the industry and the business environment they are operating in should also be

considered. Although it is an internal process of an organization but outer environmentfactors such as job market, current trends, economic conditions, etc affect the entire process.

Career Development System Options

Options for consideration in designing and implementing a career development system include

• Executive briefing with two main objectives1. Elicit their definition of future skills required, style of people they want to develop

and keep and where the organisation may be at risk with emerging skills gapsbetween what you have and achieving your strategic objectives.

2. Explore the core concepts in current career development within organisationsand the available options. Develop a shared understanding of and commitment tothe preferred approach to meet organisational business needs.

• Provide a resource centre / library that can include

- information about the organisation and its career opportunities- self help career books and tapes- computer programs to guide employees through a career self assessment andaction planning process- referral information to educational institutions, career counsellors etc.- Educational support policy, internal training available

Skill Human Resources staff as career consultants

Train managers as career coaches to assist their staff in identifying development needsand options

Provide a mentor system, initially target 'endangered' areas of the organisation where

specific skills retention is essential to your business Provide a 'safety net' of external career counsellors for employees in crisis

Skill employees in career management understanding and techniques (workshops, self

help kits) Ensure the Human Resources information system can easily gather and analyse skills

development

What is career development?

The definition of a career has changed over the years. A career no longer refers to asingle pathway to work.

Careers are 'constructed' through the series of choices we make throughout our lives.

A career is a life-long process. It includes the variety of work roles (paid and unpaid)which you undertake throughout your lifetime, such as everyday life roles (parent,volunteer), leisure activities, learning and work.



Career development is the process of managing life, learning and work. Career development is a term used to describe the management of work-related activitythroughout your life.

Career development includes providing services (in many different settings) to assist

people gain more knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours that help them to managetheir career more effectively.

Career development is simply a way of thinking about your life, particularly in thecontext of education, training and employment. It puts you at the centre of decisionmaking about your future.

Career development is equally important if you are looking for work; if you are alreadyemployed; or you are an employer, as it recognises the need for skilled workers in aworld of increasing change and complexity.

Career development is a lifelong process. Individuals will continue to build and draw ontheir experiences and capabilities. The process is unique to each individual and peoplewill require different types of assistance dependant on the many factors affecting your life, such as family, society, work history and the labour market.

Factors Affecting Career Choices

Choosing a career is one of the most influential decisions you make inyour life. Unlike a job that is used to solely pay bills, a career is a pursuitthat normally requires a lot of time and emotional investment on top of theneed to provide for yourself and a possible family. Choosing a career can

be difficult and a number of different factors play into the decision of whatcareer to pursue.

Environment

o The environment a person is familiar with compared to the environment a

career requires plays a large role in what people decide to pursue. For example, someone who grew up near an ocean or spent a lot of time in thewater growing up is more likely to have an interest in marine biology thansomeone who lived in the desert most of her life. A career that requires alot of travel, such as an airline pilot, could be appealing to someone

without as many home attachments, while someone who just had a childor who has an ill relative may prefer a career anchored closer to home.

Salary

o The initial pay and overall earning potential of a career is a huge factor for

anyone considering what he wants to do with the rest of his life. Everyonehas different lifestyles and financial needs to sustain those lifestyles and a



starting salary of $25,000 per year could be lucrative for some andunthinkable for others. Some people might choose a career based solely ona high earning potential, such as a doctor or lawyer, while others attemptto blend a career choice with something that might pay less but they enjoydoing, such as teaching or playing music.

Personality

o A person's personality is a huge factor in what career is pursued.

Salespeople generally need be naturally outgoing, so someone with a timidnature or a fear of talking to strangers would likely struggle in that profession. Likewise, someone with a gregarious personality who needs to be social would probably be miserable in a clerical position filing paperwork all day. A person's personality also shapes her interests andaptitudes, which also influences what careers are examined and pursued toachieve maximum enjoyment in life.

