Reinvent Your Career Today

Are you stuck with mid career crises? Reinvent your career today.

Today new technologies, increased competition and downsizing have eliminated many jobs. Managed care has severely impacted the way medical and mental health services are provided. With fewer people to do the work and increased competition for jobs, we are putting in more hours than ever before. Besides burnout and depression, other job stresses come from doing work you are not suited for, or working in an environment that is not conducive to your temperament, values and the quality of life that you desire. 

If you think you need to find another job or change the direction of your career, it is important to first go through a process of self-assessment, focusing on your options, and lastly, developing a specific action plan to get you where you want to be.

Assessment

What are the values, ideals and ethics that you hold near and dear? You need to display these in your work if you are to feel satisfied and fulfilled. Be clear about the compromises you can make without suffering. What are your special abilities and skills? What do you consider to be your best traits and characteristics? What are your areas of interest in your work and in school? How do you make decisions? Are you a "big picture" person or one who likes to focus on the details? Personality assessments often can help with this process.

Environment

What kind of environment do you want to work in? This includes geographic location and proximity to home, hours that you work as well as clothes that you wear to work and a description of the organizational culture. Do you want flex-time or would you like to work from home? Do you want to be self-employed? What does your office space look like? What kind of people do you want to work with? Do you prefer to work independently or within a team environment?

Focusing

After you have completed a thorough assessment of your values, skills, abilities and the environment that you want to work in, consider the content of the work itself. Do you like to counsel others? Do you like to teach? Do you like to write or conduct research? Is administration and policy-making your passion? Do you want to manage others or work independently? Make a list of the things you like about your work and the things you don't like. Be specific. The Strong Interest Inventory is a good instrument to help focus your interests.

Next you need to match your abilities and skills with the needs of the marketplace. The competition for jobs today is very stiff. Brainstorm the general career areas that fit your interests. Conduct informational interviews to determine what it is really like to work in those areas. What kind of skills and experiences do you need to have to secure a job in those fields? Are you willing to do what it takes to make that happen? What about salary requirements?

Perhaps after conducting the self-assessment and focusing, you decide you really like the work you do and only need to change the environment. If you leave a particular career and decide you don't like your new job, it will be more difficult to return to your former career. It is crucial to go through the self-assessment and focusing process before you make a move.

Action Plan

Once you know what you want to do, develop a specific plan to get there. If you decide to stay put, create a career development plan that includes acquiring the skills and experience you need to further your career. Write your goals and objectives. Update your resume. Network with those in positions to further your cause. A career consultant can help keep you motivated, focused and in pursuit of your goals.

Summary

If you want success in your career, you must have confidence in your ability to solve problems, practice independent thinking and decision-making and be determined to find the answers. Don't give up! Start with a thorough assessment of your values, skills, interests and abilities. Focus your efforts on your areas of interests and abilities, and develop an action plan by specifying goals and objectives. It is only by focusing on your strengths that you can truly obtain fulfillment and success in your career. A professional career consultant can provide objective feedback to help keep you motivated and on-track.

Also read about Coaching, Mentoring & Counselling here.

Assessment Questionnaire Instruments

There are some principles need to be considered when designing questions items for 360 degree assessment questionnaire. to be useful, they must be constructed carefully. A simple way to test each of your items is to ask if the item can be described as the following:

Unidimensional. This means that the item measures only one thing. Perhaps the most common survey-item error is the double question, for example, "To what extent does this person coach and counsel subordinates effectively?" Coaching and counseling are two different activities, of course, and they require separate measurement. The item should be recast as two; otherwise, how does the rater respond if the person being rated is effective on one but not the other?

Free of qualifiers. Words like "usually," "always," "never," and "good" can invalidate the rating scale. For example, if you use a "Strongly agree? Strongly disagree" rating scale, and an item reads, "This person always involves others in decisions that affect them," how would a rater respond if the person being rated sometimes does this, but not always! Such qualifiers should simply be eliminated.

Observable. The rater must have had the opportunity to see what is being rated. Asking raters to infer and judge is asking for contaminated data. The item, "To what degree is this person skilled in making his or her points clear under stress?" is preferable to "To what degree is this person good at handling conflict situations?" The former can be directly observed, whereas the latter represents an inference or summary judgment. The difficulty with items that require inferences and judgments is that raters will respond to them, but the recipient of the feedback may not be able to interpret the data or find ways to improve on those items.

Tied to the scale. If you use a frequency scale, the items must be written to conform to it. The item "This person shows competency in being able to locate prospective customers effectively" requires a degree scale rather than a rating of frequency.

Clear and understandable. Ideally, every rater needs to interpret each item the same way. That means avoiding any language that is ambiguous, jargonistic, or at too high a level of comprehension. Good rules are to use easy, common words and to write at the lowest educational level of the personnel who will respond to the instrument.

Ratable by the data sources. Since 360° feedback interventions often involve such disparate sources of ratings as self, bosses, peers, subordinates, internal customers, external customers, trained observers, and friends and family, it is critical that the items cover what these raters know something about; otherwise there will be many holes in the feedback. Our practice is to determine the sources of ratings before constructing the instrument, so that we include only those items that respondents are qualified to rate.

Developmental ("So what? Now what?"). Instrument items should center on things that the feedback recipient can do something about. The goal is to generate reliable, valid data that will be useful for developing self-directed action plans for improvement. Getting feedback on "To what degree does this person display an attitude of optimism?" would probably not be so useful to feedback recipients as one that asks, "To what degree is this person able to assist you in analyzing your problem situations at work?"

