A career development plan is a way through which an individual sets goals which he or she intends to achieve in the future. This is aimed at progressing in a given career of their choice. It involves developing a list of goals together with the strategies to be applied so as to achieve the goals at the end of a desired timeframe. A career development plan can be developed during college or after joining a particular career (Yoder, 76). This could be an individual affair or with some assistance from a career advisory specialist.
Career planning and development is important due to several reasons which differ across different individuals. Different people develop a career plan guided by their personal choice of happiness and preferred financial status at a given point in time. A career plan will thus help them develop strategies. Consequently, the strategies will assist them achieve the level of happiness and financial status of their choice.
A career development plan acts as a basis to assess an individual’s achievements at different stages of life. This is done by comparing what the individual had set to achieve within a certain stage of life with the actual achievements. Thus, it makes it easy to refer to such an individual as successful or not depending on whether he or she has achieved or not.
PCL Construction Company
Poole Construction Company is a company that was established in 1906 as E.E. Poole Construction Company. It was started by Ernest Poole. Later it was renamed to Poole Construction Company in the year 1913. It has relocated its headquarters severally but it is currently located at Edmonton, Alberta. In 1976, it was sold to its employees, John and George and was renamed to PCL Construction Company. The company specializes in heavy industrial construction, civil infrastructure and construction of markets.
PCL’s mission is to facilitate sustainability of all individuals all across the world including its employees and the people around the company. This is done by providing them with opportunities for growth. This entails giving those opportunities through which they can improve their lives and also taking part in humanitarian activities with the help of organizations such as the Red Cross.
The PCL vision is to enhance the internal culture, to maintain PCL’s reputation as a leader in the construction business. It also aims at being an employer desired by many workers, and to be an active member of the community within which it is based. Thus, PCL aspires to be one of the most respected builders renowned for its excellence, leadership and with an incomparable value.
PCL is wholly owned by the employees. It gives all the employees a chance to purchase its shares and as a result, ninety percent of employees at all the levels of the company are shareholders. This enables it to be fully owned by its employees. Hence indicating that it gives the employees a chance to grow which is in line with the company’s mission. Another way in which the company gives the employees a chance to grow is through different reward schemes. One of the reward schemes includes promotion of ranks in the company depending on an individual employee’s performance. Thus, employees are given a chance to compete on their career plans based on their individual performance.
PCL’s Career Management Policies
On career development, PLC Construction Company has an in-house career development plan. Through this it seeks to assist their employees acquire skills to help them in their higher levels of their career. They provide training to their employees both in-house and also by sending them to different institutions where they can acquire the required skills.
Another way in which they support career development is by posting their vacant jobs internally. They therefore encourage their employees to take any chances which arise inside the company instead of seeking employers from outside the company. This gives them a chance to advance in their career development plan.
Another policy that they have put in place to facilitate career development of employees is by holding the managers accountable for the development of their employees. The company holds its managers responsible for ensuring that the employees have advanced in their careers during their service to the company. Thus, the managers are actively involved in the formulation of a career development plan with the employees to ensure that it is in line with the company’s policies.
Apple Inc.
Apple Inc. previously known as Apple Computer Inc. is a multinational corporation with headquarters in Cupertino, California. It was started in April 1976 by Steve Jobs. It is concerned with development of consumer electronics, computer soft wares and also personal computers including smartphones such as the iPhone smartphone and ipads.
Its mission is to create a more competitive world in-term of technology. This is by ensuring that it is largely involved in making new inventions to replace the existing ones which fail to meet the changing demands of different individuals in the world.
The company’s vision is to have a more globally connected world and that the world absorbs more advanced technology so as to make life easier. This is achieved by providing and inventing new technological instruments. For instance, more advanced smart phones which incorporate more features such that having the phone would be similar to an individual with a laptop.
Apple’s Career Management Policies
Career planning and development is of major importance to the company. The company is highly interested in ensuring that its employees have a chance to advance in their career while working with Apple Inc. It is also actively involved in student programs where they provide internships to students in colleges across America. Apple has development several policies which facilitate career development as elaborated below.
One of the policies is on student’s internship program. The company has developed an internship program where it recruits students who are yet to complete their college education. During the internship, the students get a chance to explore the different levels of the company. Thus they get the range within which they can develop and advance their career within the organization. They also provide guidelines to these students on developing a career plan that will be successful in the future.
Another policy similar to that of PLC Construction Company is ensuring that they carry out recruitment in-house rather than making advertisements for positions vacant. The company encourages making recruitments from the existing employees. Employees with the skills that fit the vacant positions that arise as time goes get the chance to advance in their career while working in the company. Hence it helps them achieve their career development plans based on their track of success.
Consequently, the company is creating possible career tracks for excellent performers inside the company. This is where the company offers different career paths for the outstanding employees such as providing both managerial and technical opportunities for top employees. This gives chances to technical specialists to acquire managerial skills when they are assigned the duty to oversee their colleagues in the workplace. Thus, they are able to advance in their career plans courtesy of the company.
