Back to list of articles

Designing Career Development Workshops

26.09.2008

| More

The following example of a promotion to employees to participate in a career training workshop was preceded by considerable work by members of this employer's HR staff. This article covers some of the aspects of what needs to happen before such a learning event can be launched.

Objectives of Career Training

1. Educate

To educate staff in the area of career self-management in order to help empower them to take responsibility for their own career mobility and job productivity and continued employability

2. Guide

To guide staff in the use of specific career analysis and planning methods for the purpose of enhancing their self-confidence and developing a deeper partnership between their changing individual needs and the organisation's goals.

3. Coach and Support

To coach and support staff to take specific career initiativesthat would result in increased work satisfaction and productivity

This training program is a learning partnership between the company and the staff for optimising individual career success, contribution to customer problem-solving and productivity. It is not a placement or outplacement program.

Your role as a participant is taking responsibility for your own career growth and job productivity while making a contribution to the organisation and our customers. Responsibility includes taking the initiative in your career planning, negotiating with management for your self-development needs and recognising ways in which you can add value to the organisation.

The organizations role is joining staff at all levels to support career self-management practices. Joining includes career guidance, recognition for experimentation and job performance, and encouragement for ongoing personal and professional learning.

Different perspectives

You will need to be aware of the different perspectives of staff when preparing your workshop. For example:

To the employee participation in career development training can mean:

• performing better in current job;
• showing commitment and interest in personal growth, taking initiative to develop self;
• assessing goals, choices, abilities, determining career goals;
• matching goals with organizational needs;
• planning for personal development and increased well-being.

To the line manager participation in career development can mean:

• matching individual's skills and interests to organization's needs;
• giving helpful feedback on performance;
• discussing performance and personal development with employees;
• selecting work assignments, training and education, special projects;
• being a mentor and a coach for employees;
• recognising that career development does not mean grooming every employee for management.

To senior management career development can mean:

• developing long-term capabilities of the organization;
• providing information on the organization's mission and direction;
• being aware of employee concerns regarding their development and their future;
• implementing systems and providing resources for human resource development;

Workshop Participants

The agenda participants seek to resolve when attending career training is diverse. Some concerns for which answers are likely to be sought are:

Career Options

• help with work-life planning concerns.
• need for career information.
• what the employer expects of me.
• determining appropriate type of career path in relation to training and experience.
• determining appropriate type of career path in relation to one's interests, values, skills and personality.
• preparing for next career review discussion with manager.
• changing career path.
• long-range occupational planning.
• disbelief that work can be a source of satisfaction.
• apprehension about change.
• decision-making help
• how to write a career plan document.

Career Transitions

• help in changing to a part-time job or job-sharing arrangement.
• obtaining a transfer locally, interstate or overseas.
• résumé guidance.
• job application coaching (promotion, transfer, re-employment).
• interview training (one-to-one and selection panels).
• help with tertiary education course selection.
• help with mature-age tertiary education entry applications.

Career development workshops

The most effective workshop content helps individuals to analyze their interests, values, goals and capabilities; consider their options; make decisions relating to their current job; and establish personal development plans. This help can be provided by structured exercises, individual and small group tasks, skill-teaching demonstrations, and use of self-assessment instruments, worksheets and workbooks.

What is selected or designed should help participants to

• increase their knowledge about how to influence their own career and rely less on their employer to initiate actions about their progress;
• gain significant improvement in personal skills in career analysis, planning and goal setting;
• learn to do their own career development and deal with controllable career issues themselves;
• learn more about their employer and opportunities within the organization;
• develop realistic career plans and personal preparation programs;
• communicate to others what they seek and why they merit it;
• identify all their skills and capabilities and their relevance to career satisfaction;
• acquire skills—and practise them—in how to implement their career decisions and achieve desired results.

The workshop facilitator / trainer

A trainer planning to help others take charge of the controllable things in their lives and careers needs to consider many factors:

• the material aspects of the workshop, including publicity and physical arrangements;
• the purpose and desired outcomes of the workshop;
• how to introduce the workshop to participants;
• the overall design of the workshop;
• tuition components of the workshop;
• selection of learning aids, such as career assessment instruments, self-learning designs, handouts, workbooks, PowerPoint, videos, group topic discussion exercises;
• desirable maximum of participants per workshop;
• voluntary participation or compulsory or by invitation;
• offered wholly or partly in company time;
• workshops of various lengths.

