Additional Learning Exercises and Applications
DISPLAY 11.3 Justifications for Career Development
Reduces employee attrition
Provides equal employment opportunity Increases opportunities for employee growth Improves quality of work life
Improves competitiveness of the organization Avoids obsolescence and builds new skills Promotes evidence-based practice
Individual Responsibility for Career Development
Despite the many obvious benefits of career development programs, some nurses never create a personal career plan or set goals they wish to accomplish during their career. Instead, nursing becomes just a job and not a career. This viewpoint limits opportunities for professional advancement and personal growth because what cannot be imagined rarely becomes a reality. The impact of positive role modeling by nurse-leaders in influencing this perception cannot be understated.
Career development should begin with an assessment of self as well as one’s work environment, job analysis, education, training, job search and acquisition, and work experience. This is known as career planning. Career planning includes evaluating one’s strengths and weaknesses, setting goals, examining career opportunities, preparing for potential opportunities, and using appropriate developmental activities.
Career planning in nursing should begin with an individual’s decision about educational entry level for practice and quickly expand to developing advanced skills in an area of nursing practice. Even for the entry- level nurse, career planning should include, at minimum, a commitment to the use of evidence-based practice, learning new skills or bettering practice with the assistance of role models and mentors, staying aware of and
being involved in professional issues, and furthering one’s education. At best, it should include long-term career goals as well as a specific plan to achieve lifelong learning.
Every nurse should proactively develop a career plan that provides opportunities for new learning, challenges, and opportunities for career divergence.
The Organization’s Role in Employee Career Development
Organizations also have some responsibility to assist employees with their career development. One such responsibility is the creation of career paths and advancement/career ladders (a structured sequence of job positions through which a person can progress in an organization) (BusinessDictionary.com, 2016a) for employees. It must also attempt to match position openings with appropriate people. This includes accurately assessing employees’ performance and potential in order to offer the most appropriate career guidance, education, and training. Other organizational responsibilities include the following:
Integrating needs. The human resources department, nursing division, nursing units, and education department must work and plan together to match job openings with the skills and talents of present employees.
Establishing career paths. Career paths must not only be developed but must also be communicated to the staff and implemented consistently. When designing career paths, each successive job in each path should contain additional responsibilities and duties that are greater than the previous jobs in that path.
Each successive job also must be related to and use previous skills.
Once career paths are established, they must be communicated effectively to all concerned staff. What employees must do to advance in a particular path should be very clear. Although various forms of career ladders have existed for some time, they are still not widely used. This problem is not unique to nursing.
Even when health-care organizations design and use a career structure, the system often breaks down once the nurse leaves that organization. For example, nurses at the level of Clinical Nurse 3 in one hospital will usually lose that status when they leave the organization for another position.
Disseminating career information. The education department, human resources department, and unit manager are all responsible for sharing career information; however, employees should not be encouraged to pursue unrealistic goals.
Posting job openings. Although this is usually the responsibility of the human resources department, the manager should communicate this information, even when it means that one of the unit staff may transfer to another area. Effective managers know who needs to be encouraged to apply for openings and who is ready for more responsibility and challenges.
Assessing employees. One of the benefits of a good appraisal system is the important information that it gives the manager on the performance, potential, and abilities of all staff members. The use of short- and long-term coaching will give managers insight into their employees’ needs and wants so that appropriate career counseling can proceed.
Providing challenging assignments. Planned work experience is one of the most powerful career development tools. This includes jobs that temporarily stretch employees to their maximum skill, temporary projects, assignment to committees, shift rotation, assignment to different units, and shift charge duties.
Giving support and encouragement. Because excellent subordinates make managers’ jobs easier, managers are often reluctant to encourage these subordinates to move up the corporate ladder or to seek more challenging experiences outside the manager’s span of control. Thus, many managers hoard their talent. A leadership role requires that managers look beyond their immediate unit or department and consider the needs of the entire organization. Leaders recognize and share talent.
Developing personnel policies. An active career development program often results in the recognition that certain personnel policies and procedures are impeding the success of the program. When this occurs, the organization should reexamine these policies and make necessary changes.
Providing education and training. The impact of education and training on career development and retention of subordinate staff is discussed more fully in Chapter 16. The need for organizations to develop
leaders and managers is presented later in this chapter.
A comparison of roles and responsibilities individuals and organizations have for employee career development is shown in Table 11.1.