Aligned with the organization's vision. The item set should concentrate on what is critical to realizing the hoped-for future of the organization. The connection between what the instrument measures and what the organization stands for and is headed toward should be obvious to all respondents. In a sense, 360° feedback instruments are strong organizational messages about what is important: "If you're going to stay here and flourish, you need to become highly competent in these areas." This approach obviates the need for "importance" ratings; every item has already been decided to be critical to carrying out the organization's intentions.

Content Areas

Developing instruments for 360° feedback entails choosing appropriate content, If you choose to measure other dimensions of individuals, here are categories to consider:

Skills: Sets of behaviors that are shaped toward "objective" standards. Examples: designing meetings, writing objectives, listening, repairing a machine.

Competencies: Developed abilities. Competencies are more general than skills, and often subsume sets of skills. Examples: intervening in conflict situations, providing performance feedback, elucidating vision, strategic planning.

Traits/Characteristics: Descriptions of the feedback recipient as an individual?his or her "character." Examples: trustworthiness, intelligence, creativity/innovativeness, decisiveness.

Attitudes/Feelings: Inferred from behavior. Attitudes are predispositions to behave predictably toward an object or class of objectives. Feelings are emotions that are experienced in reaction to, or anticipation of, situations and events. Examples: "isms," optimism, patience, anger.

Behaviors/Leadership Practices: Observable: what the person actually does. Examples: involving people in planning, interceding for subordinates making "command" decisions, expressing caring.

Ref: John Jones and William Bearley

The Rules for Corporate Career Resilience

Rule #1: The company is not in charge of your career—you are. Your people can no longer wait for you to come to them with a new assignment or opportunity; they must seek out such opportunities themselves. Your relationship with them is no longer one of parent-to-child, but adult-to-adult. They share the responsibility for initiating career discussions. Even being designated as a "high potential" or a valued employee may not guarantee they will keep their place in the succession plan, as these plans have become less relevant as the pace of change has picked up. You will meet your employees more than halfway by giving them the tools and counsel they need to take charge of their careers.

Rule #2: Instead of ladders and paths, there are now webs and mazes. Your employees must learn, if they haven't already, to think of a career less as a ladder and more as a web. Webs have a center but no top and a lot of paths that connect. Unlike ladders, webs often dissolve when their purpose is fulfilled. Smart workers will move along the webs, picking up new skills that meet the organization's needs, looking for problems to solve, and working on team projects. And if a web breaks or dissolves, it can always be rewoven in a similar or different pattern.

Rule #3: Every job is now subject to a "make or buy" decision. Because of the flexibility and cost savings involved in using contract employees, vendors, and temporary employees to do the work previously done by downsized employees, your workers must understand that they may now be competing with these outside resources. This means they have to continually prove their value. Their only security lies in their ability to continually retool themselves to remain valuable to their employer. This is why continuous learning is so important to all workers today. All employees should also consider that their next opportunity may lie in becoming an outside resource themselves.

Rule #4: Hidden needs in the organization's internal job market are more promising sources of advancement than the formal job postings. There has always been, and will always be, a "hidden job market" in every company. Only now the inside job market contains more hidden jobs than ever. New needs appear so fast that there is little time to wait for the slow wheels of the formal hiring process to start rolling. These days, about a third of all jobs filled are newly created ones. And, of course, with the loss of rungs on career ladders, there are fewer formal job slots in the first place.

All employees—you included—must be on the lookout for unmet needs, then make proposals to the person who "owns the problem" to help meet the need. Getting your employees to accept this proposition is a part of helping them learn to take more initiative in every aspect of their jobs. Many times, by looking to meet the organization's needs, they will carve out their next career move.

Rule #5. The most "vendor-minded" employees will find or create the most opportunity. The employees who think of themselves as "intrapreneurs" will see the organization as a market for their skills. They will understand the truest, most empowering definition of a job—"a talent that meets a need." With your help, they will come to see themselves as vendors, and they will perceive more opportunity as a result. Vendor-minded employees realize that the purpose of the organization is to provide goods and services that customer value and that, if the organization’s employees do not do that, eventually they may all be out of a job.

Ref: Leigh Branham

Career Anchor and different Career Stages

Schein's career anchors represent aspects of work that are especially valued or needed by people for their personal fulfillment. They include:

1. Managerial competence : the individual desires opportunities to manage.
2. Technical/functional competence : the individual desires to use various technical abilities and special competencies.
3. Security : the individual is basically motivated by a need for job security or stability in the work situation.
4. Creativity : the individual is motivated by a need to create or build something.
5. Autonomy and independence: of primary interest to this person is the opportunity to work independently and without organizational constraints.
Career planning and development activities allow employees to grow in any of these desired directions.

Career Stages
What people want from their careers also varies according to the stage of one's career. What may have been important in an early stage may not be important in a later one. Four distinct career stages have been identified: trial, establishment/advancement, mid-career, and late career. Each stage represents different career needs and interests of the individual

Trial stage. The trial stage begins with an individual's exploration of career-related matters and ends usually at about age 25 with a commitment on the part of the individual to a particular occupation. Until the decision is made to settle down, the individual may try a number of jobs and a number of organizations. Unfortunately for many organizations, this trial and exploration stage results in high level of turnover among new employees. Employees in this stage need opportunities for self-exploration and a variety of job activities or assignments.

