The individual retains his personal responsibility for advancing his career interests by seeking information (not waiting for it to be given) about the promotion system from his immediate manager or another designated person or group. He should also periodically seek unbiased professional counseling about possible directions for his career. The source may be inside the company or independent of it. Further, he should test his value from time to time with other firms, other kinds of institutions, and so on in order to determine whether his personal standards for progress are realistic. In making intelligent use of promotion procedures, the individual becomes in effect a program manager for his own career. He postulates targets, negotiates contributions from others, develops progress checks, and adjusts his program and schedule as he learns more about himself and his talents and as his values mature. Methods and skills for program management have been developed in defense businesses for major projects. Expertise is at a high level, so a man need not invent the process for himself.
Interpretive Communication
Communication between management and employees must not only be full; it must be interpretive as well. The mere description of how lists of candidates are prepared to fill openings, how the screening is conducted and who makes the final selection is just a skeleton of the information employees need. Interpretive communication tells not only how lists are prepared but at what time and by what process names are considered for inclusion in such a list. Do nominees come from current managers or do personnel placement specialists suggest them on the basis of employee records? Which are the access points from the employee's point of view? When and how should he make his interests and his desire known?
Is there only one channel, through his immediate manager, or are there alternate routes? In the presentation of business plans to a given employee or work group it is not enough for a firm to describe new areas of effort. It should interpret the plans by pointing out the possible implications of the need for more management talent, greater market development skill, new technology needs, and the like. In other words, relevant points from the master personnel plan are made known. The communication is not only factual, then, but aimed rather precisely at those who, interested in career implications for themselves, will learn about them while those who give inadequate attention to the development of their careers will find their interest aroused.
On the employee side of the responsibility ledger, there are key initiatives to be taken. An employee has the obligation to express his career interests when they appear to be in consonance with those of the organization. He shouldn't wait for a system to be activated before doing this but should take the lead in this regard. When channels are designated, however, he should use them. If a format for doing so is prescribed, he should follow it. If part of the problem of the system is its lack of currency, he should assume the initiative to keep it up to date.
In return, the management system must keep the employee's confidence so that his career desires are known only to those he has previously agreed to inform. His expression of interest should be without penalty if it should be contrary to the interests of his present assignment or department.
Personal Skills
The philosophy, the procedures, and the communication are unlikely to be implemented by chance. At each step, individuals with all manner of personal styles and all degrees of personal ambition are involved, and their skills-their collective expression of behavior and attitude-determine in large measure the success of career management in the firm.
The president who espouses a philosophy and then gives it only lip service, always rewarding the most favorable profit and loss (P&L) situation, may be sincere, but he is certainly at best inept. He needs to develop recognition skills and practices that adequately reward performance in the career advancement area.
The manager who seeks information on employee interests must be an astute and sensitive interviewer. The manager who appraises performance and attempts to translate it into predictive trends must be aware of the potential inaccuracy of such forecasts as well as the possible negative effect on motivation.
The personnel officer who evolves and explains the promotion system must do so from the customer's viewpoint, the customer being not only the manager whose position needs to be filled but any employee who might want the job.
The employee who wishes consideration for a better job must learn how to present his qualifications and interests adequately. He must learn to demonstrate his abilities. He must learn how to interview and be interviewed. He must have skill in negotiating the terms under which he accepts a job when one is offered.
A More Comprehensive System
It should be clear that career management as described is not a simpler system than manpower planning. It adds complexity by increasing the responsibilities of all involved. It demands new tools and processes and therefore new skills on the part of those who use them.
Most of the unanswered problems and questions of manpower planning can be circumvented if they're studied and the individual employee is given greater access to the system. Then he will know more about business plans and alternatives, participate in and take more responsibility for development beyond his current job, and be in a stronger, self-nominative position when openings occur.
We do not recommend that manpower planning be dropped but rather that the one-sidedness of the process be eliminated. At each stage of the process where a unilateral decision is usually made based frequently on one-sided information as well, change it so as to give clear access to employees. The problem, of course, lies in making this access real with adequate vehicles for personal input. Mere lip service to an open system will only make matters worse, as will inordinate administrative burdens placed on management. The first step, then, is a more detailed delineation of the roles and responsibilities of the individual and the institution.
