The profile of "Women with Professional Responsibilities" to which I address from "MujerLider" has a healthy ambition, related to learning, improving, growing as a professional and challenging herself. For the progression to be optimal, from time to time it is also necessary to redefine the Career Plan.
Whether it is regarding progression within the company or regarding valuing a job change, in today's article I will explain what the Career Plan is, how it is done, and the importance of redefining your professional Career Plan more than once throughout your working life.
What is the Career Plan
According to Wayne and Noe: “Career Plan is an ongoing process by which an individual sets his career goals, and identifies the means to achieve them. Individual careers and organizational needs are not separate or different things. Companies must assist employees in career planning so that the needs of both can be met. ”
According to this, the company will facilitate the professional and aptitude development of the employee, in those previously studied jobs, which will give him the opportunity to develop the competencies for positions of greater responsibility attending to the needs of the company.
There are still few companies that prepare the Professional Career Plan, and it is unthinkable in small companies without an HR department. Although, let's not forget, each worker is the maximum responsible for her own Career Plan.
How a Career Plan is made
Career Map
You should consider promotion possibilities based on the organization chart of the company and growth projections, making it clear that promotions are earned on your own merit and not on seniority.
In an ideal system for planning and developing Human Resources, individuals will seek to match their needs and motivations with those of the organization to achieve career development when the intentions are to stay within it.
Adequate environment to develop career plans
- Manuals with Description of Functions - so that everyone is clear about their responsibilities and the scope of their management. Performance Evaluations - ideally with the 360 ° Evaluation. Training Plan - to develop their competences. Promotion Projections - with feedback from their superiors in relation to their progress. Replacement Planning - also considering the development to cover the positions, if possible from within.
(Source: Ernesto Yturralde y Asociados)
Career Plan Sessions
They are done through Coaching sessions, sometimes also Mentoring, individually one by one, where the coach will guide the worker so that he finds his ideal path and his goals "to measure". Very few companies provide a / a coach to their employees to plan their Career Plan, in this case they themselves must invest in a / a coach.
Importance of redefining your Career Plan
When we get new to a company, we think we have a clear idea of what our professional progression will be there. But many times we see that the years pass and what we expected has not occurred, or has occurred and is no longer what we want, or even due to the needs of the company we have ended up in a different area from the one for which we entered the business.
For this reason, it is important that more than once throughout your career, depending on your circumstances and your degree of satisfaction, you focus on redefining your Career Plan. Don't fall into the trap of holding the company accountable because your progression is not what you want. You must redefine your Career Plan and, when you have done so, ask the management and HR what you want so they can help you; or prepare the ground for a job change.
To adequately redefine your Career Plan it is necessary that you know yourself, that you know what your strengths and weaknesses are, what you like and what you dislike, what suits you and what does not, and that you are clear where you want get there and what price are you willing to pay.
To be the protagonist of your professional life, you must redefine your Career Plan from time to time, regardless of whether the conclusion is to continue in the same company, go to another, or create your own. If the company does not provide you with a coach, you must be yourself / or who invests in it.
"Companies will not direct the careers of their employees. They will provide opportunities for them to develop their own identity and work environments to which they can adapt so that they themselves can take charge of their own professional careers within the company. ” Tim Hall.