Balanced Scorecard Basics

The balanced scorecard is a strategic planning and management system that is usedextensively in business and industry, government, and nonprofit organizations

worldwide to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization,improve internal and external communications, and monitor organization

performance against strategic goals. It was originated by Drs. Robert Kaplan(Harvard Business School) and David Norton as a performance measurement

framework that added strategic non-financial performance measures to traditionalfinancial metrics to give managers and executives a more 'balanced' view of

organizational performance. While the phrase balanced scorecard was coined in the

early 1990s, the roots of the this type of approach are deep, and include thepioneering work of General Electric on performance measurement reporting in the1950’s and the work of French process engineers (who created the Tableau de Bord

– literally, a "dashboard" of performance measures) in the early part of the 20thcentury.

The balanced scorecard has evolved from its early use as a simple performance

measurement framework to a full strategic planning and management system. The

“new” balanced scorecard transforms an organization’s strategic plan from anattractive but passive document into the "marching orders" for the organization on a

daily basis. It provides a framework that not only provides performancemeasurements, but helps planners identify what should be done and measured. It

enables executives to truly execute their strategies.

This new approach to strategic management was first detailed in a series of articles

and books by Drs. Kaplan and Norton. Recognizing some of the weaknesses andvagueness of previous management approaches, the balanced scorecard approach

provides a clear prescription as to what companies should measure in order to'balance' the financial perspective. The balanced scorecard is a management system

(not only a measurement system) that enables organizations to clarify their visionand strategy and translate them into action. It provides feedback around both the



internal business processes and external outcomes in order to continuously improvestrategic performance and results. When fully deployed, the balanced scorecard

transforms strategic planning from an academic exercise into the nerve center of anenterprise.

Kaplan and Norton describe the innovation of the balanced scorecard as follows:

"The balanced scorecard retains traditional financial measures. But financial

measures tell the story of past events, an adequate story for industrial agecompanies for which investments in long-term capabilities and customer

relationships were not critical for success. These financial measures are inadequate,however, for guiding and evaluating the journey that information age companies

must make to create future value through investment in customers, suppliers,employees, processes, technology, and innovation."

The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a strategic performance management tool - a semi-standard structured report, supported by proven design methods and automation tools,that can be used by managers to keep track of the execution of activities by the staff within their control and to monitor the consequences arising from these actions.[1] It is perhaps the best known of several such frameworks (it is the most widely adopted

performance management framework reported in the annual survey of management toolsundertaken by Bain & Company, and has been widely adopted in English-speakingwestern countries and Scandinavia in the early 1990s). Since 2000, use of the BalancedScorecard, its derivatives (e.g., Performance Prism), and other similar tools (e.g., ResultsBased Management) has also become common in the Middle East, Asia and Spanish-speaking countries.[

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Characteristics

The characteristic of the Balanced Scorecard and its derivatives is the presentation of amixture of financial and non-financial measures each compared to a 'target' value within asingle concise report. The report is not meant to be a replacement for traditional financial

or operational reports but a succinct summary that captures the information most relevantto those reading it. It is the method by which this 'most relevant' information isdetermined (i.e. the design processes used to select the content) that most differentiatesthe various versions of the tool in circulation.

As a model of performance, the BSC is effective in that "it articulates the links betweenleading inputs (human and physical), processes, and lagging outcomes and focuses on theimportance of managing these components to achieve the organization's strategic priorities",[2]

The first versions of Balanced Scorecard asserted that relevance should derive from the

corporate strategy, and proposed design methods that focused on choosing measures andtargets associated with the main activities required to implement the strategy. As theinitial audience for this were the readers of the Harvard Business Review, the proposalwas translated into a form that made sense to a typical reader of that journal - onerelevant to a mid-sized US business. Accordingly, initial designs were encouraged tomeasure three categories of non-financial measure in addition to financial outputs - thoseof "Customer," "Internal Business Processes" and "Learning and Growth." Clearly thesecategories were not so relevant to non-profits or units within complex organisations(which might have high degrees of internal specialisation), and much of the earlyliterature on Balanced Scorecard focused on suggestions of alternative 'perspectives' thatmight have more relevance to these groups.