Establishment. The establishment/advancement stage tends to occur between ages 25 and 44. In this stage, the individual has made his or her career choice and is concerned with achievement, performance, and advancement. This stage is marked by high employee productivity and career growth, as the individual is motivated to succeed in the organization and in his or her chosen occupation. Opportunities for job challenge and use of special competencies are desired in this stage. The employee strives for creativity and innovation through new job assignments. Employees also need a certain degree of autonomy in this stage so that they can experience feelings of individual achievement and personal success.

Mid Career Crisis Sub Stage. The period occurring between the mid-thirties and mid-forties during which people often make a major reassessment of their progress relative to their original career ambitions and goals.

Maintenance stage. The mid-career stage, which occurs roughly between the ages 45 and 64, has also been referred to as the maintenance stage. This stage is typified by a continuation of established patterns of work behavior. The person is no longer trying to establish a place for himself or herself in the organization, but seeks to maintain his or her position. This stage is viewed as a mid-career plateau in which little new ground is broken. The individual in this stage may need some technical updating in his or her field. The employee should be encouraged to develop new job skills in order to avoid early stagnation and decline.

Late-career stage. In this stage the career lessens in importance and the employee plans for retirement and seeks to develop a sense of identity outside the work environment.

Ref: Garry Dessler

Career Management Best Practices

Providing Employee Assessment and Career Planning Workshops. Companies such as Apple Computer and Sun Microsystems hold on-site workshops where employees learn to take charge of their careers, beginning with assessing their abilities, interests, and values. They then engage in a planning process where they explore the organization's needs to determine possible future options and how to prepare for them. Then they are ready for productive career discussions with their managers.

Conducting Career Coaching Workshops for Managers. While employees are learning to take charge of their careers, managers are learning how to support their efforts by becoming familiar with the career assessment and planning process, practicing career coaching techniques, preparing for various types of employee-initiated career discussions, and giving honest feedback.

Establishing Employee Career Centers. Companies such as Advanced Micro Devices, IBM, and Motorola, to name a few, have set up internal career centers where employees can come for self-assessment. Services may include computerized programs that incorporate 360-degree feedback, competency assessment, confidential counseling, career management and resilience training, lunch-and-learn seminars, and information, sometimes through an intranet system, about internal opportunities.

Giving Open Business Briefings. To meet employees halfway in planning their careers inside the organization, companies such as Sun Microsystems, 3Com, Advanced Micro Devices, Intel, and Microsoft openly discuss strategic decisions and plans that may impact jobs or skills that will be required in the future. At 3Com, most departments hold weekly discussion sessions on the status of the business and what it may mean to employees.

IBM has a national website for employees that provides information about the strategic direction of the company. Managers are also expected to provide strategic information to their people. Sun's management has promised workers that it will make employees aware of a strategic decision that will affect staffing, such as plans to outsource a function. "As soon as we've decided something, you'll know," Sun says. Then it follows through on its promise.

Sharing such information would be frowned upon by many companies. But the companies that practice such openness believe they are simply treating their employees as respect-worthy adults rather than perpetuating the outdated parent-child relationship.

Andy Grove, chairman of Intel, is a strong believer in giving employees the information they need to stay resilient, or, as he calls it, "owning your own employability. "Every quarter," he says to his employees, "I give you a two-hour dump of what's happening to us. You have to figure out what that means to you”

Creating an Internal Network of Information Providers. Raychem, for example, has set up a network of more than 400 people throughout the organization who are willing to take the time to talk with employees who want to learn about the nature of their work and job qualifications. Called "I.I.I.N.siders" (for Insiders Information Interview Network), the computerized database houses the names and backgrounds of volunteers.

Chase Manhattan Bank maintains a list of employees who are willing to be shadowed by those interested in moving into their line of work. An employee who wants to be a derivatives trader, for example, can spend the day with an actual trader, learning about the challenges of the job, and come away with a realistic understanding of the work.

Maintaining Internal Job and Talent Banks. Microsoft has created an on-line service where employees can learn about open positions and the skills required for them. Microsoft also places large amounts of career information on what it calls its "electronic campus," including a "resource and referral" section with lists of books, professional associations, conferences, courses, articles, and other information recommended by coworkers.

In its Career Partnership Center, Advanced Micro Devices maintains a data bank of employee skills that can be accessed by managers looking for internal talent. The company also integrates the career development plans of all employees into its long-range workforce planning process.

Many other companies are moving to implement virtual career centers that feature on-line computer platforms that show various career paths and allow employees to benchmark their skill levels against those required for desired jobs so that they can make plans to close the gaps.

Establishing Individual Learning Accounts. As more and more employees seek opportunities for customized and self-directed development, some progressive companies have created individual learning accounts, providing designated amounts of time and money that employees may "spend" on classes, internships, or other learning opportunities of their choice. While giving employees more freedom to select personalized learning experience, this concept also helps companies save money previously spent on large-scale, "one-size-fits-all" training programs.

Starting a Mentoring Program. Formal mentoring programs have grown in popularity in recent years. The list of companies who have launched mentoring programs includes Hewlett-Packard, Texas Instruments, Charles Schwab, Ford Motor Company, Ernst & Young, Quaker Oats Company, IBM, Georgia-Pacific, Ceridian, J. C. Penney, PriceWaterhouse-Coopers, 3M, and General Mills.

