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Published June 2008
Performance Management - The Two Faces of Career Management
Charles Coy of Cornerstone OnDemand
Until recently, it was the sole responsibility of employees to plan their career management strategies. They might quietly seek out new positions outside an organization or hope to be among the select few groomed for a higher position internally. Inevitably, those who did not want to follow the lockstep path of advancement within large organizations — often among the most talented and highly qualified — voted with their feet.
A confluence of economic and demographic factors has given new urgency to reversing this phenomenon. According to a 2006 survey by the consultancy Knowledge Infusion, 6 to 10 percent of the workforce will retire by 2010, putting considerable pressure on organizations, particularly those with more than 10,000 employees. This emerging global shortage of talent — driven by fast-growing economies, increasing competition and the first wave of retirements among baby boomers — is forcing organizations to seek out new strategies to retain top talent in a tight labor market.
Offer Formalized Career Development
One proven strategy is collaborative career management: helping your best people develop their talents and skills for positions within the context of your organizational needs instead of watching helplessly while your competition lures them away.
Leighanne Levensaler, director of talent management research at Bersin & Associates, has defined a framework in which career management can be thought of as an umbrella term containing several core elements or processes.
First, from the perspective of individual employees, the notion of career planning indicates employee-driven choices and career exploration. Second, and from the perspective of the organization, career development points toward formalized programs intended to drive employees along closely defined and strategic career paths.
Thoughtful management of these two sides of career management can make or break any workforce planning strategy. Keeping talent engaged, providing opportunities for development, helping them steer along a self-directed career path and striving to align their daily activities with company goals is crucial to retaining your human capital.
"In this intensely competitive knowledge economy, talent can be the biggest differentiator and the most critical factor in driving a company's performance," Levensaler said. "Looming gaps in the talent pool threaten every company's ability to execute on their current and future business plans."
Research shows gaps will persist across job functions necessary to compete in a knowledge-based, industrialized economy, especially in areas such as sales and customer service, IT, finance, marketing and research and development. Yet, despite widespread acceptance of the growing talent shortage as a real business problem, few are taking action to formally assess or counteract it.
Technology Integrates Career Management Processes
One barrier facing all organizations has been the lack of a comprehensive career management solution. Traditionally, the HR function has been highly decentralized, consisting of complex manual processes loosely supported by disconnected technology solutions. Information about individual employees resided in different silos, hampering managers' ability to effectively guide and develop employees. At the same time, employees did not have clear views into their own career management and possible career paths within the organization.
Early efforts to integrate HR functions within a single software package were a mixed bag. The good news is software solutions are catching up with the needs of the marketplace. Vendors such as Cornerstone OnDemand now offer comprehensive talent management solutions that touch on the entire life cycle of the employee, from development to performance assessment to compensation and succession management. By integrating these functions into a single suite of software tools, the best solutions give organizations a big-picture view of current and future needs.
Levensaler advises using caution when viewing talent management solutions as a kind of magic bullet that can be bought off-the-shelf and plugged in. But when implemented effectively, career management platforms offer a win-win for both employee and employer.
"Talent management solutions are starting to mature," said Levensaler. "The potential long-term returns from such solutions are huge, as long as organizations are willing to make the investment of time to tailor the solution to their business needs."
Career Management Benefits Drive Deep
The best technology solutions help HR managers produce measurable results that justify their functions while delivering on business goals. The benefits include:
-Increased retention (and lower costs of recruiting).
-Organizational needs matched with the best candidates.
-Optimized use of existing talent resources.
-Increased productivity.
-Individual career paths better-aligned with broad needs of the organization.
Further, many systems can dynamically produce organizational charts and organizational readiness models to identify future needs and provide HR practitioners and line managers with the ability to set individuals on satisfactory career paths. Automating the processes that drive this next generation of organizational modeling makes real, long-range planning possible.
Deep in specific business units, the benefits can be felt acutely, as well. The promise of these technologies does not live strictly in the boardrooms or with higher-level HR. Supervisors can take advantage of real-time access to employee career preferences, performance data and development records to developing a better, more well-rounded understanding of employees' professional goals, strengths and training needs —which can result in more realistic staff and development planning.
"Done right, career management serves the best interests of both the employee and the organization," said Levensaler. "The employee benefits from a well-thought-out road map leading the way to future advancement while the organization retains and engages its best talent."
Individual Development Planning
The core of any career management process and system to support these processes is the individual development plan (IDP) that allows managers to work with each employee to develop a personalized career development plan. Employees are encouraged to seek out future interests or new roles within the organization.
A competency appraisal lets the employee assess readiness for a new position and identify gaps in his or her resume or skill set. And employees can link to resources that allow them to upgrade their skills through training, education or certification.
The technology delivers these development plans as templates that can be easily customized to the needs of the organization and the employee. Development plans can be directly tied to the competency assessment process, allowing managers to link corporate goals into personal learning plans such as shadowing a manager, taking an online course, etc. Free-form objectives and goals also can be entered, and any type of training can be directly linked so the entire process is self-contained. Target dates can be established and managerial comments can be attached to any learning plan.
For the employee, this personalized approach bonds them to the organization, aligning their personal career goals with those of the organization. The overall effect helps:
-Boost morale and increase productivity.
-Improve workplace engagement.
-Encourage employees to take active roles in career development.
-Keep employees' sights focused on future positions and roles within the organization.
-Increase value of each employee to employer.
Employees derive value from the whole experience, especially in light of the fact that continuous improvement of job skills is critical in a tight knowledge economy. Further, employers develop systematic inventories of employee skills and can identify gaps for workforce planning.
By breaking down the barriers between employee and employer and bringing them together under a common cause, career management offers one of the most promising ways of addressing the current talent crunch. When career management is embedded within an integrated talent management solution, organizations have a tool to guide, develop and reward their best talent.
To keep employees engaged and aligned with company goals, today's most forward-thinking organizations work aggressively to implement career management solutions.
http://www.talentmgt.com/performance_management/2008/June/658/index.php?pt=a&aid=658&start=0&page=1