They also have a policy of employee orientation to new recruits. New recruits are given a chance to explore the different fields and levels of career of the organization. They therefore get the chance to develop a well formulated development plan based on the opportunities that are available for them in the company.
Similar to the PLC construction company, Apple holds the managers at different levels responsible for the development of the employees. The managers are therefore actively involved in ensuring that the employees have well set career development plans that are achievable within the organization. Thus, the employees make plans that can be easily achieved within the company thus have a chance to advance in their careers while working in the company.
Role of Performance Management
Performance management involves measuring and assessing the performance of the employees of a company (Attwood, 134). It is done by managers at different levels in an organization. Every individual is assessed based on the set goals that he or she has set to achieve in line with the company’s goals and objectives. In both Apple and PLC Construction, the goals are set depending on the customer expectations and the employee’s highest achievable performance.
During the commencement of every financial year, the individuals set goals which they hope to achieve before the end of the year. Their excellence is recognized if they manage to meet their set goals. Every individual is assessed individually and thus each employee’s success is only dependent on the company’s overall goals.
Role of Employee Relations
Employee relations include the welfare of a company’s employees. It includes their remuneration and also the reward scheme together with issues such as work-life programs, among others. One of these issues is related to coaching and counseling of employees. Each of the two companies has set aside departments concerned with this matter. They provide guidance to the employees based on their different needs. They also provide coaching to new recruits during the orientation program and guidance to employees having emotional or work related problems.
Work-life programs are designed to assist the employees acquire skills to assist them lead a normal healthy life. They include nutritional and health programs which ensure that the employees maintain a healthy life while working. Employee’s relations departments are therefore charged with the responsibility of ensuring that employees are provided with these programs to facilitate a healthy workforce.
The employee relations departments also ensure that the morale of the employees is maintained at high levels. This is done by making certain that employees acquire other benefits besides their monthly salaries. In terms of diversity management, the employee relations department ensures that it hires individuals with different qualifications. This allows for diversification of skills within the companies.
Individual Career Plans
Head Designer-Apple Inc.
The head designer started as a designer with the company and has advanced to head the design department in the manufacturing arm of the company. This arm is charged with the responsibility of designing shapes that the products that the company produces. He has chances of advancing into the regional head designer, the overall head designer of the company and finally the managing director of the company.
The head designer, while working as a designer undertook a management course which gave him managerial skills required for his current position and also in future endeavors. He is also actively involved in developing new designs for different products which have been adopted by the company.
The manager has played a big role in assisting him climb the career ladder. He had assigned him to be the head designer twice when the previous one was on vacation thus preparing him for the position in advance. He was also involved in the formulation of the head designer’s career development plan to ensure that it is in line with the company’s policies on career development.
New Construction Assistant-PCL Construction
This employee has been newly recruited into the company and has only worked for six months. He has set his career goals which include becoming a regional manager for the company before retirement. Before getting to this position, he has to go through the supervisor’s position and plant manager’s position.
The manager, having reviewed his academic qualifications, has promised to take him for additional training depending on his performance as a construction assistant. He has helped the construction assistant develop a good career development plan as per the company’s policies.
The organization has the policy of rewarding employees through job promotions. This is done to the outstanding employees who have the necessary skills required in the next level of their career. It also allows for career mixing where an individual has the chance to explore other fields of the company thus equipping him with all the essentials of the different departments of the company. In-house recruiting for higher positions is also one of the company’s policies where the company promotes its outstanding employees thus giving the construction assistant an opportunity to advance his career within the company.
Conclusions and Recommendations
Both PLC Construction Company and Apple Inc. have formulated policies to facilitate career planning and development for their employees. These policies have their strengths which include ability to increase chances of career growth of employees. These policies give a chance to the employees to grow as they work for the organization.
Consequently, the policies are achievable from within the organization. These policies are well attainable from within the organization thus employees do not have to look for areas to develop their career plans outside the organization.
However, these policies have some weaknesses. The policy of in-house hiring denies the organization a chance to acquire new skills. This could have been obtained if an individual hired to take a position that is vacant is hired from outside the organization.
It’s recommendable that the organizations adopt a strategy of evaluating the benefits obtained from assisting an employee advance in their career. This should then be compared to hiring an employee from outside the organization. This will assist them in ensuring that they do not lose the opportunity of getting some added advantage if they hired an individual from outside the organization.
Work Cited
Attwood, Tony. Careers Department Management Policies. Corby: First & Best in Education, 1998. Print.
Career Management: Basic Policies and Requirements. Washington, D.C, 1971. Print.
Career Management. London: Incomes Data Services, 1999. Print.
Strategic Human Resource Management: Corporate Rhetoric and Human Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Internet resource.
Yoder, Dale. Personnel Principles and Policies: Modern Manpower Management. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall, 1959. Print.
