Considering the garguantan-esque nature of the tasks entrusted to each of the Business Unit HR’s in terms of taking all their protégé employees through the entire career power portal, the seriousness and hence the commitment of the organization towards career improvement seems evident in itself.
As a student of human resources and a practitioner of the art, this posed a real opportunity for me to understand how an employee’s future can be molded by a few caring hands. This would give me a great chance to go and meet people’s aspirations as they arise and try to get them to see the light of the day.
Yet a small question reared its head in my mind, which subsequently led to some soul searching, the results are mentioned below thereto.
The question being, Is the organization really interested in the development of the careers of the employees per se or is it only “Career Power” that was meant to be promoted? If the former was the case, then how convinced and motivated are the grass-root implementers i.e. the BU-HR’s too see that the career power actually became a powerful tool in the hands of the employees? Can the BU-HR’s be committed enough to act as independent career counselors for the employees?
I know not the answer to these, yet being the so-called student of human resources; I did cerebrate a lot on the matter. Finally with the aid of some literature written by some of our most eminent HR evangelists, I could dare to give shape to my thoughts which I thought I would enumerate below.
As we all know Career Power begins with reflection as part of the “Earn” phase
The first and foremost of all the things to come is the very realization by the counselors of the fact that careers are not absolute. Rather careers are fluid in entity, depending on the personal stage the employee is in at that present moment, placed at what juncture in the organizational rigmarole. Careers cannot be well trodden paths on which employees can be sent upon with the surety that it will lead to successful culmination to that person’s aspirations.
Taking a leaf from Mr. Levinson’s theory of Age linked Development Periods; I have come up with a small corollary that might just help the HR practitioners/counselors to conceptualize upon my idea. Mr. Levinson’s theory states that adult behavior moves through certain distinct stages related to chronological age. Based on this theory, my idea stems from the fact that the ultimate objective of career development is to help employees enjoy their work and then ultimately lead the rest of their productive life with the organization. This “enjoyment” factor is a sheer function of the stage the person is at that juncture oh his/her life.
Hence just like a software development life cycle (SDLC), I have envisaged a Software Engineer Development Life Cycle (SEDLC), if I may be allowed, in the poetic sense of word, to collectively call the IT professionals with the appellation of “Software Engineer”. This is an effort from my side to try and understand the fabric of the organizational person’s psyche from the point of view of a career counselor.
A Software Engineer is predominantly a graduate, mostly an engineering graduate, who is picked up from the campus or taken in through one of the numerous off-campuses. Presence of high aspirations or complete lack of it can be marked as the characteristics of this group of employees. Even taking from the point of one year since inception, the aspirational needs of the new joinees would have hardly changed.
All the HR practitioners in the IT industry would agree to the fact that these employees form the backbone of any Indian IT firm. The success or failure of any IT firm depends on how the organization is able to harness and utilize the talent of the employees at this stage of their “software” life. It is this stage that we as the counselors should exercise the utmost care. This period is marked by getting to understand the organization. This is the time when much of the impression regarding the organization can be created.
I call it the “Incubation” period. Employees in this phase face a lot of organizational pressure to perform even in the face of being just out of college and lacking the organizational repertoire for sustenance in the strata. Burn-out rates are highest in this class of employees.
Career Counselors should be empathetic towards their occasional “childlike” demeanor in terms of professionalism, handling them with care and trying to act as their non-technical mentors and thus help imbibe the organizational centric traits in them. It is only through the HR practitioners or the so-called BU-HR’s that the message of the organizational being a “feeling” organization, can be effectively communicated. It should also be understood that care in this particular stage of the SEDLC would lead to the success of the subsequent stages.
As the employee matures to the ways of the organization, comes the period when he just starts delivering value to the organization. This ‘value’ is not in terms of deliverables etc. but rather in imbibing in oneself, the fabric of the organization. This can be safely taken as the tenure that begins post 2 years in the organization. Now the employee’s aspirations would be centered on being an efficient “techie”. Projects, Appraisals, increments etc are the main concerns of the employee belonging to this major section of the IT professionals. This period, I call, the “Germination” period.
Like a germinating seed, the employee is vulnerable to external agencies. Like a sapling, the employee’s growth can be hampered by organizational politics, nepotism etc. Employees with considerable potential can be undermined solely on grounds of favoritism etc. A true counselor would be one who can empathize with the employee and listen to his needs; needs that can be, need for recognition, the need to work in challenging roles, the need for career opportunities like onsite trips etc.
The HR should take into consideration all his needs and based on their feasibility should forward them to his managers. This is where the concept of true mentorship ( mentorship can be defined in two ways, a. Initial mentorship that helps an employee to get comfortable in the organization and then mentorship in the real sense when the employee gains a mentor to further his career goals) can come into play. Showing the path for future development is the role that HR can successfully play in this phase. This is the time when the employees develop their true calling and hence should be assisted to gain ground in the organization.
The third phase in the SEDLC starts 5-6 years down the professional life. An employee starts moving up the value ladder. The employee’s KRA’s tilt more towards management of projects; this marks the beginning of the “Maturity” phase of the employees. Career aspirations tend to be more towards areas of responsibility and aims more towards increased managerial roles. People in this span of “software” life tend to be hassled with problems related to span of control, definition of portfolio of work, organizational/project parameters which have direct bearing on their career.
The HR practitioners should take care to handle these veterans. Though little can be done in managing aspirations like span of control in projects, senior HR management can make interventions based on inputs from counselor HR’s to help these employees decide on their road map to be sustainable value adders to the organization.
Disclaimers: I have not taken the compensation as tool of motivations for employees in different stages of the SEDLC.
Finally referring from Herbert A. Shepard’s treatise, “On the realization of Human potential: A path with a heart”, on the well being of any person and the conditions under which a person can achieve their full potential. I have tried to translate the idea to that of an employee working in the organization.
The Business Unit HR’s should always remember the following pointers related to the employee, before embarking upon the journey of becoming effective career counselors.
The effective well being of the employee can be judged on the following parameters:
1. Tone – This reflects the employee’s self image, his/her aliveness as an organism. This is basically how the employee defines himself in various roles in his present work role. The tone of the person defines how the person effectively translates his image to his contribution to the organization. A person who doesn’t feel an important role or doing a monotonous role in the organization would lead a negative tone and hence will never be the active contributor that the organization demands. This subsequently leads to the demise of the person
2. Resonance – An employee’s capacity for resonance is his/her ability to maintain healthy relationships in various intra and inter team roles. This is a measure of how much the employee is “in tune” with his immediate surroundings. Finally resonance reflects harmony in team relationships.
3. Perspective: This is a measure on how the employee feels about the choices that are presented before him/her. An employee’s well being can be judged by the perspective necessary to guide career choices. Thus if the organization provides “multiple potential of the moment’ choices to the employee, the chances of the employee choosing the best alternative that is available at the moment and hence the more the probability of the employee to be happy in his present environment.
Career counselors should always keep in mind that a poor tone, resonance and perspective can have a confirming effect upon one another and ultimately serve to limit the autonomy of the person.
Career Counseling, if implemented in the right way, can go a long way in understanding the employee’s inherent needs in the organization. A successful career counseling trait can help the business unit HR’s to make HR a strategic business partner working in tandem with the line function. Career development tools like the Career Power cannot really have teeth unless the business unit HR’s take it upon themselves to be an active participant in shaping an employee’s career and hence empowerment of the employees.
