How to develop your skills set to advance your career
How
to develop your skills set to advance your career
.jpg)
What
is Career Development?
Career
development is the series of activities or the on-going/lifelong process of
developing one’s career which includes defining new goals regularly and
acquiring skills to achieve them. Career development usually refers to managing
one’s career in an intra-organizational or inter-organizational scenario. It
involves training on new skills, moving to higher job responsibilities, making
a career change within the same organization, moving to a different
organization or starting one’s own business.
The individual
needs to train himself to acquire the skills needed for the option or career
path chosen by him. Finally, after acquiring the desired competency, he has to
perform to achieve the goals and targets set by him.
Career
development is directly linked to an individual’s growth and satisfaction and
hence should be managed by the individual and not left to the employer. Career
development helps an individual grow not only professionally but also
personally. Learning new skills like leadership, time management, good
governance, communication management, team management etc. also help an
employee develop and shape their career.
Career
development involves one’s whole life, not just occupation. As such, it concerns
the whole person. More than that, it concerns him or her in the ever-changing
contexts of his or her life. The environmental pressures and constraints, the
bonds that tie him or her to significant others, responsibilities to children
and aging parents, the total structure of one’s circumstances are also factors
that must be understood and reckoned with. In these terms, career development
and personal development converge. Self and circumstances evolving, changing,
unfolding in mutual interaction – constitute the focus and drama of career
development ( Biech, 2021).
Career
Development Steps
Figure 1: Career development steps (Source:
www.mbaskool.com)
As figure 1
there are several steps for career development. The
starting point in the career development process is identifying the skills,
values, interests, and preferences to determine what types of positions are of
interest and would be a good fit.
Self-awareness is a
process that takes time and should be constant throughout the lifetime. It
requires some careful thought and reflection. The world of work is more
dynamic and chaotic than ever. These days the trend is toward self-managed
careers. And that relies on a thorough awareness of our interests, values,
talents, and lifestyle preferences. Then can set appropriate career goals and
develop appropriate career strategies.
Goal setting is short term and long term goals to meet
the career one aspires. Both short term and long term goals need to be defined
to begin with. Short team goals would be more actionable but long term goals
can be changed or tweaked as per the growth.
Once the career
and goals are set, one needs to acquire the right skills to achieve the growth.
Skill training can be done through self-training or joining a structured
training program online or offline.
With all the
right knowledge and skills, the important part is to perform the tasks and jobs
in the career successfully to grow in the career path.
Employees
are generally more engaged when they believe that their employer is concerned
about their growth and provides avenues to reach individual career goals while
fulfilling the company's mission. A career development path provides employees
with an ongoing mechanism to enhance their skills and knowledge that can lead
to mastery of their current jobs, promotions and transfers to new or different
positions. Implementing career paths may also have a direct impact on the
entire organization by improving morale, career satisfaction, motivation,
productivity, and responsiveness in meeting departmental and organizational
objectives.
Many
factors influence the need for an organization to embrace formal career paths
including,
(i) Inability to find, recruit and place the right people in the
right jobs.
(ii) Employee disengagement.
(iii) Employee demands for greater workplace flexibility.
(iv) Lack of diversity at the top.
(v) A multigenerational workforce.
(vi) Limited opportunity for advancement in flatter or smaller
organizations.
(vii) Organizational culture change.
Importance of Career Development
Every employee
working in an organization is looking for a career development which moves in
the right direction. Career path taken by an employee determines the growth. Career
should be planned in a way that it moves forward. Career development provides
the framework with skills, goals, awareness, assessment and performance which
helps an individual to move in the right direction and achieve the goals one
has in one's career. Careful career planning is always useful for individuals
to succeed professionally and also helps to boost employee motivation in the
organization.
Training and
development by companies can help in employees learn new skills. Companies help
in providing leadership development, management development etc. This is all
done through employee training sessions or developmental counselling. Employee
development in the long run helps in career development. Individuals can
themselves boost their own career. This is done through constant evaluation of
their skills using techniques like continuing professional development.
Applying
skills combine what was learned with past experiences and apply it to new
challenging experiences. This is your ability to measure progress, to identify
connections and consistencies, and to apply learning in planned and spontaneous
situations (Arthur and McMahon, 2018)
References
Wilding,
M. (2022) How
to Set Healthy Boundaries When Starting a New Job. Harvard business review [Online]
https://hbr.org/2022/04/how-to-set-healthy-boundaries-when-starting-a-new-job
[Access on 29.04.2022]
Clark, D. (2016) Think Strategically About Your Career Development. Harvard business review [Online]
https://hbr.org/2016/12/think-strategically-about-your-career-development
[Access on 29.04.2022]
Hagh, C. (2021) The
Big Decisions that Impact Your Career. Harvard business review [Online]
https://hbr.org/2021/05/the-big-decisions-that-impact-your-career
[Access on 27.04.2022]
Biech, E. (2021) Skills
for Career Success. Oakland : Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Arthur,N. and McMahon,
M. (2018) Contemporary Theories of Career Development : International
Perspectives. Oxon : Routledge
Organizations benefit from improving employee knowledge and skills through career development, particularly in terms of performance. Employee development is a powerful intervention for lowering turnover and increasing job satisfaction. Organizations are concerned about employee turnover due to the high costs of replacing staff, as well as the negative effects it has on overall organizational performance (Ryan and Alper 2022).
ReplyDeleteOrganizations are attempting to reduce voluntary turnover in one way by investing in employee career development. Investing in employee professional development is a high-commitment human resource strategy that provides organizations with a competitive advantage by improving their employees' skills and knowledge while also increasing employee commitment and motivation.
Reference; Ryan, L. K. and Alper K. (2020) Employee career development and turnover. Researchgate.net/Publication [Online]. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349292654_Employee_career_development_and_turnover_a_moderated_mediation_model [Accessed on 02 May 2015]
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAnother aspect of this can be described as Up-skilling and re-skilling. Due to latest technological changes some skills are getting obsolete and workers need to up-skill or re-skill their selves in order to be employable. This will lead to their career development as well.
ReplyDelete