Career Planning &

Development
HRM 413
Establishment & Achievement
 Establishment Period

A person beginning or redirecting his or her career is traveling in foreign territory. At this point, the new
employee needs to answer a number of questions.

 Will the job give me an opportunity to test myself?

 Will I be considered worthwhile?

 Will I be able to maintain my individuality and integrity?

 Will I be able to lead a balanced life?

 Will I learn and grow?

 Will I find the work environment stimulating & enjoyable?

The employee at this point is a newcomer to the organization but has not yet “fit into” the organization
psychologically. Therefore, there is a strong need to become accepted as a competent, contributing
member of the firm, while exhibiting positive work habits and attitudes and effective relationships with
co-workers.

At the same time, the organization must ensure that the new person learns how to perform the job and
how to fit into the company. Fitting in requires more than a mastery of task skills. It also requires
learning how the organization operates, what actions are rewarded and punished and for what the
organization stands. New hires and others in the establishment phase generally are the most receptive
to information about the company and the ways they can make a contribution to it. Acceptance of the
organization’s philosophies by newcomers should be a goal for all firms.

Organizational Actions during Establishment

1. Effective Recruitment

Realistic recruitment procedures, therefore, can play a significant role in helping newcomers establish
themselves in their career forge a healthy, candid relationship with the firm.

In addition, there is a tendency to select overqualified candidates for some positions because it is easier
to choose the most qualified individuals than the best qualified. It is also easier to examine credentials
than real job qualifications. Thus college graduates may be sought to fill positions demanding a high
school diploma and MBAs are recruited for positions that require a bachelor’s degree.
In some instances, these high qualifications are justified because they are required for future jobs to
which the employee might ultimately be promoted.

In the meantime, however, many of these highly qualified newcomers may believe that their talents and
training are underused in their first job and may leave (or become alienated) before they have had a
chance to establish themselves.
To avoid underuse in these situations, organizations should provide the newcomer with sufficiently
challenging, responsible tasks to maintain high level of motivation and involvement.

2. Effective Orientation Programs

The first few days and weeks in an organization can be particularly critical in orienting the newcomer to
the work environment. Effective orientation programs can help new employees become part of the
organization and inform them about the organization’s policies, benefits and services. Research has
identified the following functions of new employee orientation programs….

 Introduction to the company.

 Review of important policies and practices, including benefits and services.

 Benefit plan enrollment.

 Completion of employment forms.

 Review of employer expectations and development of accurate employee expectations.

 Introduction to peers and facilities.

 Introduction to the new job.

Research has also distinguished “in-advance” and “in-response” socialization practices.

In-advance practices provide information that the organization has decided (in advance) is important for
the newcomer. Such information might include a review of company policies, practices and benefits.

In-response procedures provide information that is responsive/sensitive to newcomers’ specific

questions and needs, such as information on particular career paths.

A balance of these two approaches should provide the most comprehensive, useful information to a
new employee.

3. Early Job Challenge

Many employees desire and expect high level of challenge and responsibility on a new job, but many
organizations are hesitant to provide early challenge and instead exercise tight supervision and control
until newcomers are more experienced, skilled and trusted.

However, when early job challenge is provided to new employees, the results can be beneficial and
longlasting. Research has found that management trainees who were given demanding first jobs
generally performed more effectively than their counterparts who were given as much challenge. In
addition, the degree of initial job challenge can quicken promotion to higher level management
positions and can stimulate interest in further educational development.

4. Frequent And Constructive Feedback

Although performance appraisal and feedback are important at all stages of career development, they
are particularly crucial during the establishment years because of the newcomer’s need to become
competent and accepted.

It is not enough to assign challenging tasks. Newcomers have to know how well (or poorly) they are
performing on these tasks. Feedback must be frequent enough so that employees can make changes in
their behavior on an ongoing basis to maximize learning.

