Career Stages

Stages of career:

1. Exploratory stage: This stage starts when a new employee joins an organization. An employee with his qualification and knowledge joins an organization and find himself in an apparent mismatch condition which cannot be set right with the induction program of the organization. It takes quite some time for him after thorough training to adapt to the organization and more particularly to his job assignment. Therefore, it is essential to sustain the behavioral as well as operational deficiencies to help him to develop in the course of time. The best solution at this stage is to allow the new entrant to perform some specific job and to confer freedom in functioning. This will help him to gradually develop according to the requirements of the organization.

2. Establishment stage: After a new entrant chooses his career from different given alternatives; he needs to be provided with regular feedback on his performance. Such performance feedback the enables the new employee to understand the effectiveness of his performance and at the same time he can also initiate required corrective actions to overcome his functional deficiencies. Performance appraisal and its feedback have also motivational values as the new employee enjoys a sense of accomplishment when he gets feedback on his assignment from management and specifically when he understand that his promotional decision has been taken based on his performance. A successful career development process at establishment stage, therefore, is important to retain employees in the organization and at the same time to develop a sense of loyalty and commitment to the organization.

3. Maintenance stage: This is a mid-career stage for employees who strive hard to retain their established name and fame. Therefore, at this stage employees need to put their continuous efforts for self-development. For an organization, career development process at this stage, therefore, calls for renewing and updating the skills of employees particularly in the context of the changing environment to help employees to overcome their mid-career crisis. In many organizations, absence of career development programs makes employees in this stage of their career to opt for a job switch. Therefore, this stage is crucial and unless the organization adopts suitable career development programs, it may face high employee turnover.

4. Stage of Decline: Employees at this stage, being prepared for retirement, get scared from the possible threat of reduced role or responsibilities in the organization. Such complexity is behaviorally associated with old age of the employees which, unless set right through a suitable career development program, may even render such employees inefficient or misfits for the organization.

Significance of Career Development:

The significance and advantages of career development both from organizations and employees point of view can be summed up as follows:

➢ It reduces employee turnover by providing increased promotional avenues.

➢ It improves employee morale and motivation.

➢ It enables organizations to man promotional vacancies internally, thereby providing opportunities to reduce the cost of managerial recruitment.

➢ It ensures better utilization of employees’ skills and provides increased work satisfaction to employees.

➢ It makes employees adaptable to the challenging requirement of the organization.

➢ It reduces industrial disputes related to promotional matters and thereby provides opportunity to the organization to sustain harmonious industrial relations.

➢ Employees’ loyalty and commitment to the organization can be substantially increased and thereby organizations can enjoy the privilege of increased employee productivity.

➢ Career development programs being an objective description of career progression; ensure equitable promotional decisions even for women and minorities in an organization.