Career Development
- Darlene Edgar
Ford, J. K. (2021). Learning in organizations: An evidence-based approach. Routledge.
Building individual capabilities:
Career Development:
Involves movements through dimensions: upwards in hierarchy, laterally across subfields, and towards influential job functions.
Individuals transition from newcomer to insider, expanding knowledge, skills, and utilizing talents.
Targets technical proficiency and general competencies.
Newcomer Development:
Strong onboarding reduces early turnover; variety of strategies include web-based sources, formal training, coaching, and mentoring.
Effective onboarding is a planned, engaging, and participatory activity over time.
Orientation and Initial Training:
Aims to provide newcomers with a sense of the job, duties, expectations, policies, and resources.
Quality and quantity of this learning impact readiness and satisfaction.
Emphasizes the four C’s: compliance, clarification, cultural norms, and connection.
Organizational Socialization:
Learning and adjustment process for understanding values, norms, and expected behaviors.
Takes months, can be formal or informal.
Tactics include institutionalized (formal) and individualized (informal) approaches.
Guided Learning (Buddy System):
Utilizes apprenticeships and on-the-job training.
Apprenticeships involve formal programs for skilled trades, leading to higher income and lower income inequality in Europe.
On-the-job training is informal, carried out at the workplace, and requires careful planning for success.
Enhancing Capabilities:
Work experiences enhance performance; diversity and complexity increase job performance.
Job rotation and project-to-project rotation provide skill variety, job satisfaction, and enrichment.
Informal Learning:
Self-directed, intentional, and field-based.
Highly experiential, self-initiated, and under the learner’s control.
Factors affecting outcomes include support, resources, and forming learning networks.
Deliberate Practice:
Structured activities to increase mastery and performance.
Relevant for highly technical jobs and involves complex learning in dynamic situations.
Four Strategies for Generalization and Self-Learning:
Estimation, Experimentation, Extrapolation, and Explanation.
Factors Affecting Informal Learning:
Support from leaders and team members, and investment in learning resources.
Career Development:
Mid-level individuals need to maintain or enhance skills.
Skill updating methods include traditional, blended learning, and microlearning.
Self-Management:
Career development is becoming self-directed.
Challenges in workplaces supporting self-management lead to unmet expectations.
Digital Badging and Micro Credentials:
Validate skills through short courses; employers can verify earned badges.
Best Practice Guidelines:
Onboarding involves stakeholders, milestones, and technology.
Orientation focuses on compliance, clarification, cultural norms, and connection.
Socialization emphasizes intentional processes and 12 dimensions.
On-the-job training requires organized content, effective demonstration, and continuous feedback.
Encourage informal learning, hold leaders accountable, and support skill updating and self-management strategies.