Moreover if the feedback is positive, it can serve as a powerful source of praise and reinforcement. Also
performance feedback sessions provide an opportunity for supervisors and subordinates to discuss their
assumptions and expectations about each other – to clarify the psychological contract.

Individual Actions during Establishment

1. Career Exploration And Goal Setting

During the establishment years, it is essential that new employees understand their development needs.
Similarly, newcomers should understand that this period is a time of mutual testing.

It is therefore, crucial for new employees to use their assignments, performance reviews, day-to-day
observations and informal relationships to learn more about themselves and the organization. With this
knowledge and information, individuals should be willing and able to adjust career goals as necessary.
Career management is a dynamic process and one’s goals can change as new insights are gained and
organizational realities become clear.

2. Career Strategies – Influencing The Environment

Although the establishment period often requires the individual to adjust to the demands of the new
environment, the newcomer is not a passive victim at the complete mercy of the organization. In fact,
newcomers can play an active role in the ultimate success of the socialization process. Newcomers with
a strong sense of self competence can adopt active strategies and coping responses to understand the
organization’s culture and influence the environment.

Because information and help do not always come when they are most needed, an assertive strategy is
often required. Such a strategy might include the following activities…

 Initiate discussions with your supervisor on ways to increase the level of challenge, responsibility
and variety in your job.

 Initiate discussions with your supervisor regarding your recent performance.

 Analyze your supervisor’s career needs and discuss ways in which you can help your supervisor
become more effective in his/her job.
 Seek information from peers who are in a position to observe your performance.

 Participate in formal programs to learn as much about the organization as possible.

 Read literature of the organization and seek answers to your questions.

 Develop informal contracts in the organization who can provide you with information, insights
and accumulated wisdom about the organization.

 Be prepare to share your perceptions and opinions with others. Mutual information sharing is
more likely to sustain relationships than one sided communications.

 Try to learn where the organization is heading and what skills it will require in the future.

 Reexamine the compatibility between your values, interests and talents and the values,
requirements and opportunities in the organization.

Achievement Period
The achievement period has been referred to as an “advancement” stage by several researchers
presumably because the desire for vertical mobility (i.e. promotions) is so strong. The term
‘achievement’ rather than ‘advancement’ is used here because it is a broader concept that can
encompass many different forms of accomplishment. Achievement can mean different things to
different people.

 The achievement-oriented linear career emphasizes upward mobility through promotions and
job changes.

 The expert career reflects an early, lifelong commitment to an occupational field or specialty
(e.g. medicine).
  The transitory career is characterized by frequent changes from job to job with little apparent
pattern of growth or development.

 The spiral career involves cyclical changes in occupational fields in every 5 to 7 years, in which
growth and variety are sought (e.g. factory leader).

Factors That Concern Employees in Achievement Period

During the achievement period, many employees concern about the following issues….

 To demonstrate continued, increasing competence in one’s work assignments.

 To acquire additional levels of responsibility and authority in work assignments.

 To determine the most appropriate type of contribution one can make to oneself, the
occupation and the organization, such as whether to remain in a specialized function or to move
into general management.

 To assess opportunities inside and outside the organization.

 To develop long and short range career goals consistent with one’s career aspirations.

 To develop and implement strategies to attain one’s career goals.

 To remain flexible and adaptive to changing circumstances.

Organizational Actions during Achievement

1. Provide Sufficient Challenge And Responsibility

During the establishment period, early job challenge enables newcomers to test their abilities and begin
to make a real contribution to the organization. In the achievement period, employees have a greater
urgency to enlarge their area of responsibility, to become more autonomous and independent and to
“call the shots”. Having spent a number of years learning and launching their career, employees are
ready to acquire more responsibility.

Jobs can be enriched to provide high level of responsibility and autonomy and to permit the employee to
keep learning, growing and stretching.

2. Performance Appraisal And Feedback

The need to appraisal performance never really ceases. Organizations must make a number of decisions
about individual employees during their early career, decisions about promotability, training and
development needs and salary increases. These decisions are important not only for the so called fast

track manager, but also for other managers and non-managers as well. In addition, employees continue
to need ongoing performance feedback, especially as it relates to their career goals.