Modern Balanced Scorecard thinking has evolved considerably since the initial ideas proposed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the modern performance managementtools including Balanced Scorecard are significantly improved - being more flexible (tosuit a wider range of organisational types) and more effective (as design methods haveevolved to make them easier to design, and use).

PERSPECTIVE

• Financial: encourages the identification of a few relevant high-level financialmeasures. In particular, designers were encouraged to choose measures that

helped inform the answer to the question "How do we look to shareholders?"• Customer: encourages the identification of measures that answer the question

"How do customers see us?"• Internal Business Processes: encourages the identification of measures that

answer the question "What must we excel at?"• Learning and Growth: encourages the identification of measures that answer the

question "Can we continue to improve and create value?".





Balanced Scorecard

Balanced Scorecard Perspectives

• The Financial Perspective covers the financial objectives of anorganisation and allows managers to track financial success andshareholder value.

• The Customer Perspective covers the customer objectives such ascustomer satisfaction, market share goals as well as product and serviceattributes.

• The Internal Process Perspective covers internal operational goals andoutlines the key processes necessary to deliver the customer objectives.

• The Learning and Growth Perspective covers the intangible drivers of future success such as human capital, organisational capital andinformation capital including skills, training, organisational culture,leadership, systems and databases.

What are the Key Benefits of using Balanced Scorecards?

Research has shown that organisations that use a Balanced Scorecard approachtend to outperform organisations without a formal approach to strategic performance management. The key benefits of using a BSC include:

1. Better Strategic Planning – The Balanced Scorecard provides a powerful framework for building and communicating strategy. The business model is visualised in a Strategy Map which forces managers tothink about cause-and-effect relationships. The process of creating aStrategy Map ensures that consensus is reached over a set of interrelatedstrategic objectives. It means that performance outcomes as well as keyenablers or drivers of future performance (such as the intangibles) areidentified to create a complete picture of the strategy.

2. Improved Strategy Communication & Execution – The fact that thestrategy with all its interrelated objectives is mapped on one piece of paper allows companies to easily communicate strategy internally and

externally. We have known for a long time that a picture is worth athousand words. This ‘plan on a page’ facilities the understanding of thestrategy and helps to engage staff and external stakeholders in thedelivery and review of strategy. In the end it is impossible to execute astrategy that is not understood by everybody.

3. Better Management Information – The Balanced Scorecard approachforces organisations to design key performance indicators for their various strategic objectives. This ensures that companies are measuring



what actually matters. Research shows that companies with a BSCapproach tend to report higher quality management information and gainincreasing benefits from the way this information is used to guidemanagement and decision making.

4. Improved Performance Reporting – companies using a Balanced

Scorecard approach tend to produce better performance reports thanorganisations without such a structured approach to performancemanagement. Increasing needs and requirements for transparency can bemet if companies create meaningful management reports and dashboardsto communicate performance both internally and externally.

5. Better Strategic Alignment – organisations with a Balanced Scorecardare able to better align their organisation with the strategic objectives. Inorder to execute a plan well, organisations need to ensure that all business and support units are working towards the same goals.Cascading the Balanced Scorecard into those units will help to achievethat and link strategy to operations.

6. Better Organisational Alignment – well implemented BalancedScorecards also help to align organisational processes such as budgeting,risk management and analytics with the strategic priorities. This will helpto create a truly strategy focused organisation.

These are compelling benefits; however, they won’t be realised if the BalancedScorecard is implemented half-heartedly or if too many short cuts are takenduring the implementation. For a more in-depth discussion of the main pitfalls please read the API white paper ‘What is a Balanced Scorecard'.

Conclusion

The idea of the Balanced Scorecard is simple but extremely powerful if implementedwell. As long as you use the key ideas of the BSC to (a) create a unique strategy andvisualise it in a cause-and-effect map, (b) align the organisation and its processes to theobjectives identified in the strategic map, (c) design meaningful key performanceindicators and (d) use them to facilitate learning and improved decision making you willend up with a powerful tool that should lead to better performance.

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Diagram of the Balanced Scorecard

Financial

Customer StrategyBusiness

Processes

Learning

& Growth

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