Career, the process of career planning and its common problems
Career is a procedure
of moving upward in one’s chosen work, making more money, having more responsibilities and achieving more status, prestige and power. The concept of career is clearly related with the work. People plan their career according to their capabilities. It is a planned organizational system of career movement and growth opportunities of individuals from the point of entry in employment to the point of retirement.
Career planning includes following activities:
1. Preparing the inventory of present personnel of the organisation
2. Developing career paths or ladders for different categories of employees.
3. Locating or identifying employees with necessary potential for career planning of persons for different steps of career ladder of paths.
4. Maintaining the age balance while taking employees up the career path and
5. reviewing career development plans in action
Career planning is not easy to implement. It has many difficulties and problems, some are them are discussed below:
1. Career planning is not suitable for small organisations. There should be opportunities for vertical morality if the career planning has to be a reality.
2. It is not effective technique for a large number of workers who work on the shop floor. Particularly if they are illiterate, less educated and perform jobs for which supply is plentiful.
3. The expectations of family members of employees. In India, this is an tendency that the family members expect the employee to move faster that his professional colleagues in the career ladder. They disturb the process of career planning.
4. Career planning may not be successful if it attempted during a long period. It is because the environment factors such as political stability, concept o social justice, development of backward classes, new fiscal and financial policies, state intervention and control on business etc; may effect the growth of the enterprise.
5. Political interventions, favoritism and discrimination in promotion, reservation for backward and scheduled castes etc; may hamper the way of successful implementation of career planning.
6. Other problems that hamper the way of career planning are absence of integrated personnel policy, difficulty in finding a suitable person for career planning, lack of suitable manpower, oppotion od trade unions on promotion on merit, difficulty in writing job description and attitudinal surveys and lack of employees trust in such surveys etc.