Helping Employees Manage their Careers

Helping Employees Manage their Careers

The management of the employee careers is one of the vital aspects that almost all organizations take into consideration. Company’s executives play key roles in ensuring success in their firms through the active participation in the management of the workers’ careers. Even though the staff members might be talented in a particular field, career guidance is necessary since it shapes the nature of their profession and contributes to the long-term success of the business. The following paper will focus on the analysis of the employees’ career management schemes of the chosen organization and provide the ideas for the improvement of the potential training program for the staff.

The Current Steps in the Management of the Employees’ Careers

First of all, one should state that the organization under consideration has taken various measures to ensure that the careers of its employees have been managed in an effective way to promote continuity and sustainability.

To start from, the company ensures that the selection of the workers to be trained is carried out without regard to the national origin, ethnic background or race. As a result, it is conducted in a fair manner to make sure that all the potential candidates are given equal opportunities to work for the business. Obviously, disregarding individuals based on their nationality or ethnic background would result in subjectivity in the organization’s practices hence limiting the pool of talent that it can acquire. The management of the company believes that such an approach is vital for the success to be achieved. Additionally, selecting employees irrespective of their racial, ethnic or national origin means that the business has a collection of diverse cultures.

Furthermore, the organization also ensures that the merit promotion procedures are followed while choosing the workers for training. These programs are mainly aimed at preparing the apprentices for advancement and are not related to improving their present positions in a direct way. Moreover, when proposing staff members higher positions, the human resources manager of the organization makes sure that the department has made a comprehensive assessment of the employees and checks if they have met all the necessary requirements. At the same time, the HR ensures that it has provided the workers with a set of guidelines that outline their obligations on the new positions. Consequently, the merit promotion procedure used by the organization helps in determining the best-suited candidates for a particular role. 

In addition, the company has adopted a performance management process that supports the employees’ development and the improvement of their skills. The management emphasizes on the benefits and encourages the workers to take responsibility for their development and performance. In his/her turn, the human resources manager ensures that regular meetings are organized in order to discuss the success, achievements, and challenges that the employees encounter in their activities. This gives the staff members an opportunity to set their personal objectives and make sure they match with those of the organization. In summary, the performance management process that is carried out by the business helps the employees lay down clear aims and ask for any necessary training or assistance.

To conclude, the organization supports the career development of the workers and makes them liable for it. Employees are often asked about their professional ambitions in order to help them in identifying areas in which they might want to develop or make an improvement. Furthermore, every staff member has a well-defined job description. This ensures that they have a full understanding of the qualifications and competencies that they need to work on so that they can progress in their career. Understanding the skills that they need to possess eases the task of the human resources managers who have to inform the employees on how to carry out their roles hence supporting their own career development.

The Possible Improvements of the Employee Training Programs

There are a few approaches that can be applied to improve the workers’ training programs. Firstly, the organization should make everything possible to communicate its strategy and direction clearly. It needs to be open regarding its future policies to make sure that the career objectives of the staff members are aligned with the company’s goals. If the business wishes to endorse new opportunities that would make a certain set of skills superseded, workers ought to be informed about this and make their own decisions. They should be given the chance to decide whether they would wish to be a part of the plan and develop new skills that would help them explore new opportunities. Setting clear directions for the organization is necessary since the employees cannot be well-positioned to make important career decisions without knowing where the company is heading. 

In addition, the employee training programs can be made better by encouraging the workers to explore new possibilities. In most cases, staff members often find it easier to leave their jobs in order to get other career experiences. Usually, they do this to establish a set of skills rather than assume a new role within the same business entity with different functions. Moreover, it is apparent that most organization executives amass good talents for individual needs instead of considering what is best for the employee and the company itself. Such a behavior can be resolved by promoting internal transfers. It is also possible to help the workers build strong relations with individuals in other divisions in order to assist them in exploring new opportunities that will help them to get knowledge about the organization that will assist them in shaping their leadership skills. 

To continue, the proactive management of opportunities for high-potential staff improves the training programs as well. Most individuals learn via experience, hence, gaining access to development prospects is crucial for retaining and engaging the best talent. Naturally, the use of new opportunities mainly depends on being connected and informed about them ahead of others. Thus, managers need to ensure that they are more purposeful concerning the growth of the most valuable employees and plan experiences that would help the staff members employ their skills in practice. One of the best ways to do this is to create a talent board that would discuss and identify the development needs of high-potential employees. 

