Career Development

Managing Human Capital
School of Business and Law
Ana Esther Rodriguez Oceguera MBA 1 Gruop B Student ID: B0460DADA1110

Assignment

Table of contents

Introduction Defining Career Career Development What employees must do What an employer must do What managers must do Talent Management and HRM Conclusion Reference Bibliography

3 4 6 6 9 12 14 16 17 18

Introduction
The businessworld is constantly changing. Nowadays, these changes are more complex and faster than they have ever been. This phenomenon is due to a number of factors; most notable of which is the development of new information system technologies, the ever-changing economical, social and demographic conditions and the demanding global competitive market. In order to satisfy customers, businesses look forceaseless new ways to keep their competitive advantage and adapt themselves to the market by creating innovative new products or services that are high quality and attend to the needs of their commercial audience. The way in which businesses and organizations are run has an impact on the workforce. As the world becomes more sophisticated, the pace of business and the pressures that companies face hasincreased. Organizations must employ a skilled workforce in order to keep up with these pressures from the outside world. Businesses not only implement extensive training to improve the skills of their employees, but expect their workforce to be able to change the way they think about their job, how they do it, and how they relate to others (Collins, 2007). Workers are thus expected to keep up withthe challenges businesses face by constantly bettering themselves. If employees do not embrace the challenges they are faced with at work they face the danger of lower wages, ‘dead-end’ jobs or even unemployment. By employing an untrained workforce with limited skill, organizations risk giving their competitors competitive advantage. A recent document presented to the 25th Annual Congress of theEuropean Economic Association 2010 (Jens et at, 2010) concludes that the characteristics of the company can change the future prospects of low-paid staff. If a company is run successfully staff are more likely to have a higher wage in the future and those in ‘dead-end’ jobs will have a greater prospects. If employees work for a ‘bad’ company there is a much greater chance that they will remain ona low wage with far fewer prospects for the future. By making an investment in employees, organizations can improve the efficiency and productivity of their company, however employees must embrace the furthering of their own careers. By doing so they become more employable. Career development and planning benefits both businesses and their employees and absolutely relies on a symbioticrelationship between employer and employee. It demands good management and good participation. This paper hopes to clarify the methods with which this can be achieved and explores the benefits of talent management.

3

Defining Career
The word ‘career’ is usually understood as someone’s occupation or profession and is often used in terms of progress or success. In critical analysis, the word career ismore complex and has been defined in wide and varying ways. Torrington et al defined career “as the pattern or sequence of work roles of an individual” (2005:p.410) and Dessler agreed, defining “career as the occupational positions a person has had over many a year” (2011:p.373). Collin (2007) argues that career not only refers to the movement of an individual within an organization or socialstructure (referred to as ‘objective career’), but can be seen as a ‘subjective career’ which he explains is how an individual interprets his work roles. It is understood that careers have not always been as they are today. Until fairly recently it was the norm that the career of an individual was managed by one organization (or a few) with strong hierarchical structures through the length of their...