Trainers who are skilled at facilitating career development workshops are likely to have a set of supporting beliefs for their work in the planning of learning activities such as:

• people are responsible for their own careers—at any time they have the right to try to change their work life circumstances.
• personal career management techniques can be learned in an educational setting but real skills development occurs when career action step decisions are implemented.
• exploration of enrichment of current job role and new learning possibilities should occur before alternatives—such as career change, Lateral transfer, career downshifting, resignation or early retirement—are considered.
• detailed information—about self, about those for whom one cares, about the employment environment where one works—must be gathered before meaningful career planning, decision making and sustainable career progress can take place.
• career planning requires a thorough review of one's life management, as well as employment circumstances, in order for the gains in work life to be holistically fulfilling.
• some will require more support than others but essentially career development is carried out by the person who has the career concern.
• most people enjoy knowing themselves better but few are able to make and implement specific actionable career plans without some coaching or mentoring assistance.
• employers are not responsible for providing happiness at work—they did not promise it on engagement, nor is it their main reason for employing people.
• it is never too late to set out to find fulfillment in one's work.

Need for a model

All the above are complex considerations. A trainer preparing to conduct career development workshops and selecting the tuition components can be assisted by a model of career development i.e. an overall concept of the activities involved in resolving career concerns. Here is a suggested model:

MODEL OF CAREER DEVELOPMENT

Stage One: Self-Assessment

Clarify issues and concerns — Assemble an information base through structured analysis — Review current job effectiveness — Check employment experiences — Abilities — Interests — Values — Primary wants — Employment environment preferences — Lifestyle considerations

Stage Two: Interpreting Data

Analysis — Transferable skills identification — Career requirements developed — Resolve ambiguities — Lifestyle integration — Monetary needs and considerations — Barriers to success — Identify perceived and real constraints

Stage Three: Opportunity Awareness

Collect information — Research — Organization information gathering — Reality testing — Cultivate a network — Mentoring — Evaluate results — Select career action(s) options

Stage Four: Decision Learning

Evaluate career action options — Trade-offs — Decide on goals — Prepare Career Action Step Proposal

Stage Five: Transition Training

Schedule career transition actions — Rehearse for negotiations — Develop strategies for success — Check career action preparation — Prepare requests for approval — Audit career transition progress

Stage Six: Transition Accomplished

Review of completed career action steps — Assessment of well-being

This model can be expressed in different ways such as:

Who Am I Today?

• How to identify what I want from work
• Learning career analysis methods
• Extending awareness of transferable skills
• Carrying out a thorough work and life management review

Where Do I Want to Go?

• Identifying career path options
• Conducting research / information interviews
• Networking for career information
• Developing career plans, goals, timetables for realistic options

How Will I Make a Decision?

• Evaluating alternatives and carrying out reality testing
• Learning how to decide between options
• Selecting a mentor, sponsor and coach

How Will I Get There?

• Learning the skills of career transition
• Preparing submissions on what you seek and why you merit it
• Using career support facilities provided by employer
• Negotiating with those with the power to help

Needs assessment

It helps to conduct an audit to identify the needs you want to satisfy, then develop a tuition content strategy.

In assessing what needs relating to career development actually exist within your organisation gather information from and about employees. Sample poll their attitudes towards themselves, their career and their employer. Sample poll managers on the organisation's culture and their career development philosophy plus their views on the effectiveness or otherwise of career support services which already exist.

Needs assessment distils down to basic questions such as:

• What do we want? Create a wish list of your ideal career development facilities to meet needs within your organisation.
• What do we already have? Among your human resource development programs, procedures and employee benefits exist many career development support services and activities.
• What can we realistically do? Rationality is required as you hone your wish list to the organization's ability or preparedness to deliver. Realistic needs assessment and the planning of subsequent training events should prevent unrealistic expectations and reduce risk. The key to effective career development training is in developing more realistic—not raised—expectations among staff.

Communication

A person participating in a career training workshop should be eager to learn how to feel more in charge of their career direction and be prepared to invest time and emotional energy to bring desired results to fruition.

In defining the purposes of a workshop to your target group of participants, it is important to stress the part that they will play in their own learning. Some of the ways in which you might describe a career workshop to potential attendees are as follows:

• To help you to learn about yourself and the way you view and feel about your life at work.
• To help you to cope with changes within yourself, in your job and in other facets of your life.
• To allow you to practise a process of self-directed enquiry as a means to obtaining better answers to your own questions.
• To help you to discover your options and generate realistic alternatives from the information that you develop about yourself and your career.

In defining the skills to be gained from the workshop, consider including the following in your communication:

• To learn what you can and want to do.
• To express what has personal meaning and value for you in your job and career.
• To track or anticipate changes that may impact the quality of your life.
• To discover various ways in which to make the contribution that you want to make; to make happen what needs to be done.
• To master the anxieties that accompany change and the process of making choices.
• To renew yourself and to avoid personal obsolescence; to be a self-directed learner.

Preference for learning media

A caution though ! Workshops are a popular form of employer-delivered career support. This method of tuition is not for all as people learn in different ways. They may prefer to learn career skills and self-manage their career review by accessing structured career planning workbooks, career self-help libraries or CBCGS (Computer-based Career Guidance Systems).

Back to list of articles