Furthermore, organizations can improve employee training programs by customizing the careers of the workers. The human resources department is often tasked with the responsibility of recruiting staff from a vast pool of available talents. To ensure that the selected trainees succeed in their endeavors, it is necessary to customize their skills to align with the requirements of the company. Most businesses have experienced a mass exodus of staff as a result of poor career customization. The reason is that even though the organizations teach their employees before they assume their roles, the training experience does not match the work expectations. Therefore, if the human resources manager notices that a particular individual is well-suited for a particular position, it should be ensured that the coaching is in line with the job requirements. In general, customizing the careers of the employees helps them to be well-prepared for their future roles within the organization. 

Training programs can also be enhanced by articulating clearly the expectations at different levels. Workers often get exasperated when they do not have an idea on how to make progress in their career and develop themselves in the times to come. However, when the organization is concise about future performance expectations, the employees will be able to assess more accurately what they are required to execute in order to progress in the business entity. Providing evaluations of the staff by both the managers and the employees themselves is also a useful tool. The executives can rate the workers based on what the latter have achieved and point out both their strengths and weaknesses. As for the staff members, they can also assess themselves and highlight the areas that need more precision. To conclude, having clear expectations helps the employees to remain focused and set high-performance standards. 

One should also mention the role of HR department. Human resources managers are the major source of progressive experiences. Even though almost all organizations have set the roles that the human resource department should carry out, some are still unable to realize the significance that this position holds. The training programs of the employees cannot be improved if the HR department is not accorded the full attention that is required. Considering the nature of the dynamic workers’ expectations, the human resources manager plays a major role in determining the extent to which it can leverage the talents of the staff and promote their continuous development. 

Providing education programs to the laborers of the organization helps them to reach both personal and professional growth. Establishing a training program helps the workers to carry out an annual assessment of their performance and determine the extent to which their goals and objectives have been accomplished. At the same time, the employees are responsible for ensuring that an appropriate training program is completed within the set framework. The organization, in its turn, should make sure that it has built good relations with the staff in order to promote their personal and professional career development. 

The SWOT Analysis of the Potential Training Programs

The potential training programs could have some strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that could influence the performance and career progress of the employees. 

Strengths 

One of the strengths of the training programs is that the workers are given an opportunity to set goals and objectives that align with the expectations of the organization. In this way, it is possible for them set high-performance targets and make an annual assessment regarding the accomplishments that they have made. Furthermore, setting the direction of the organization in the training schemes gives the staff an understanding of where the business entity is heading and guides them in all their practices. The coaching  also helps employees to realize new opportunities in their profession. Moreover, when human resources managers work with various groups of individuals, they are able to notice their talents and decide on the best role that they can play within the company. Finally, customizing the careers of the workers also assists the organization in maximizing the talents of the workers and making sure that they occupy positions that fit them. 

Weaknesses 

Even though the training programs could be effective in influencing the careers of the workers in a positive way, there are some weaknesses that could deter their effectiveness. One of them is that employees might not be comfortable with the skills that are being trained. This might imply that they may have little confidence fulfilling the tasks that are assigned to them. Furthermore, some training programs might not live up to the expectations of the staff members. Customizing the careers of the employees could lead to their failure to advance their potential talents. Lastly, even though an organization can clearly articulate its goals and objectives, some laborers might have different targets hence creating confusion. 

Opportunities

Training programs offer the employees various opportunities to make progress in their careers through helping them in gaining new experiences and teaching how they can improve their performance. Individuals are also provided with a chance to build strong relations with their colleagues in other divisions that means they explore new prospects that can help them to gain new career heights. Finally, workers’ training assists them in gaining additional knowledge on their profession that eases their career advancement.

Threats

Training programs could face several threats that can disrupt the progress in the careers of the employees. One of them is competition among the workers. Considering the nature of the contemporary work environment, staff members often make efforts in order to outdo their colleagues and get better job positions. This fact can affect the organization negatively since it distorts cooperation among the employees of the company. Furthermore, as it was said earlier, customizing the careers of the workers could result in a positive outcome. Nevertheless, at the same time, it serves as a threat since skilled employees might quit the business entity and start their own company that would pose a challenge in the work environment. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, helping the employees in managing their careers is a crucial aspect that all establishments need to embrace. Human resources managers can bring success to an organization by providing training to the workers and helping them to advance in their occupations. As a result, a business will get a competitive advantage hence it will have a better opportunity to attract top talents. Irrespective of the nature of employee’s position, the human resources manager needs to ensure that appropriate career guidance is accorded to the staff members.