In one study, mentoring programs were found to be effective in increasing employee retention by 77 percent within companies that implemented them.11 There are three main goals for most mentoring programs—to increase opportunities for women and minorities, to develop leaders, and, increasingly, to enhance performance and increase the retention of employees at all levels.

Companies with successful mentoring programs report that having the CEO and senior managers actively involved in mentoring and supporting the programs is important. When the practice of mentoring cascades through the organization from the top, it becomes a prestigious thing for managers to take part. Some companies expect all managers to become mentors, to the point that they include mentoring as an item to be reviewed on performance appraisal.

Current mentoring programs have become highly structured. Hewlett-Packard maintains an on-line mentor database that mentees can use to search for mentors with specific areas of expertise. They can even interview potential mentors and submit their choices in order of preference. Hewlett- Packard's program uses written mentoring agreements that establish the ground rules for the partnership, and the company conducts half-day training sessions for mentors and mentees. Other companies have appointed internal human resources staff as "retention managers" or "career management representatives" to act as consultants to all employees, especially the difficult-to-replace talent, such as software engineers.

Ref: Leigh Branham

Elements of Career Planning Programs

Though programs differ, four distinct elements of career planning programs emerge. They include (1) individual assessments of abilities, interests, career needs, and goals; (2) organizational assessments of employee abilities and potential; (3) communication of information concerning career options and opportunities with the organization; and (4) career counseling to set realistic goals and plan for their attainment. Each of these elements is discussed in greater detail below.

Individual Assessments

Individual assessment of abilities, interests, career needs, and goals is basically a process of self-exploration and analysis. Individuals are frequently guided by self-assessment exercises.

The self-assessment process is basically viewed as an individual responsibility; however, organizations can aid in this process by providing the employee with materials and opportunities for self-exploration and analysis. A variety of self-assessment materials are available commercially, but a number of organizations, including IBM, Xerox, General Motors, and General Electric, have developed tailor-made workbooks for employee career planning purposes. Individual career planning exercises can be done independently by employees or in workshops sponsored by the organization. Workshops have the advantage of combining a number of career planning elements including self-assessment, communication of organizational career and development opportunities, and one-on-one counseling to ensure that career goals are realistic.

Organizational Assessments

A key issue in career counseling sessions is whether an employee's goals are realistic in terms of organizational possibilities and organizational assessments of employee abilities and potential. Accurate assessments of employee abilities and potential are important to both the organization and the individual.

Organizations have several sources of information for making assessments of employee abilities and potential. First is selection information, including ability tests, assessment center test, interest inventories, and biographical information such as education and work experience. Second is current job history information, including performance appraisal information, records of promotions and promotion recommendations, salary increases, and participation in various training and development programs. Organizations have traditionally relied on performance appraisal data as the primary basis for assessing employee potential.

Career Information within an Organization

Before realistic goals can be set, an employee need information about career options and opportunities. This includes information about possible career directions; possible paths of career advancement; and specific job vacancies. In organizations with informal career planning programs, employees learn about career options and opportunities from their supervisors within the context of developmental performance appraisal interviews. Organizations with more established career planning programs make greater use of workbooks, workshops, and even recruiting materials to communicate career options and opportunities. Career paths have been defined as logical progressions between jobs or from one job to a target position. They can be either traditional or behavioral.

Traditional career paths are based on past patterns of actual movement by employees. They tend to be limited to advancement within a single function or organizational unit, such as purchasing, sales, or customer relations. Years of service to the organization largely determine the rate at which advancement can occur. For example, a salesman might expect to advance to the position of account supervisor after five years, to sales supervisor after 10, to district manager after 15, and to regional manager after 25 years of service.

More flexible patterns of employee career movement are described by behavioral career paths, which are based on analysis of similarities in job activities and requirements. Where similarities exist, jobs can be grouped into job families, or clusters. Thus, all jobs involving similar work activities and levels of required skills and abilities form one job cluster, regardless of job title. Focusing on job similarities across functions and organizational units brings to light new career options for employees and greater flexibility for the organization in utilizing its available human resources. One organization, for example, was able to shift a number of its sales personnel to purchasing positions when sales declined in one major product line and opportunities became available in the purchasing department. This shift was undertaken when a job analysis showed behavioral similarities between the two previously distinct functions.

Career Counseling

It is in counseling sessions, typically with supervisors and managers in developmental performance appraisal interviews, that most employees explore career goals and opportunities in the organization. Supervisors and managers need accurate assessments of employee abilities and potential, as well as information about career options and opportunities in the organization. HR professionals may be involved in some informal career counseling activities, but basically their role is to support career counseling activities of supervisors and managers. This means providing supervisors and managers with needed information as well as with the necessary training to function effectively as counselors.

In career counseling sessions, employees seek answers to the following kinds of questions:

1. What are my skills and what are the possibilities for developing them or learning new ones?
2. What do I really want for myself insofar as work is concerned?
3. What's possible for me, given my current abilities and skills?
4. What's really required for certain jobs?
5. What training will be required if I choose to pursue a certain career objective?"

When counselors are equipped to help employees find the answers to such questions, realistic career goals can be set. Next, development strategies must be devised.

Career Development Program

Has your organization seriously considered implementing a career development program? If not, perhaps this is a good time to do so. The following description of several, widely used career development interventions and case studies can be used to stimulate discussion on various career development practices.

