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Career management vs career development. What’s the difference?

Getting the best out of ourselves and our workforce requires ongoing effort. What are the various approaches to learning and development? And, crucially, who should be in the driving seat – the employer or the employee?

As with a lot of things in life, there isn’t one single ‘right’ answer, only a range of options to choose from depending on what you or your organisation need to achieve. There is also some crossover too – because of course every approach involves a person and learning of some description. The most common approaches are career management, career development, personal development and performance management.

Posted 16/05/2022

Career management vs career development - the key differences

  • What is career management?

    The term ‘career’ refers to an individual’s entire working life. For many, it will involve a succession of roles, some perhaps with one particular organisation, some with multiple employers. Individual progression involves changing tasks, spending time doing different jobs, temporary or permanent promotions, transfers etc. – and usually requires the learning of new skills along the way. Career management can include activity initiated by either the individual or the employer to boost their progress or promotional prospects. The resulting impact can be to enhance status, improve conditions and increase job satisfaction.

  • What is career development? (also known as professional development)

    Career development means working on specific skill sets required for professional progression. Examples might be working on professional qualifications in order to move up to the next level of responsibility or learning a practical skills such as how to budget effectively. Career development is more effective when the employee takes ownership of the process – it does require them to become more self-aware and to actively participate in improvement exercises. A structured career development plan typically includes self-assessment, manager and peer feedback, coaching and training – all geared towards enhancing skills and subsequently moving into a more senior or different role.

  • What is personal development?

    This tends to focus more on ‘softer’ skills such as managing conflict, leadership training, communicating more effectively and time management. Some of these will have a positive impact in personal life as well at work and will help individual employees to not only understand and develop their own behaviours, they will also gain useful insight into their impact on those around them.

  • What is performance management?

    With performance management, the business is firmly in the driving seat. Ideally, it is a process that sets specific goals and objectives for individuals which align closely with business goals and objectives. The idea is that by enhancing individual performance related skills, the business achieves what it needs to. An example would be undertaking customer service training across any entire department or business in order to achieve an uplift in customer retention over time.

Which approach is right for your business?

A structured programme

Having a structured programme in place that allows both your organisation and your employees to benefit is clearly the ideal. But if the business is investing money, time and resources into any form of programme, it’s also important to clarify the objectives. Traditional training or expensive one-to-one coaching as stand-alone programmes are not the only options. And for many, a solution that enables flexibility and some employee autonomy is the most effective.

A key question to ask is who needs to be in the driving seat – the business or the individual employee? If business objectives are specific – such as achieving growth targets within a set timetable – then a structured and targeted plan defined by the HR and Training team in line with departmental managers might be suitable.

A more flexible solution

But for longer term and perhaps wider reaching objectives such as continuous improvements in productivity and efficiency, becoming an employer or choice, or enhancing talent development and employee retention - a more flexible and wide-ranging solution is preferable.

Employers will understandably be focused on the core objectives of the company and the skills and behaviours it requires from its people in order to achieve them. But there could also be crossover with individual needs and goals too. For example, the junior Finance person who wants to do their accountancy exams in order to further their career prospects might also be someone identified within your talent development programme as a future Finance department leader. Providing a structured and focused plan that enables the individual to further their personal career goals as well as developing their management skills will ultimately meet the needs of both.

Why self-service has benefits to both employer and employee

The days of imposing classroom style training on large groups of employees have long since passed. One of the exciting developments in the learning and skills arena in recent years has been the explosion of new options to consider. From interactive e-learning and video conferences to tailored performance assessment tools and online coaching programmes: the variety now available is impressive. The other key change is that because of the sheer breadth of options now available online and on demand, the opportunity for employees to 'self-serve' at their own pace has changed the dynamic.

Self-service is good for employers because it means employees take ownership of their learning and development, are actively choosing to participate, and can do more (not less) because they can participate at their own pace. Employers love motivated employees who are actively enhancing their skills and bringing those benefits into the workplace on a daily basis. And employees love to take charge of their personal and professional development and tailor their learning to their future plans and goals.

It’s a win:win for everyone.

Ready to take action? Perhaps now is the time to consider investing in a solution that can actively meet the needs of your individual employees as well as your organisation? For a modern approach for today’s workforce, talk to Access about our career development platform – and discover how easy it is to deliver market-leading, personalised programmes to your employees.