CAREER DEVELOPMENT IN A LEARNING ORGANIZATION

formal inclusion of the career development of the individuals in their service contract
with the organization of their work.
This research may not have a strong impact on the employees hired on daily basis
or for a short time period thereby not completing the whole process of development. In
such cases the scope limits to that of an advisory role of the organization.
The concept of a learning organization ethically devolves the responsibility of
career development to the organization, but that still does not make it imperative for the
organization to include career development plan as a part of their organizational strategy.
This is presently practiced by many organizations but where the organization finds taking
such a responsibility as strenuous it sets its priorities otherwise.
Under the recent shift in business management and development, many of the
management features to which formerly the organization’s commitment was only ethical
such as Training and Development, wellness programs, safety and security, etc, are now
being formally taken up. This is because the need for such management features cannot
be denied in present management system. This study focuses on taking up similar kind of
efforts, i.e. to establish a strong felt need for individual career development and to
formally integrate staff career development plan into organization’s business
development plan. This would create a winning situation for both the organization and
individuals. This would enable the individuals to see their growth, in the growth and
development of the business of the organization.
The concept of a learning organization is an ideal supportive environment to the
formal introduction of such career related intervention. As Peggy Simonson (1997)
highlighted that career development planning includes the three components – Self
assessment, environment assessment and action plan, but the information drawn for these
three components may not have been acquired through formal processes. This means that
due to the informal nature of information collected for the purpose raises the credibility
issue against such information.
It is not possible to put the whole processes in a formal generalized framework
because of the human preferences, interests and values involved in the designing stage,
which varies from individual to individual. In addition, the variation in perception may
also lead to variation in the interpretation of such values and interests. But leaving room