Alternative Career Paths

One approach to alternative career pathing involves incorporating the skills employees already have with what their hearts want to do. It can involve changing career and lifestyles for more meaningful and fulfilling work arrangements. Creating alternative career paths often involves incorporating other career development interventions, such as flexi-time or job enrichment. Alternative career paths should not be confused with dual career paths, which is described later.

Career Pathing

Career pathing, also called career tracking, is a process of outlining an individual career plan, usually within an organization. Career pathing is most often used as a part of management training and development, although individuals may develop their own career track, either alone, or in conjunction with a career coach.

Employees follow pre-determined steps along the career path to develop expertise in managing different types of organizational situations and to reach their career goal. Periodic checks evaluate progress, as well as determining what further training or experience is needed to move to the next step. Career pathing often uses several other career development interventions as part of the process. These include cross-training, job rotation, job enrichment or enlargement, and temporary assignments.

Dual Career Tracks

Dual career tracks should not be confused with alternative career paths. Creating dual career paths involves preparing employees to succeed and be rewarded without necessarily being on a management or vertical organization career path. In other words, ``up'' is not considered the only way employees can grow and advance within the company. The establishment of dual or multiple career tracks has proven to be an effective way to retain and motivate valued employees.

Management can be an attractive career alternative for many employees, but it is not for everyone. This may be particularly true for many technical or creative workers. The number of people managed often distinguishes managerial levels, but under the dual career track plan, individuals apply their expertise (like managers) to tasks of greater complexity and impact within their specialty field.

For example, they may make recommendations in a wide range of business areas, participate in high level decisions, and act as mentors to other employees. The interest in dual or multiple career tracks is likely to grow as more organizations do away with formal management titles and establish team structures.

Career Coaching/Counseling

Career coaching frequently involves helping individuals prepare for a career change or helping employees advance in their existing jobs. From the employee's view, career coaching consists of evaluating interests, values, work styles, and skills. From the organization's view, it consists of matching employee talents with organizational needs, recruiting and retaining talent in the company, identifying training and development needs, and assisting employees in specifying and locating new employment opportunities within the organization.

Cross-Training

Cross-trained workers are taught skills outside their current job assignment so they can be called upon to perform a variety of tasks as the need arises. Many workers and supervisors find themselves cross-training each other, just to make the day-to-day work life manageable. As a career development intervention, however, companies put into place a formal program of cross-training.

Cross-training helps organizations to balance workloads so everyone is busy, and allows the company to respond quickly to employee absences. It also allows employees and departments within an organization to gain a better understanding of the ``big picture'', and to improve communications and relations. Employees who are cross-trained are more valuable to the company, and more marketable in the work world overall.

Flexitime

Flextime is one of the most popular and most widely known career development interventions. Flexitime gives employees the opportunity to balance their work and personal lives by restructuring the typical workday to accommodate individual employee schedules. Employers who offer flexitime often report decreased use of paid leave, decreased tardiness and increased productivity. Other benefits for the employer include a low-cost method of providing personal time off and extending service hours without overtime pay. This career development intervention is popular with employees who have extended families or young children, who may be facing ``burn-out'', and those seeking further education or pursuing second careers.

Flexitime allows employees to set their own schedules, within limitations set by management. For example, workers may adjust their starting and ending times, but are required to be at the office during management specified core or peak hours. Working four ten-hour days is an example of a compressed workweek form of flexitime. Flexitime may also be combined with other interventions, such as job sharing, job rotation, and phased retirement.

Job Rotation

Job rotation is the systematic movement of employees from job to job within an organization, as a way to achieve many different human resources objectives : for simply staffing jobs, for orienting new employees, for preventing job boredom, and, finally, for training employees and enhancing their career development.

Job rotation is often used by employers who place employees on a certain career path or track, usually for a management position, where they are expected to perform a variety of duties, and have a variety of skills and competencies.

Job rotation is often confused with crosstraining. While both interventions perform essentially the same service of providing employees with a varied set of skills, job rotation goes beyond this. Besides being used as a means of management training, job rotation can also be used as a form of job enrichment, by adding increased responsibilities, increasing challenge, and reducing boredom or burnout.

Job Enlargement

Job enlargement is defined as increasing the number of tasks a worker performs, with all of the tasks at the same level of responsibility, and is also sometimes referred to as ``horizontal job loading'' . Be careful not to confuse job enlargement with job enrichment, which will be discussed later.

Job enlargement and job enrichment can both be used with plateaued workers or workers who are experiencing burnout, and with especially high achievers. These two interventions may be used in conjunction with each other, or with other career development interventions such as job rotation and temporary assignments. Both interventions provide the employee with increased skills, making him or her more valuable to the company, or more marketable in the job search.

Job Enrichment

Job enrichment involves increasing a worker's responsibility and control over his or her work, and is also called ``vertical job loading''. Job enrichment allows you to expand your responsibilities or change your role to develop new competencies without leaving your current position or the organization altogether.

Job enrichment is also used as an effective motivational technique. According to this perspective, if a job provides a sense of responsibility, a sense of significance and information concerning performance, the employees will be internally motivated to high levels of performance. The key to creating this situation is to enrich jobs so they provide five core characteristics: task variety, task significance, task identity, autonomy and feedback.


