Career Development Initiatives Adopt By a Research & Development Organization

Rahat Ara Nur, EMBA Program, School of Business,

North South University, Bangladesh

Abstract

It is essential that organizations place a high value on career development. This will

allow employees to fulfill their career needs, and organizations will benefit by

retaining a greater number of their competent and qualified employees.The primary

goal of this research and development organization is to ensure that sufficient, highly

trained research investigators will be available to address interventions and services

research questions pertinent to different developmental issues and thereby to improve

the developmental indicators.However, the responsibility for managing a career

belongs to the individual. The organization’s role is to provide assistance and

information to the employee, but it is not responsible for growing an employee’s

career.

Keywords:

Career Development, Human Resource Management, Research & Development

Organization.

Introduction

A Research and Development organization has significant role to developing world-class

researchers. It fosters a culture of innovation by providing career development that

centers on a passion for growth and new ideas. A good organization must have human

resource policies that used to shape the future of their employees and the company. The

essence of a contemporary career development program is providing support so

employees can continually add to their skills, abilities, and knowledge. Broader

professional development is becoming increasingly significant as employers look for

researchers who can „add value‟ to their organizations.

Self-Development: Employees are encouraged to develop a personal development plan

that focuses on personal performance and cutting edge technology.

Coaching: Experienced colleagues are a source of experience and knowledge.

Learning Solutions: A global network of learning centers provides high quality training&

development.

Management Training: Programs to develop management and leadership skills for all

managers.

Internal job market: Employees are encouraged to build careers within the organization.

Performance management: Employees are encouraged to take ownership of the

performance appraisal system.

Figure: Organization‟s role in employees‟ career development

Though employers offer many opportunities for personal development of its employees,

but they are responsible to develop their own career. The organization‟s obligation is to

build employee self-reliance and help employees maintain their marketability through

continual learning.

Learning Solutions

Coaching

Self Development

This supports are:

Clearly communicating organization’s goals and future strategies.

Creating growth opportunities for researchers

Offering financial assistance for conducting research

Providing the time for researchers to learn

European Alliance on Research Career Development, A Survey Analysis by the

European Science Foundation(ESF )Member Organization Forum recommends for i)

Research career taxonomy; ii) Research career tracking; iii) Continuous professional

skills development; iv) Inter-sectoral mobility;and v) Peer review.

Figure: Research Career Development

Career development looks at the long term career effectiveness and success of

organizational personnel. A successful career program, in attempting to match

individual abilities and aspirations with the need of the organization, should develop

people for the long term needs of the organization and address the dynamic changes

that will take place over time.

Career Development versus Employee Development

The main distinction between career development and employee development lies in

their time frames. Career development focuses on the long range career effectiveness

and success organizational personnel. Employee development focuses more on

immediate and intermediate time frames.

Research career

taxonomy

Research career

tracking

Continuous professional

skills development

Inter-sectoral mobility

Peer review

Career planning assist individuals in becoming more knowledgeable of their needs,

values, and personal goals through self-assessment process:

a) Identify and organize your skills, interests, work-related needs and values

b) Convert this information into general career fields and specific job goals

c) Test your career possibilities against the realities of the organization or the job

market

Career development is valuable to organizations:

Over the past two decades organizations have encouraged their employees to be career

self-reliant. They‟ve been telling employees to “take charge” of their own careers and not

rely on the organization to provide guidance.While this worked to some extent, the

changing expectation of employees in the workplace requires greater collaboration.

While I do believe that employees must take charge, the organization needs to help

facilitate the process by providing clarity and opportunity.

Ensures needed talent will be available

Improves the organization's ability to attract & retain high talent employees

Ensures that minorities & women have opportunities for growth & development

Reduces employee frustration

Enhances cultural diversity

Assists in implementing quality

Promotes organizationals goodwill

In this new world, based on the work and research done in career management, I believe

there are six key things that organizations can do to help facilitate career success:

1. Clearly communicate the strategy, direction of the organization

In order to ensure an employee‟s career goals are aligned with the organization‟s goals,

the organization needs to be open about its strategy and future directions.

If the organization plans on pursuing new opportunities which would make some skill

sets obsolete, employees should know this up front and decide for themselves if it is time

to move on or if they want to be on the forefront of developing new skills to help explore

new opportunities. Employees can‟t be in charge of their career and make good career

decisions if they don‟t understand where the organization is going.

2. Helping to learn about new opportunities within the organization

Many employees find it easier to leave their current organization to get new experiences

and build their portfolio of skills than to take a new role in a different function within

the current organization. In fact, it is common for managers to horde good talent for

their own personal needs than to look at what is best for the individual and the

organization.

Senior management can help change this behavior by encouraging and facilitating

internal transfers. Some organizations even help employees‟ broker relationships with

people in other functions/divisions to help them explore new opportunities within the

organization.

If employees value growth and learning, then we must find new ways for them to learn

the business within the organization. Moving to different functions can help build a

breadth of knowledge of the organization that will help individuals build leadership

skills. Managers need to get better at looking beyond their own group for growth

opportunities for their direct reports.

3. Proactively manage opportunities for high-potential employees

Most people learn through experience, so getting access to development opportunities is

key for retaining top talent and keeping them engaged. However, more often than not

access to new opportunities is either dependent on being in the right place at the right

time, or being connected and hearing about the opportunity before others.

When we leave it up to managers to find development opportunities for their employees

our results are often hit or miss.

