Positive and negative aspects of career management and development: term paper

Introduction to Career Management and Development:

The business world is going through many changes in this competitive world. To address certain changes the management of the business world has come across with many management plans for hiring and retaining the employees who helps in improving the current business world. Organizations of today did not want to indulge themselves in the career as they did not want to take the full responsibility of managing and developing the careers of its employees. Instead, it wants the employees to manage their own career to an extent so that the organizations keep the focus on earning high profits (Jacobs and Washington, 343-354).
This scenario leads the management of the organization in need of such management plans that help the organization and its employees to survive in the competitive business world. Such specific plans must be able to develop and manage the career paths of the employees working inside it. This leads to define and interpret the meaning of the terms of career management and development. Therefore the career management requires the input from both the employees and organization.
Career management and development is basically a part of human resource management and it relates to many different aspects of it such as performance management, training and development, and appraisal management, therefore it must be cleared that career management is not a separate management process. Career management is a process that includes choosing and selecting the path for attaining the personal goals and developing such strategies that will help in achieving those goals within an organization (Baruch and Peiperl, 347-366). It is also the process by which the employees of the organization collect information about their work interests, skills, and gather knowledge about their strengths and weaknesses (Baruch and Peiperl, 347-366). Career management within a firm helps the employees in attaining successful career planning. This makes the individuals’ career as per the requirement of organization’s future needs as he provides the information about his career strategies, and characteristics.
Career development plays an important part, when the managers decide to do a successful career management. The career development is described with an outcome generated by the mixture of organizational career management and the individual’s careers planning. According to Renee Barnett and Bradley (617-636) career development is a continuous process through which the individuals move towards attaining the goals organization aligned with personal goals. Career development is major part of human skills development that starts and continues to enhancing as the life span of a person moves forward. Career development helps on person in developing the skill set which will help him in managing his careers’ future goals and expectations (Barnett and Bradley, 617-636).

Like every other management, there are some positive and some negative points for career management and development but the positive points are more than the negative points. Following are the benefits or the positive points of the career management (Syntagm):
The organization can develop a good reputation with an effective career management system so that it can attract more professionals towards it.
The organization can know better about its employees’ qualities at work, acquired skills during work, attitude towards work, and values for future aspirations.

This also helps the organization in retaining the quality employees who show certain level of progress in work.

The employees can learn their strengths and different opportunities for advancing in their career.
Employees can easily be motivated when they are guided according the career path and in result they will take new responsibilities for developing their career.

The employees of the firm can talk easily about their career objectives and goals with their career managers and supervisors.

The career manager can also discuss the productive performance of his/her subordinates and may plan their promotions accordingly.
After discussing benefits or positive points of the career management and development; some negative points of the career management and development are as follows:
The employees entering the organizations for a specific job can be in the point of uncertainty and might not be able to work accordingly to the career management plans designed for the particular job i. e. one person having masters in accounts can be unfamiliar with the practices of supply chain management; but the career path decided by the career managers assign the work.
The employee of the organization might get stuck with the rules of career management and development in accordance with the change in the organization’s workflow.

The current career management and development techniques might not be fulfilling the needs of employees for advantageous working.

The budget and personnel interests might be a reason to damage the status of career management.
The career management and development inside the organization lacks the flexibility in hiring a professional i. e. the company might not give the choices to its employees for selecting the career development path.

Organizational Examples:

With the specific focus of career management and development; two real organizations working in the United States of America (USA) are chosen. The names of the chosen organizations are:

Cargill, and

Mars
Both the above companies operate in the food, drink & tobacco sector of United States (US) market.
At Cargill, the immense work is done on the career management alongside the career development (Cargill, a). The business at Cargill is ethically led by its employees who are motivated by the level of contribution they do in conducting the business on annual basis (Cargill, b).
That is, every year its current employees and the retirees offer their services for the volunteering activities such as building schools, educating farmers, feeding the needy ones, and cleaning shores from litter. The career opportunities has the global reach (Cargill, c), and to maintain such reach they had a very sound career management and development system, which allows them to fulfill the social responsibility in a better way. The leaders of the firm are trustworthy and they admit mistakes. This helps the company in attaining the good career management along with better career development opportunities inside the organization.
At Mars, the employees have great career development scenario as the firm’s top management thinks that they are a bit different from any other company. Their 11 brands are world’s leading brands in producing the chocolate based products (Mars, a).
Mars do the career development of its employees by giving them freedom for work with whatever idea of thought they can come with. This helps in managing the careers inside the organization successfully (Mars, b). Because by giving freedom to the employees, they distribute responsibilities and while distributing the responsibilities they tend to capture those employees or professionals who grab the life chances by going out of the conventional way of work. Such type of career management and development helps the company to grow in many areas of USA.

Conclusion and Personal Reflection:

In my point of view, with respect to the company’s perspective, the career management is very crucial for the success in today’s competitive market. If it is not done properly then the employees will not be motivated for making and attaining the goals of their respective careers and the company will face a lower commitment for work from the current employees and will also face a shortage of acquiring the new potential employees that can help the organization in reaching its goals.
With the malfunction of the career management and development from the higher and middle level management of the organization, the current employees of the organization will also show the feelings of hatred and frustration due to not been correctly valued by the organization.
If the career management is done with the purpose of leading the firm towards it desired goals, it can be beneficial. It will attract and extract such a team of professionals that will make sure that the firm reaches towards its desired goal successfully. Inkson and King (37-57) say that organizations view career management as a way of increasing the advantage in the competitive market. Whereas, the employees considers the career management as the tool for providing the opportunities that will help them in gaining personal development, status, and higher earnings. With that said, it is very important for the organization that it strategies such a career management process so the interests of the individual employees inside the firm can also be attained when they attain the goals for the organization so that the employees do not get de-motivated while working.

Works Cited

Baruch, Yehuda, and Maury Peiperl. ” Career management practices: An empirical survey and implications.” Human resource management 39. 4 (2000): 347-366.
Cargill. (a). Why choose Cargill. 2015. Online. 15 Jul. 2015. http://www. cargill. com/careers/why-better-together/index. jsp
Cargill. (b). Ability to Contribute. 2015. Online. 15 Jul. 2015. http://www. cargill. com/careers/why-better-together/ability-to-contribute/index. jsp
Cargill. (c). Our Global Reach. 2015. Online. 15 Jul. 2015. http://www. cargill. com/careers/why-better-together/global-reach/index. jsp
Jacobs, Ronald, and Christopher Washington. ” Employee development and organizational performance: a review of literature and directions for future research.” Human Resource Development International 6. 3 (2003): 343-354
Mars. (a). How we Work. 2015. Online. 15 Jul. 2015. http://www. mars. com/global/careers/how-we-work. aspx
Mars. (b). You’re the boss. 2015. Online. 15 Jul. 2015. http://www. mars. com/global/careers/more-than-a-job/our-people. aspx
Renee Barnett, Belinda, and Lisa Bradley. ” The impact of organisational support for career development on career satisfaction.” Career development international 12. 7 (2007): 617-636
Syntagm. Career Management. 2014. Online. 15 Jul. 2015. http://www. syntagm. co. uk/peopleskills/careerman. htm