Conflicting priorities in Career Management

Career Management, as distinct from succession planning, supposedly takes care of aspirations of employees. Hence it is from the point of view of the employee.

But is an employee the only party involved in the process of shaping his career? There exists a number of ‘lenses’ – organizational lens, lens of the parent hierarchy (as manifested by immediate boss), lens of the ‘receiving’ hierarchy, and lens of the employee himself.

What are the interests of these different lenses and how do they interact to shape the career of an employee?

Organizations might have different definitions of career growth. Vertical as well as horizontal movements might be seen as growth avenues. There also might be an assumption that all individuals want vertical/horizontal career growth.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks to career planning comes from the immediate superior of an individual. The immediate superior has a primary interest –that of ensuring performance of his team. It becomes easier for him to ensure team performance if an individual stays longer. This primary interest at times is at odds with the interest of the individual. Sometimes you will find superiors not sharing details of career opportunities with their subordinates, as they do not want to let go of them. This is where mechanisms like Internal Job Portals come in. But even when you provide visibility of career opportunities to individual employee’s, a boss still wields significant power. He may actively dissuade an employee from applying for certain positions. I wonder whether this kind of behavior is over the board. He may also act very difficult in letting go of an employee who has been selected for another position (‘He is working on important projects. I can’t relieve him from his current role for next 6 months.’)

Even within the same company you find some departments/functions where employees from non-traditional backgrounds do well, and other departments/functions where a non-traditional profile struggles to perform. Career Moves involve making moves outside your own specialization areas. A recipient function plays a large role in setting up a cross-functional mover for success or failure. From an organizational perspective, it is important to recognize which functions are hostile to incoming career movers and work with them to change their behaviors. From an individual employees perspective, it is important to factor in what kind of support systems would be available in a function the employee is considering making a movement into. The recipient function also faces a challenge of figuring out on what basis to select/reject internal candidates – a sensitive issue.

What about the individual employee? Career Management/Planning is meant to take care of his aspirations. What happens if an employee wants to specialize but the company believes in general managerial competence? What happens if an employee wants to work in different functions in a company that believes in specialization? Many a times employees equate growth with promotions – how does a company ensure that even horizontal movements are seen by employees as growth opportunities? Career Management is based on the assumption that employees are aspirational. There are different life stages when an employee may not desire movement. Would such an employee not be considered ‘career oriented’ and subsequently ‘discounted’? For an employee his career is enmeshed with the other roles he plays outside work in his family/society– what happens when there are clashes between these different roles?

Career Management/Planning is necessary but there are multiple and conflicting priorities that tug at the process. At the end of the day, the ‘employee lens’ is what a Career Management/Planning process is supposed to cater to. But this can be done effectively only by identifying and managing the conflicting priorities of all stakeholders.

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Sourav