“Successful careers develop when people are prepared for opportunities”-Harvard Business Review.
Career management and progression (CMP) is a life-long process that motivates you to accomplish your future career goals. If the career goals are planned properly, you can achieve growth, a sense of fulfillment, and financial stability. CMP is a sequential process where the first step involves understanding your true self. It prepares you better for the job market and helps you progress in your career. Certain elements work together to help you achieve a clear career management plan. These elements include:
- Self-awareness
- Professional development
- Life-long learning
- Networking
Let us understand why you should pay equal attention to all these elements and how they can help you manage your career better.
Self-Awareness
Being self-aware is important because it helps in your personal and professional life. When you are aware of your strengths and weaknesses, you can improve your overall personality and give more focus to your development. Using this trait, you can establish more meaningful relationships with your peers and superiors.
Benefits of self-awareness
Some of the benefits that you can achieve after developing this trait are mentioned below.
- Ensures empathy towards others
When you are aware of your feelings, you are more likely to show empathy toward others. It can help you develop your professional network by letting you build more meaningful relationships with people at work.
- Improves critical thinking abilities
You can conduct an in-depth analysis of your personality to become self-aware. Such analysis improves your critical thinking abilities and makes you more related to your surroundings.
- Improves leadership skills
If you are willing to emerge as a great leader, you must know how to become self-aware. Self-awareness in leadership helps you understand how your traits affect those working with you.
- Provides more self-control
Awareness helps you understand your emotions. At the same time, you also understand the need to control your emotions. It helps you manage your workplace situations more calmly.
- Enhances creativity
You can become more creative because of your ability to practice self-awareness. You can find multiple solutions to workplace problems owing to your creativity.
- Improves adaptability
You become adaptable by being self-aware. As you have experience implementing changes in your behavior, you become more hospitable.
- Ensures higher self-esteem
Self-esteem is vital as it makes you feel more confident about yourself. By being self-aware you understand different traits of your personality. You can learn from your failures which in turn, enhances your self-esteem.
One of the ways to improve self-awareness is through mentoring. You can connect with your friends, colleagues, or anyone who can mentor you. It will give you a safe space to learn and develop.
Professional Development
Professional development is another key metric of CMP. With professional development, you get a chance to shine in your present and future roles. You can understand the trends affecting your industry. Moreover, you will learn the skills and expertise needed to perform better in your current job. Other benefits of professional development are:
- Enhances efficiency
When you are the master in your field, it reflects on the work you do. Attending a professional development course will help you improve your efficiency, and you can attend to more tasks.
- Facilitates networking
Most professional development courses are offered by industry experts. Attending such events helps you build your professional network. You can connect to experts and learn the techniques to improve your work quality.
- Keeps you updated
Getting busy with everyday work may not leave you the time to develop additional skills. When you attend a professional development course, you get insights into your industry and the relevant skills needed to thrive in your domain.
- Helps you become the best employee you can be
To become the best version of yourself in the workplace, you need to have multiple qualities. You can develop relevant skills, work on your personality traits, and build your knowledge through professional development courses.
- Helps you accomplish career goals
Everyone has specific goals that they want to accomplish during their professional journey. Developing your skills gives you the opportunity to move forward toward your career goals.
Engaging in self-development activities motivates you to uplevel yourself. You can add to your existing knowledge and skills by identifying the knowledge-skill gaps.
Life-long Learning
Life-long learning helps you achieve personal fulfillment and satisfaction. It focuses on intuitiveness and helps you take advantage of your curious nature. The focus is on attaining knowledge from any source you can.
Here are a few kinds of life-long learning initiatives that you can engage in.
- Developing a new skill
- Self-taught study
- Learning a new activity
Benefits of life-long learning
Some of the benefits of getting yourself indulged in attaining new skills are:
- Renewed self-motivation
At times, you may feel drained out of energy, but you continue doing the designated work. It may not leave you with any motivation to complete the task. Figuring out what inspires you to put you back in action and help you achieve meaningful things.
- Recognition of personal interests and goals
Life-long learning helps you find your interests. If you are involved in career management and progression (CMP), you must be eager to unravel unknown facts. You never know where your interests may take you if you pay attention to them.
- Skill improvement
On your way to learning new skills and acquiring knowledge, you also develop other valuable skills. Lifelong learning can help you develop interpersonal skills, creativity, problem-solving, and logical thinking abilities.
- Improved self-confidence
Becoming skilled at a particular task improves self-confidence in personal and professional life. It gives a sense of accomplishment, and you become more interested in learning and improving yourself.
Lifelong learning is a way to self-improvement and acquire new skills. This can benefit your professional life by bringing you close to organizational goals.
Networking
One of the most crucial aspects of CMP is networking with industry experts. By leveraging your social or professional connections, you can attain new roles. Using your network is one of the best ways to find new jobs. Other benefits of a strong professional connection are:
- Contributes to social well being
Having a balanced life is critical. It means having the right amount of social exposure. Networking contributes to your social well-being and helps you develop a meaningful relationship in and outside your workspace.
- Helps you exchange ideas
When you are with like-minded people, your brain works differently. You may get involved in meaningful discussions that impact your social and professional connections. Hearing about what people are doing to upskill themselves may motivate you to enroll in skill development activities.
- Makes you approachable
Establishing meaningful connections with your seniors allows you to learn from them. Likewise, you get the chance to mingle with your peers and juniors. These connections give you opportunities for mentorship and career development.
- Improves confidence
Expanding your professional network helps you get out of your introverted nature. Networking places are great to practice your communication and social skills.
If you are thinking of expanding your professional network, you must start small. Moreover, focus on shared interests when striking up a conversation with the other person.
Indicators of the effectiveness of CMP Programs
The objective of designing a CMP program is to provide growth and development opportunities to employees. Some of the parameters that judge the effectiveness of this program are:
- Matching the standards with results
Every program is designed to fulfill certain goals or objectives. Comparison between the established goals and achievement is the best indicator of the effectiveness of CMP programs. However, the results must be calculated without any biases.
- Self-awareness among employees
Another parameter to judge the effectiveness of career management programs is to measure the effects the programs have on employees. If employees feel they have achieved a better sense of self-awareness and self-determination, the program is effective.
- The balance between employee and organization objectives and requirements
After implementing the CMP programs, there must be better communication at all levels across the organization. Moreover, you must be able to match your career objectives with the vision and mission of the organization. If these goals are not met, it can be concluded that the CMP program remained ineffective.
- Changes in performance indexes
Other positive indicators to measure the effectiveness of career development programs are to measure employee performance and satisfaction. Improved employee morale, reduced turnover rates, reduced absenteeism, and improved promotions are a few indicators of changes in the performance indexes.
Measuring the effectiveness of the CMP program becomes crucial if organizations want to track the development of their employees. Likewise, it tells employees if they have taken the maximum benefits from such professional development programs.
Suggested Read: Green Skill Development Programme - What Schools Must Know
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