Employee Career Development Path Planning
The corporate development career path planning is an important management function practised by renowned enterprises all over the world. It is a win-win situation for both the organization as well as the employees. While a person can enhance his/her skills by opting to walk the organizational development career path, the organization too can leverage the enhanced skills of its employees to reach its goals.
A separate development path is charted for each level. For example, a business development executive follows a business development career trajectory and a departmental head/manager takes the leadership development career path. This article provides an overview of the career development programmes in the corporate world.
Leadership Development Career Path
A leader, as the saying goes, “knows the way, goes the way and shows the way.” He is not there in an organization just to give orders to the people but to critically assess the ‘present’ and respond to the upcoming changes by making the manpower future-ready. Even they need to undergo training and hence, the organization designs a leadership development career path for its most deserving leaders. A well-planned leadership program equips a person with the following skills and abilities:
Improved productivity
Employee handling
Risk management
Change management
Enhanced understanding of corporate culture
Team building
Improved decision-making
Influencing and negotiation
Communication
Managerial skills
Technical skills such as data analysis
Career Path for a Business Development Manager
Career progression path of a business development manager is very lucrative. A perfect blend of sales and marketing skills can be observed in the career path for business development managers. Apart from that, planning, strategy development, analysis and negotiation are also required in the career path for business development managers. To pursue the career path and development as a business development manager, one can opt from various categories such as Sales, Marketing, PR, Finance, Strategic Management or other related sectors. It is suggested to enhance your career path for business development manager after acquiring some experiences in the above-mentioned sectors.
Skills Required for Career Path Growth as a Business Development Manager
The following skills are required for a budding business development manager to flourish the career progression path:
Gain detailed knowledge about business operations.
Try to develop research skills. Research skill is very important as far as the career path and development as a business development manager is concerned.
Analysis of the business is also very important.
You have to develop your communication skill to a higher level.
As a business development manager, you have to represent various things in front of many unknown people. Rich communication skills play a very significant role in creating a career path for employees as business development managers.
Creating a Career Path for Employees
An advancement roadmap is termed as the career path of a certain company. Creating a career path is one of the key reasons for the development of a particular company. Career paths are created for the following reasons:
To preserve the efficient employees
To make the employees realize their requirements in the company
To draw the attention of top achievers
To enhance the collective ability, experience and variety in the workforce
To architect an employee-friendly atmosphere
To gain an advantage over the competition with the other employers in the market
Creating a Career Path for Employees Can Be Done in the Following Ways:
Periodical update of the organizational chart
Job positions must be properly defined
A complete roadmap for each and every skill must be tracked
Requirements of training should be identified
Training and development programmes must be architected
The entire career path programme must be documented properly
Plan the career path growth for each employee
Did You Know?
According to a survey conducted in 2018, 98% of employees prefer to join companies that provide career path growth opportunities.
More than 80% of current employees are looking for online skill development programmes.
As per IBM, behavioural skills still top the list of criteria that global enterprises look for in their employees. Thus this is given a priority while designing a corporate development career path.
The above article focussed on discussing various development paths in light of many important sectors. If you want to pursue your career path for business development manager, leadership development manager, etc., the article may be the Bible for you!
FAQs on Career Development Path: Strategies for Success
Q1. What are the Elements of Designing the Career Path for a Business Development Manager?
The elements of designing the career path for a business development manager are as follows:
Objectives- First, the objective(s) have to be set clearly- both from the organizational as well as an individual point of view. This means sales target to be achieved, customer relationships to be built, customer relationship management goals to be achieved, etc. These are all organizational objectives. Personal objectives should also be set- what skills to be acquired and why and so on. All the objectives should be SMART- Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timebound.
Choosing the right training module and mentor
Assessment after training completion
Creation of the scope for career progression in the field of business development.
Q2. Do Leaders Need Mentors? Why?
In creating a career path for employees, organizations also consider mentoring its potential leaders. The idea behind the creation of a leadership development career path is:
No one, in a true sense, is a born leader. Leadership skills are honed
Being a leader doesn’t imply that he knows everything
Only a mentor can share his experience with a leader
Mentors show the bigger picture
This is the reason why all great leaders have a mentor.