Job Sharing

With job sharing, a full-time job is split between two employees. The two employees share the duties and responsibilities, as well as the salary and benefits of the job. These two employees must also work closely together, and with management, to co-ordinate hours, duties, and communication among themselves and other departments in the organization. Most often, job sharing is used by parents or adults caring for their parents, and affords employees a better balance between their work and personal lives.

Employees pursuing further education or a second career may also use job sharing. Job sharing offers advantages over part-time work in that employees are able to maintain their professional status as well as some of their job benefits. One example of the advantage over flexitime situations is that with flexitime, parents may still require extended day care hours. Benefits to the employer include having ``two heads instead of one'', retaining valued and experienced employees, and down time due to vacation or sickness is reduced, because the job share partners cover for each other.

Phased Retirement

Organizations typically devote far more energy to recruiting and retraining than to phasing out workers. Phased retirement is one intervention that workers and employers can use at the latter end of the career cycle. During phased retirement, workers gradually taper their work schedules until they reach full retirement. Other career development interventions such as flextime and job sharing are typically incorporated into phased retirement arrangements. Retirees may work part time and serve as mentors or trainers to their successors. Benefits to employees include a greater sense of control over the transition from work to retirement, lowering the risk of economic insecurity, and more social support. The employer benefits by retaining valued talent and minimizing labor shortages.

Ref: James Kirk, Bridget Downey, Steve Duckett, and Connie Woody

Competency-based Career Planning

Career pathing involves making a series of job-person matches, based on the demands of the job system in the organization, that enable the person to grow into greater levels of responsibility, thus providing the organization with the talent that it requires to meet goals. This should involve the careful assignment of an individual to positions that provide her or him with opportunities for deploying the competencies needed for a more challenging position.

Best approaches to career pathing combine an analysis of positions in terms of both the tasks and the organizational behaviors needed for superior performance. The combined approach is essential for each of the jobs in the chain, because there may be marked differences between the characteristics demanded in one job and those needed in another in the same career path.

Steps to Implement the Competency-based Career Path
The major steps in developing a competency-based career pathing system are:
1. Put together a resource panel of experts on the target and feeder jobs who will set direction and specify the expected job performance criteria.
2. Define tasks and characteristics, through the resource panel, and survey job incumbents to obtain their perceptions of which job tasks and personal characteristics contribute to success in the target and feeder jobs.
3. Identify top performers in the target and feeder jobs, using performance criteria specified by the panel.
4. Conduct in-depth interviews with both superior and average incumbents in the target and feeder jobs to find out what they do and how they do it.
5. Based on the outcome of stage 4, develop a competency model of people in the target and feeder jobs by identifying those competencies that make the biggest contribution to outstanding performance as opposed to the competencies that all job holders need.

5. Based on the outcome of stage 4, develop a competency model of people in the target and feeder jobs by identifying those competencies that make the biggest contribution to outstanding performance as opposed to the competencies that all job holders need.
6. Analyze career paths by combining the survey (stage 2) and the interview (stage 3) results for target and feeder jobs.
7. Implement the career pathing system through a number of options: - computer-based tasks and competency inventories - performance and potential assessment linked to new job opportunities;- systematic counseling- career development and related training programs.

Tools of the System

The tools of a competency-based career path system include:
- a description of the tasks required by target and feeder jobs eventually broken down by job families - a competency model for the target and feeder job system - a dictionary of behavioral descriptions of each competency in the model- performance indicators that provide the material for a competency-based evaluation program and a computerized skills bank- a competency profile grid for either internal or external recruiting and selection of candidates- a career map of the organization, identifying which jobs are the key feeders to higher-level positions- a competencies' gap analysis showing main differences required to flow through the job system to reach high-level jobs- recommendations for training in or selecting for each competency in the path.

COMPETENCY-BASED SUCCESSION PLANNING

Competency-based succession planning enables an organization to determine the critical current competencies necessary for success in key jobs and the strategic competencies necessary for future success. Once this has determined the 'best fit' people, specific developmental plans can then be formulated that build upon these competency requirements to allow the individual's abilities to meet the strategic business needs of the organization.

Steps to implement Competency-based Succession Planning
For the competency-based succession planning to be complete, a logical process consisting of a certain number of steps must be followed. These key steps are as follows:

1. Identify critical jobs that the organization needs to fill
2. Develop a competency model from critical jobs, determining the competencies needed at each step of the job family ladder
3. Develop the most appropriate assessment methods (assessment centre, screening, interviewing, etc) and assess people against the competency model of the job
4. Make the decision whether to:- promote from inside - now or after competencies x, y, z have been developed- not promote but consider - possible lateral transfer- keeping in current job deselection - recruit from outside if no one in the organization is ready or can be developed in time
5. Feed the human resource management information system to track:- promotable employees, for future competencies monitoring - competency requirements of target jobs.

Ref: Hay Group, People and Competencies: The Route to Competitive Advantage

Careers in Human Resource Management

INTRODUCTION

In the globalized era, organizations have realized that the need of the hour is to have skilled, well- trained & highly motivated staff to help the growth of the company. Organizations invest time & money in the welfare & benefit of the employees because they see merit in such activities. All this & more has led this part of an organization's activity to be called Human Resource Management. However there is more to HRM than just being the internal function of a corporate. Some options open for professionals interested in career in Human Resource are given below.

