Career Development Plan

In this assignment, you will recommend the components of a career development planning program and explain how the plan will integrate the organization's mission and value statements.

Consider the following scenario:
You work in the HR Department of an electric power company in the southwestern region of the U.S. The company was founded in 1940 and has an excellent reputation as a provider of electricity. It is also considered to be an outstanding corporate citizen and known to be an excellent place to work. It has been ranked among the top three employers in the community for several years.
Its mission is to serve customer's needs for electric power in ways that provide exceptional value to all stakeholders including customers, shareholders, employees, and the communities in which it operates.
Its values include providing a safe work environment; fairness and respect for customers, employees, shareholders, and partners; honoring commitments to use resources wisely; providing a high quality of work life for its employees; and striving for excellence and having fun.

Given its long history, many of its current employees are children or grandchildren of former employees so there are close family ties to the company as well as a sense of loyalty.
However, technological advancements in the power generation business over the years have resulted in jobs being either redesigned or eliminated. For example, in the past, the company had many employees who read meters, which showed the amount of electricity used by households. Meter readers traveled from house to house each month to log the information for billing purposes. Now meters are read automatically and data is transferred to the billing department via computer. This technological advancement eliminated the need for many employees who were required to resign, be laid off, or be retrained for other positions in the company.

The company faces a challenge as it strives to maintain its reputation as an excellent employer in the community, and, yet leverage advances in technology, which help it increase efficiency and remain competitive.
As a member of the HR team, you have been tasked with the responsibility of drafting a plan for a career development program for the company which will help managers effectively guide their staff in developing individual career development plans that are integrated with and support the company's mission and values. Your report will be reviewed by senior HR managers as well as executive directors.

The HR department will have conducted a needs assessment as part of its strategic planning process to determine how the company will achieve its goals and objectives over the next 5-10 years. This assessment identifies areas where employees with new skill-sets will be required as well as areas where current employees with skill-sets may need to be either maintained or reduced (laid off).
As part of their annual performance appraisal, all employees will draft a personal and professional development plan on their own which will then be discussed with their manager. This plan should cover a five-year period and be reviewed and adjusted annually. It should include both formal training programs and individual initiatives to support personal and professional development interests.

By combining information about the company's needs from the needs assessment and employees' interests from the personal and professional development plans, it will be possible to develop a career planning program for the company that identifies the overlap between the company's needs and employees' interests and also detects gaps which could become opportunities for growth in the future. Overlapping areas indicate where the company needs skill-sets and the employees want to develop them while gaps indicate where the company needs skill-sets and there are no current employee interests in that area.