When considering your most valuable employees it is important to be more purposeful

in their development and to plan for key experiences that will help to develop the skills

they need to become good managers or leaders. Some companies have taken the

approach of creating a talent council where the most high-potential employees are

discussed and their development needs indentified. Then this council works to identify

upcoming openings or special assignments that will help to build the skills or

experiences needed for personal growth.

4. Help employees customize their own career

Employees have different cycles in their lives and the employers who are most able to

attract them are those that will allow employees to ramp up or ramp down during their

career depending on different events going on in their personal lives.

This allows the individual to integrate themselves with their work as opposed to choose

work or family. For some organizations this may mean redesigning some roles to allow

for individuals to be successful as they define success.

If organizations were better at customizing careers for individuals we would not see the

type of mass exodus of women leaders that has historically been true. These women are

not leaving the workplace because they don‟t want to work; they are leaving because it is

impossible to manage their workloads from their personal and work lives. Although

women may have been the proverbial “canary in a coal mine” we are now seeing these

new expectations being held by all employees – men and women alike.

5. Clearly articulate expectations at different levels

Employees often get frustrated when they don‟t know how to get ahead and they don‟t

understand how to develop themselves for the future. By being clear about performance

expectations for the future, and at different levels of the organization, employees will be

able to more accurately self-assess if they have what it takes to move ahead in the

organization.

Many organizations have employees rate themselves and managers rate their employees

as part of a performance management or career management conversation. Sometimes

employees may have an inaccurate perception of their ability to advance in the

organization, and having clear expectations will help managers with that very difficult

conversation.

6. Managers are the key source for developmental experiences

Most organizations are stuck in the model of offering a laundry list of training courses

for employees and believing that this suffices for the organization‟s responsibility in

career management. But if you open up any article or text book on adult learning, it will

say that 70 percent of our learning should come from on-the-job developmental

experiences, 20 percent should come from learning from others, and only 10 percent

from taking courses/reading books.

Managers have not fully realized the critical role they play in understanding the career

goals of their employees and crafting development opportunities that help them to

achieve their goals.

To get work accomplished, we tend to ask people to do things they already know how to

do. This is particularly true today when we have to do more with less and expediency is

very helpful. But if our managers are not proactively thinking about special assignments

or roles for team members with potential for advancement, then how will employees be

able to continuously learn and grow?

Given the changing expectations of employees to fully leverage their talents,

continuously develop, and blend work and life more effectively we must reexamine how

we manage careers today. We have provided here six ways to help organizations manage

the new career expectations; now it is up to you to develop new programs and policies

that will provide smooth sailing into the future.

Figure: The message is clear

The critical success factors identified by research:

Top management commitment and support is key

Best practice organizations invest in career development

In best-practice organizationscareer development is alignedwith personal goals

as well ascorporate objectives

In best-practice organizations responsibility for career development is shared

Best-practice organizations have a culture which values, supports and rewards

learning

In best-practice companies there is accountability for career development

Best-practice organizations givemanagers training on how tohelp employees with

careerdevelopment

Best-practice organizations give employees the processes, information, tools and

resources they need to develop their careers

Best-practice organizations are good at communicating with

Employees

Best-practice organizations offer their employees a number of development

options

Best-practice companies integrate career management processes into other key

human resources processes

Employee owned

Organization supported

Manager facilitator

Best-practice organizations regularly evaluate their career development system

In a world where individual employees are treating as „free agents‟, successful career

requires to maintain flexibility and keep skills and knowledge up to date, they require

preparation and monitoring. Only employee holds the primary responsibility for their

carrier.

Figure: Taking Responsibility for building career

Research and development organizations need to evaluate their employees in a timely

manner to determine the lack of rightward in the employees‟ effort.

Today's employees are more career conscious than ever. They are demandingmore in

terms of personal growth and development. Organizations that fail to allow employees

to meet their individual needs will be losing valued employees.

Enhancing Career

Know yourself

Manage your reputation

Build and maintain network contacts

Keep currentBalance your specialist and generalist competencies

Document your

achievements

Keep your options open

Conclusion

In today‟s diverse, global, and technologically savvy work environment, careers are no

longer perceived as strictly vertical movements up the rungs of a ladder. Instead, a more

appropriate representation for one‟s career path is a rock climbing wall. The primary

goal of this research and development organization is to ensure that sufficient, highly

trained talented researchers are available in the organization, attract and retain talented

employees improvesto address interventions and services research questions pertinent

to different developmental issues and thereby to improve the developmental indicators.

However, the responsibility for managing a career belongs to the individual. The

organization‟s role is to provide assistance and information to the employee, but it is not

responsible for growing an employee‟s career. However, an effective career

developmentpathway should be multi-faceted, organization and employees should

support each step in the careermanagement cycle, and align with company‟s mission

and policies.

References

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3. BeateScholz, Iain Cameron, Hans Borchgrevink, Marie-Claude Marx, Ulrike Kohl, European Alliance on Research Career Development; January 2012.

4. Natalie Lam, Lorraine Dyke, Linda Duxbury, Career Development in best practice organizations: Critical success factors; Optimum, Optimum, The Journal of Public Sector Management. Vol. 29, No. 4 (22-30).

5. Talukdar. M.B.Uddin, SahaShampa; A Comprehensive study Performance Appraisal Systems of Two Private Commercial Banks; Daffodil International University Journal of Business and Economics, Vol. 2, No. 1, January 2007.

6. Robert C. Merchant, Jr.; The Role of Career Development in Improving OrganizationalEffectiveness and Employee Development.