Who is responsible for the career development of an individual? Herself or the organization she works for?
But first, let’s define ‘career development’. Career development, to me at least, is a process set in place to take an individual on a gradual move up on her chosen vocation so as to bring forth the maximum amount of self fulfillment, self actualization and utilization of her strengths and abilities. It is a road-map for one of mankind’s most important characteristics : The Need for Meaningful Work. The ancient Indians have a beautiful phrase for this. They called it one's 'dharma'.
Now, let’s get back to the question of who is responsible for one’s career development or rather who is responsible for putting in place a process "... to take an individual on a gradual move up on her chosen vocation so as to bring forth the maximum amount of self fulfillment, self actualization and utilization of her strengths and abilities.”
There was a time when a young employee joins the ranks of an organization and hands over the entire responsibility for her career development to her manager/organization. 20 or 25 years later, she may retire from that very same organization with a golden hand-shake and a gold bracelet. She would have had a fulfilling life and career and she would have felt, rightly so, that the organization had taken good care of her.
But then things changed. Small companies became conglomerates, local companies became global corporations, homogeneous work-force became multi-cultural and the world became flat and with all that, human resource development became complicated!Hence, slowly but surely the concept and practice of life time employment gradually eroded from the consciousness of the work-force. Here is where the dilemma begins. If the organization can't be trusted to provide a life-time employment contract, can it be trusted to provide career development for me( at least for as long as I am deemed useful)? Well, the answer is Yes and No!
Yes, the organization will provide an individual with a career development path. But, this is subject to the following:
1. It is a progressive organization.
2. It is an organization that lives the maxim "People are our greatest asset".
3. The individual is of value to the organization.
4. The individual has made her self relevant to the continued changes in the organization.
5. The business environment is one of growth and expansion; not contraction.
There are many organizations, big and small, that have come to realize that loyalty to the company has been replaced with loyalty to career. With this realization, comes the need for organizations to clearly lay out 3-year, 5-year and 10-year career development plans for all its employees. I often say to human resource managers that there are only 2 reasons why a valuable employee leaves an organization : A lousy manager or an even lousier career development path. A grand simplification? I doubt it.
Now, even with the best organization assisted career development programs there are still many who don't make it up his or her career path. The reasons for this can be attributed to any one or a combination of the following factors:
1. The individual re-aligned her career choice, which is quite natural.
2. The career development program is ill conceived and/or takes on an appearance of 'propaganda' tool rather as an honest discussion between the employee and the organizations.
3. The managers are not trained to coach and mentor employees on their career development.
4. The individual refuses to accept his/her responsibility in the career development equation.
Whose responsibility is it for one's career development? The answer is obvious.