LEARNING EXERCISE
11.2
Encouragement and Coaching for Goal Achievement
I
n your employment, has someone ever coached you, either formally or informally, to develop your career? For example, has an employer told you about career or educational opportunities? Have they offered tuition reimbursement? If so, how did you find out about such policies? Have you ever coached (something more than just encouraging) someone to pursue educational or career goals? Share the answers to these questions in class.Career Coaching
Organizations also have some responsibility to assist employees with career coaching. Unit managers sometimes take on this role, but it may also be provided by informal organization leaders who are willing to act in a mentoring capacity. Career coaching involves helping others to identify professional goals and career options and then designing a career plan to achieve those goals. The Executive Coaching Network (n.d.) suggests that career coaches serve as “facilitators, motivators, consultants and sounding boards dealing with business goals, people interaction and self-management issues. While behavior change will often be a key focus, the coach’s role is not that of a therapist. It is not about unraveling personalities, but often involves people doing things differently in the workplace” (para. 4). Raffals (n.d.) suggests that career coaching involves “enabling others to see fresh perspectives, make new decisions, take new actions, and move forward
‘growthfully’ and productively from these freshly exposed perspectives and choices” (para. 14).
Career coaching typically has three steps:
1. Gathering data. One of the best ways to gather data about employees is to observe their behavior. When managers spend time observing employees, they are able to determine who has good communication skills, who is well organized, who uses effective negotiating skills, and who works collaboratively.
Managers also should seek information about the employee’s past work experience, performance appraisals, and educational experiences. Data also should include academic qualifications and
credentials. Most of this information is retrievable in the employee’s personnel file. Finally, employees themselves are an excellent source of information about career needs and wants.
2. Asking what is possible. As part of career planning, the manager should assess the department for possible changes in the future, openings or transfers, and potential challenges and opportunities. The manager should anticipate what type of needs lie ahead, what projects are planned, and what staffing and budget changes will occur. After carefully assessing the employee’s profile and future opportunities,
managers should consider each staff member and ask the following questions: How can this employee be helped so that he or she is better prepared to take advantage of the future? Who needs to be encouraged to return to school, to become credentialed, or to take a special course? Which employees need to be encouraged to transfer to a more challenging position, given more responsibility on their present unit, or moved to another shift? Managers can create a stimulating environment for career development by being aware of the uniqueness of their employees.
3. Conducting the coaching session. The goals of career coaching include helping employees increase their effectiveness; identifying potential opportunities in the organization; and advancing their knowledge, skills, and experience. It is important not to intimidate employees when questioning them about their future and their goals. Although there is no standard procedure for career coaching, the main emphasis should be on employee growth and development. The manager can assist the employee in exploring future options. Coaching sessions give the manager a chance to discover potential future managers—
employees who should then begin to be groomed for a future managerial role in subsequent coaching sessions.
Career coaching, then, can be either short or long term. In short-term career coaching, the manager regularly asks the employees questions to develop and motivate them. Thus, short-term coaching is a spontaneous part of the experienced manager’s repertoire.
Long-term career coaching, on the other hand, is a planned management action that occurs over the duration of employment. Because this type of coaching may cover a long time, it is frequently neglected unless the manager uses a systematic scheduling plan and a form for documentation. Because employees and managers move frequently within an organization, the lack of record keeping regarding employees’ career needs has deterred nursing career development. In the present climate of organizational restructuring and downsizing, a manager’s staff is even more in need of career coaching, and documentation of the career coaching takes on an even more important role. Figure 11.1 is an example of a long-term coaching form.
Long-term coaching is a major step in building an effective team and an excellent strategy to increase productivity and retention. The effective manager should have at least one coaching session with each employee annually, in addition to any coaching that may occur during the appraisal interview. Although some coaching should occur during the performance appraisal interview, additional coaching should be planned at a less stressful time. Coaching provides opportunities to assist employees in the growth and development necessary for expanded roles and responsibilities. A major leadership role is the development of subordinate staff. This interest in the future of individual employees plays a vital role in retention and productivity.
LEARNING EXERCISE
11.3
Career Coaching a Bored Employee
Y
ou are the registered nurse (RN) team leader on a busy step-down critical care unit. One of the certified nursing assistants (CNAs) assigned to your team is technically very competent, always completes her work on time, but frequently appears to be bored. The only time she seems to be excited about work is when she is assisting you or the other RNs with more complex skills such as central line dressing changes,peripherally inserted central catheters (PICCs), and complex wound packings. She has shared at times that her long-term career goal is to become an RN but has never verbalized any specific plan to achieve this.
Although she is highly capable, her formal education to date is limited to a high school diploma she earned 3 years ago. She currently provides full-time financial support for herself and her 3-year-old daughter.
A S S I G N M E N T:
1. Identify questions you might ask the CNA that could be a part of both short- and long-term career coaching for this employee.
2. What resources might be explored to support this employee in attaining higher education?
3. What leadership role modeling could be made available to this employee to encourage her in furthering her career goals?
Management Development
Management development is a planned system of training and developing people so that they acquire the skills, insights, and attitudes needed to manage people and their work effectively within the organization.
Management development is often referred to as succession planning. Many nurses feel uncertain that they have the skills needed to be effective managers, and they lack confidence that the decision making, interpersonal, and organizational skills they learned as staff nurses can translate to the management role.
Many nurses feel that they lack the knowledge and experience necessary to become a manager.
