Career development is of great importance to both the individual employee and the organisation. Every organisations need to optimize their workforces, it is mostly agree that talent management include;
- Talent attraction
- Talent retention
- Learning and development
- Career management
Each of these processes must be designed to fit the strategic requirements of the business. To be successful the talent strategy must be aligned with the organisations business strategy. Aligning talent strategy with business strategy is usually unmet need in many organisations.
Employees are seen as the key factors toward the success of organisation. The employees are critical to the viability and the competitiveness of the organisation. They are assets and play major role towards ensuring that organisation achieve their set objectives. Equipping employees through personal development and career mentoring is imperative in order to improve both employee and organisation performance.
This is so because there is interaction between the organisation for which he/she works and the development of the organisation through the employee’s career. An employee develops his/her career through a continuous acquisition of managerial or professional skills and experience which may bring about rewards and promotion.
An organisation uses many activities, techniques and programmes that map out their employee’s career, which plays an important role in maintaining the balance between an individuals need (job security, development and promotion) and the organisations need (employee loyalty, trust, commitment). The work environment is today challenged with so many unpleasant tales, one of them been the incessant lay-off of staff as a cost-cutting measure both in the private and public organisations. This may have created the lack of commitment to duties as employees cannot guarantee their long stay in the organisation and may regard any act of commitment as unrewarding. Again, organisational memory is one of the drivers of competitiveness, innovativeness and quality service. This memory may not be acquired if employee’s capacities are not explored through the management of their careers.
Further Reading/Reference:
Heinen st am, (2004)
Greenhaus & Callanan, (1994)