CORPORATE HRM

The role of a HR manager in the corporate sector is to search, select & recruit suitable& qualified staff for his organization. It is also concerned with the development, motivation & training of this staff in order to maximize their satisfaction & minimize turnover. Increasingly the role of the HRM has future been empowered by their involvement in strategic issue revolving around organizational change, statutory compliance & industrial matters. Typically a bachelor's degree in management allows entry into a junior cadre of HRM, or an MBA is usually the norm for entry into mid level/senior position into HR department of large organization.

TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT

There are some companies that specialized in T & D as a business. Their jobs is broadly to "Train the Trainer" or in the other words, train HR managers to , in turn, train employees of their organization & equip them with certain skill sets. They often hold work shops on "behavioral skills" etc. They also facilitate highly specialized workshops on "how to price high end derivatives" in which case they act as a link with specialized trainers. Most training firm employ people who have done their masters with either management or psychology or those who have pursued a diploma course in psychology after their bachelors in the same.

RECRUITMENT CONSULTING

The job market is a buzz right now. MNCS are setting up base in India. Many are shifting their back end operations to Indian Cities. The retail sector is booming & every possible foreign bank is also setting foot here. Poaching is no longer a bad word and is, in fact, synonymous with hiring. Thus recruitment consulting is actually a very lucrative & fruitful field to join at this stage.There are several recruitment consulting firms in India. In some the business & business responsibilities are split by industries & in others, they are split by functions. The general requirement to become a recruitment consultant is an MBA with specialization in HR.

HR CONSULTING

This is the upcoming field, where in organizations employ the services of HR consultants to either find solutions or help tide over issues relating to people in the organization. For instance, when 2 companies are merging to form a common entity, they often hire HR consultant to figure out a way to smoothly integrate the people & culture of the organizations. In the case of organizations that need to re-structure, HR consultant decide on those who need to be retained, fired or promoted. In public sector companies when voluntary retirement schemes are announced, HR consultants are hired to make the process smoother. HR consultants are often employed by organizations for compensation, benefit analysis $ review. A bachelor's degree in management or a specialized master's degree in HR would be good entry points at several levels of HR consulting.

CAREER COUNSELLING

One of the most prominent facts of career counselling is the one that caters to the youth. This field includes the paid services of private organizations & also schools & colleges that provide career counselling to their students. To be eligible for this field, a PG diploma in counselling is required.A related field is that of conducting behavioural test, which are carried out in order to analyze personality traits of individuals, through which the type of education & career profile that is best suited to them can be determined. This is a specialized field & requires a degree in clinical psychology. "Several schools & colleges hire counselors to conduct behavioural test for students who are the verge of choosing a career stream. They conduct behavioural tests which help students ascertain their skills set & the field that would be ideal for them to join. An increasing number of institutions understand the advantage of catching children while they are young to detect any odd behavioural pattern by conducting this test.

ACADEMICS

If a person is interested in academics & is keen to take up HR, then a MBA with a specialization in HR or OB is the best option. This followed by doctorate in the same field would make you eligible to teach HR or OB at any institution.HR is a fast developing field, which until a few decades ago, was considered the domain of women. However due to the variety of roles available to day & the increasing relevance of this field, finds more & more men & women pursuing HR as a viable career option.

Resolving conflicts at work

Conflicts are inevitable between people at any time but the ones at work place can have a negative effect on ones performance and health. Handling work conflict can take its toll on most of us. There are some better ways to cope up with such negative effects or conflicts themselves. Here we are trying to outline the ways and means of not only dealing with conflicts but also approaches to avoid them as much as possible.

Conflicts at workplace are often a common concern for managers and seniors. The manager’s job is not only to allocate work and give guidance but also to make the team work as a close unit.
To be able to avoid conflicts in the team, it is advisable to have pre-meetings with team members:

1. Speak with each member about project objectives, deadlines etc.
2. The roles of each team members and the leader of the team through specific phases of the project need to be clearly defined.

In case conflicts arise a manager need to find out,

1. need to be quick to find out the details from his team.
2. need to then take an action immediately.
This is not the time to comfort troubled subordinates, nor is it appropriate to threaten them. A middle ground would prove to be the best bet for an objective fact-finding mission.
3. Schedule a one-on-one meeting with the troubled employee; begin by outlining the problem with clear, detailed facts ad examples.
4. Refer to previously documented objectives, illustrating how the current issue is specifically impacting those goals.
5. Find out if there are any barriers coming in the way of work. Try to remove them through training, intervention with other department, or by a re-evaluation of priorities based on the needs of the group.
There is a proper time to interfere in the event of a conflict. Before a manager says anything, it’s important to find out whether his involvement would help or hinder the situation. Stepping in to intervene between colleagues who are at odds with each other can be a touchy issue. Keep the following tips in mind:

A manager must make sure to come across as someone who is unbiased and open. He also needs to be a good listener and a creative problem solver. Above all, he must be trustworthy in the eyes of his team mates and discreet. Whether or not he can diffuse the conflict has a lot to do with how he is perceived by the two parties involved in the conflict. It would prove to be an advantage if the manager has the respect of the people involved.

Managing the conflict or differences is best done by understanding the conflict style because conflict can also be healthy and creative. The best thing is to handle it constructively.

Conflicts may arise between you and your boss, friend or partner or in people working with each other in close proximity for a long time and is common especially amongst those having the same goals but who disagree on the means of by which they can be achieved. Even a minor conflict can create tension, so it is important to know the root cause of it because often its magnitude is hugely out of proportion to the disagreement that caused it while sometimes the problem seems trivial but actually there may be some thing deep-rooted.

