Define Career Stages

Individuals have different career development needs at different stages in their careers. When an organisation recruits an employee in any of the grades of its cadre for a fairly long tenure, the employer must not only take interest in but also take constructive charge of the employee’s career from then on. On entry, the employee is in a kind of ‘budding’ stage which really is the formative phase of his or her career.

This stage is that of establishing identity. The organization’s responsibility at this stage is to ensure that the employee’s concerns are taken care of, he/she is helped to settle down and establish himself/herself. As you have read in unit 11 of this block at this stage, not only induction-training in the form of organizational work familiarization programmes, but also technical or professional training or on-the-job training at the institutions are imparted to the employees. But at times, generalized foundational programmes are also developed, for example, like for civil servants so as to give them an ‘input’ (primarily academic) in economics, history, culture, social policy, constitution, issues of public administration etc. This sort of training also serves an important purpose of bringing together civil servants of different cadres for cross culturisation among themselves who would be meeting as colleagues while working in different areas in future.

The next phase is the establishment and developmental stage (also known as ‘blooming’ stage). This involves growing and getting established in a career: During this early career period, the executive would be in the junior administrative grade or selection grade. This is the period when the organization must not only orient the employees in a manner that will create maximum learning opportunities and favorable attitude towards the organization. It should also be ensured that the assignments assigned to them are optimally challenging by giving them a genuine test of their abilities and skills.

In this stage, it is necessary to develop strategies for motivating a plateaued employee so that he/she continues to be productive. Another way could be to ensure an adequate transition from technical work to management work with suitable training and developmental opportunities, particularly for those who have management talent and want to occupy a managerial position. The programme that usually is organized at this level is what has come to be known as Management Development about which you have read in unit 11 (if the seniority range of the participants is slightly lower, then it is referred to as Management Orientation). Some area-specialization input is also to be imparted so as to enable them to update their specialist skills. In other words, the developmental strategy is a Mend of specialist-professional exposure combining certain aspects of theory and practice.

The executives/managers from this point. reach the higher career stages which would be stable or ‘mature’ (also known as ‘full bloom’ stage). People here would be in the super time scale, occupying senior management positions, involving high level policy and programming assignments. The organisation must at this stage help people to flourish, to the maximum extent possible by giving them wider range of responsibilities for performance and broader opportunities for adjusting to their changing role as their career shifts from the more specialized to generalized advisory role. In this top level stage of policy-planning- advisory area. the organization must to it that their career interests are catered for and self actualization facilities arc provided, which enables the employees to devote their full time, attention, energy to the organization. Developmental strategies in this ‘part of career, must then be oriented towards policy making, programme planning and review and problem solving. The focus should he on advanced study and education for professionalized efficiency, total preparation for leadership, a kind of spiritual attitude reflected in a spirit of dedication to public service, and an urge to work for a cause higher than oneself etc.