Although many of these skills do transfer, becoming an effective manager is generally not intuitive. With the flattening of organizational hierarchies, an expected increase in nursing management vacancies due to retirement, and a continued increase in managerial responsibilities, new leader-managers will likely need the formal education and training that are a part of a management development program. The program must include a means of developing appropriate attitudes through social learning theory as well as adequate content on management theory.
The skill sets needed by leader-managers in the year 2020 will be even more complex than they are today and that contemporary nursing and health-care organizations must begin now to create the educational models and management development programs necessary to prepare the next generation of leader-managers. Huston (2008) suggests that essential nurse-leader competencies for 2020 include having a global perspective or mindset regarding health care and professional nursing issues; technology skills that facilitate mobility and portability of relationships, interactions, and operational processes; expert decision-making skills rooted in empirical science; the ability to create organization cultures that permeate quality health care and
patient/worker safety; understanding and appropriately intervening in political processes; highly developed collaborative and team building skills; the ability to balance authenticity and performance expectations; and being able to envision and proactively adapt to a health-care system characterized by rapid change and chaos.
Support for such management development programs by the organization should occur in two ways. First, top-level management must do more than bear the cost of management development classes. They must create an organizational structure that allows managers to apply their new knowledge. Therefore, for such programs to be effective, the organization must be willing to practice a management style that incorporates sound management principles.
Second, training outcomes improve if nursing executives are active in planning and developing a systematic and integrated program. Whenever possible, nursing administrators should teach some of the classes and, at the very least, make sure that the program supports top management philosophy. Just as nurses are required to be certified in critical care before they accept a position in a critical care unit (CCU), so too should nurses be required to take part in a management development program before their appointment to a management position. This requires early identification and grooming of potential management candidates.
The first step in the process would be an appraisal of the present management team and an analysis of
possible future needs. The second step would be the establishment of a training and development program.
This would require decisions such as the following: How often should the formal management course be offered? Should outside educators be involved, or should in-house staff teach it? Who should be involved in teaching the didactic portion? Should there be two levels of classes, one for first-level and one for middle- level managers? Should the management development courses be open to all, or should people be
recommended by someone from management? In addition to formal course content, what other methods should be used to develop managers? Should other methods be used, such as job rotation through an understudy system of pairing selected people with a manager and management coaching?
The inclusion of social learning activities also is a valuable part of management development. Management development will not be successful unless learners have ample chance to try out new skills. Providing
potential managers with didactic management theory alone inadequately prepares them for the attitudes, skills, and insights necessary for effective management. Case studies, management games, transactional analysis, and sensitivity training are also effective in changing attitudes and increasing self-awareness. All of these techniques appropriately use social learning theory strategies.
Continued Competency as Part of Career Development
Continued competency is also a part of career management. BusinessDictionary.com (2016b) suggests that the definition of a professional is “a person formally certified by a professional body or belonging to a specific profession by virtue of having completed a required course of studies and/or practice, and whose competence can usually be measured against an established set of standards” (para. 1).
Huston (2017) notes that unfortunately, in many states, a practitioner is determined to be competent when initially licensed and thereafter, unless proven otherwise. Yet, clearly, passing a licensing exam and
continuing to work as a clinician does not assure competence throughout a career. Competence requires continual updates to knowledge and practice, and this is difficult in a health-care environment characterized by rapidly emerging new technologies, chaotic change, and perpetual clinical advancements.
The Institute of Medicine (IOM, 2010) report The Future of Nursing agrees, suggesting that nursing graduates now need competency in a variety of areas, including continuous improvement of the quality and safety of health-care systems; informatics; evidence-based practice; a knowledge of complex systems; skills and methods for leadership and management of continual improvement; population health and population- based care management; and health policy knowledge, skills, and attitudes. One must at least question how many nurses currently in practice would be able to demonstrate competency in all of these areas.
Assessing, maintaining, and supporting maintaining continued competence then is a challenge in
professional nursing. For example, Huston (2017) notes that some nurses develop high levels of competence in specific areas of nursing practice as a result of work experience and specialization at the expense of staying current in other areas of practice. In addition, employers often ask nurses to provide care in areas of practice outside their area of expertise because a nursing shortage encourages them to do so. In addition, many current competence assessments focus more on skills than they do on knowledge (Huston, 2017). The issue is also complicated by the fact that there are no national standards for defining, measuring, or requiring continuing competence in nursing.
Managers should appraise each employee’s competency level not only as part of performance appraisal but also as part of career development. This appraisal should lead to the development of a plan that outlines what the employee must do to achieve desired competencies in both current and future positions. Often, however, competency assessment focuses only on whether the employee has achieved required minimal competency levels to meet current federal, state, or organizational standards and not on how to exceed these competency levels. Thus, competency assessment and goal setting in career planning is proactive, with the employee identifying areas of potential future growth and the manager assisting in identifying strategies that can help the employee achieve that goal.
Competency assessment and goal setting in career planning should help the employee identify how to exceed minimum levels of competency.