Career control - organisational vs individual control

Without even meaning to, many companies take a paternalistic attitude toward their employees' careers.

Intent on filling a role, the human resources department searches out the person they feel is the best candidate. But, afterwards, the aim is often solely to keep that person in the role for as long as possible.

That's because if — or when — they move on, HR has to go to the effort and expense of recruiting for the position all over again.

Of course, the employee has his or her own career plans. These plans can be totally at odds with the desires of management and HR.

But because of an implied 'don't ask, don't tell' policy, management and the executive never discuss how their plans interact.

This approach is both unnecessarily adversarial and short sighted. Although it might appear to save the company money on recruiting, the costs mount in the long run.

In the long term, the company is left with an increasingly unfulfilled employee who has a rapidly declining interest in the job, feels little loyalty to the company, is unlikely to shift across into other roles, and may even spread a jaundiced view of the company after his or her departure.

The fact is that both people and roles change. A career management policy that recognises and embraces this fact is more likely to pay dividends for the company than one that ignores it.

Flexibility and communication are the keys.