3. Construction Of Realistic And Flexible Career Paths

In a traditional sense, a career path is a sequence of job positions, usually related in work content,
through which employees move during the course of their careers. A standard career path for someone
in marketing might involve the following positions: marketing representative, branch manager, a staff
position at corporate headquarters, district marketing manager, regional marketing manager and vice
president of marketing. The identification of career paths can be helpful to organizations in planning
their staffing needs and it can provide a structure to employees in planning their personal careers.

4. Stimulate Career Exploration

Many organizations sponsor workshops, seminars, discussion groups and counseling to aid the
selfassessment process. Moreover, because much self-insight can be gained through ongoing job
experiences, timely, constructive performance feedback and coaching sessions with a supervisor or
other significant person are useful ingredients in any self-assessment effort.

Organizations also can help employees gather information on alternative job opportunities. Effective job
exploration requires up-to-date job descriptions that provide accurate information on job duties and
behaviors, knowledge and skill requirements, demands and rewards. However, information on jobs and
career paths will not be useful unless it gets to the people who need it. Ideally, line managers should be
provided with sufficiently detailed information on jobs and career paths to aid their subordinate’s career
planning efforts.

Individual Actions during Achievement

1. Set Realistic Goals

At the time of goal setting, it is important to remember that if the employee does not establish goals,
the goals will likely be established (or assumed) by the organization to fits its own needs. Therefore, it is
in the employee’s best interest to periodically reconsider established career goals (conceptual and
operational), set new goals when necessary and communicate these aspirations to the organization.
 1. Performance And Responsibility On The Current Job

This strategy requires that subordinates understand their superior’s skills, needs and aspirations. It has
been observed that boss needs depend on their own career stage. For example, a boss in the
establishment period needs technical and psychological support from the subordinate, whereas one in
the achievement period requires loyal followership that enhances the performance and reputation of
the boss. Subordinates should understand their needs, their boss’s needs and the constraints under
which the boss operates and establish a feedback and evaluation system for assessing the relationship
between themselves and their bosses.

2. Mobility Paths

Employees with upward mobility aspirations should be willing to nominate themselves for future
positions. But not all job changes are equally useful. Highly mobile managers are “route bright” in that
they understand the most promising paths (and the related career strategies) that will allow them to
achieve their goals. In addition, they apply the “protean” concept of career management in that the
career strategies they pursue for upward mobility are kept flexible enough to accommodate the
inevitable twist and turns that there are faced throughout their work lives.

Research has identified two types of upward mobility tracks: The Apparent Fast-Track and The Real
First-Track.

The Apparent First-Track includes rapid promotions and salary increases that may reflect an individual’s
“hard-charging” personality, but in reality, hinder the development of skills and relationships that will be
needed over the longer term and at the higher levels.

Apparent fast-track managers are strongly rewarded in the early career phases for their independence
and assertiveness, “but are often puzzled and then angry when they find, a few years later, that their
independence is regarded as an unwillingness to be a team player and their assertiveness is viewed as
pushiness and self-glorification.

By contrast, The Real First-Track managers experiences slower upward mobility in the early career years,
spending a comparatively longer time in building key competencies and establishing lasting
relationships.

Thus, although real first-track employees may experience less frequent promotions and lower salary
increases in the early career, the skills they learn position them to better avoid derailment in the later
career.

4. Attaining Sponsorship
Support and sponsorship from superiors and mentors are often crucial to goal attainment. Although high
visibility and exposure are necessary to attain sponsorship, they are not sufficient. The sponsored
manager should also be a high performer and be loyal and trustworthy to superiors.

Developmental relationships and support are especially critical during the achievement phase of one’s
career. As discussed earlier, individual development can be supported by a constellation of individuals,
including mentors, superiors, peers, subordinates and family and friends.

THE END