Today, work stress is a major problem that afflicts people. Basically, any argument can result in anger, anxiety and stress. These can then reflect upon overall health, giving rise to high blood pressure, headache or even depression. The sooner the differences are resolved the better. If one is not able to control his anger then h should seek the help through counseling.

When a disagreement occurs then one should not over react. If so then the ‘opponent’ will never consider the other person’s viewpoint. By not over reacting at least you will find some consideration from the opponent. There are people who can manage their differences well. Everybody can do it but for that one needs to understand the conflict style. If one is able to do this then it helps one to act differently as suggested by expert psychologists.

Recognize, which style you belong to and try and change. Conflict in work relationship is natural. Communication and compromise is the key here. Accusations are a big ‘no’. Do not let conflicts go out of hand.

THE ‘LAY-OFF’ TRAP

LAYING OFF EMPLOYEES IN BULK IS NEVER AN EASY TASK. EXPERTS FROM CORPORATE INDIA TELL RAMIYA BHAS HOW THIS EXERCISE CAN BE CARRIED OUT WITH A LITTLE SENSITIVITY AND EMPATHY TOWARDS EMPLOYEE NEEDS

Recently, a leading MNC in the country decided to lay off more than 500 of their employees from different verticals on grounds of poor performance. The organisation believed that they had given these 500 and more employees a chance to redeem themselves but all efforts seemed to have gone in vain as they showed little or no signs of improvement and were hence asked to put in their papers, voluntarily. Though, in the past, this practice was exercised by organisations occasionally, only in times of dire crisis; in today’s corporate scenario, there are quite a few number of organisations laying off people especially in bulk. There are such times in every organisation when they need to make a decision as to who has to be retained and who has to be let off, especially during situations like mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcy, poor performance, crisis etc. But today, there are ways through which organisations can help their employees under such circumstances by showing a little empathy, concern and a whole lot of counselling.

FACING THE DILEMMA

Though not an easy time in an organisation, such situations are known to arise when the employees least expect. Shiv Agarwal, CEO, ABC Consultants says that such situations can be planned or unplanned and the organisation has to be ready to face the grind. "The most common reason for an unplanned reactive move is a severe economic crisis – if the company faces a sudden financial slump, either in the country it is operating in or elsewhere. In the case of a planned layoff, the employees should be given adequate warning so that they can make alternate provisions. Their economic interest must also be looked after," he explains.

Once in the face of the situation, there is not much one can do to change anything. However, organisations have to be prepared in their own way and be ready with a plan of action to handle the situation. Experts say that having a plan of sorts can help them to break the news to the employees. "Before letting any of the employees off, no matter how large the employee base, the news has to be communicated to the 'laid off employees' and the reason too of doing so. Every employee needs to be told that they are being let off because the situation has called for it," expresses Sampat Shetty, VP, TeamLease Services Pvt. Ltd.

Vishal Khanna, Head, Management Development, Ceat Ltd. further explains, "There needs to be a strategically appointed committee involving people from all the affected functions for communicating such matters as HR alone may not be the only equipped function to break the news."

CONTROLLING THE CAUSE

Experts say that while letting off people, it is the HR department that plays a very crucial role. It is at this time when they can help the heads of the department to evaluate and figure out who has to be let off and who can be retained. Agarwal explains, "The HR department should address the situation in a dignified and controlled manner. There are companies giving a few hours notice for its employees to pack up and leave. It is a very sensitive matter and therefore the process becomes tough and painful. There have been cases where the HR has handled the whole situation very badly and it has only showed lack of maturity and insensitiveness on the part of the company. At times like these, it is necessary that HR should announce layoffs in advance, giving their stockholders, employees and other participants advance notice."

Khanna says that HR's main role is to is to carefully and sensitively manage the decision making process, the communication process and the culture before, during and after the retrenchment as there is going to be a great sense of job insecurity and how the process is handled will define the future of the organisation and its employer brand in the market."

SUPPORTING THE PEOPLE

Laying off people is not an easy task, however in the end it has to be done. But experts today also emphasise that there are various ways through which they can help the employees in getting things back in order. "Companies usually say that bulk layoffs are done because the employees were not performing. This is done to avoid legal hassles etc. However, they could be a little more upfront and call it a kind of an ‘austerity measure' rather than putting the blame on the employees. Further, companies can hire counsellors to address the grievances of ‘to-be laid off’ employees and advise them on the prospects of employment. Professional consultants who address them are expected to take a positive stand. They collect the CVs and assure them of jobs elsewhere in the industry," explains Agarwal. Shetty adds that organisations can help these 'laid off' employees by giving them a second chance within the organisation. He explains, "These employees should be the first choice of employment in case an opening within the organisation opens up.” Another alternative that Khanna suggests is that some of these employees can be re-skilled or be put up in different roles and can be hired as per the work requirement. "The organisation can also provide them with positive service certificates and reference certificates to facilitate their employment search," he adds.

Agarwal further adds, "Companies should provide career counselling. Further, the job market leans heavily on referrals."

In the end, when employees have to be laid off, there is nothing much one can do about it. However, the organisation can help in their own way and keep in mind that when the time comes to hire someone new, they will think of their exemployees first.

Reference: Ramiya Bhas (TOI)