Career Paths and Organizational Development: Expanding Alliances

Permission to include this article granted by NATCONThe Synergistic Model of Organizational Career Development is an attempt to combine best practice principles from two domains: organizational development and individual career planning. The model assumes three levels of intervention within an organization: philosophical, strategic, and practical. Interventions at any of the levels may be directed toward the employees, the organization, or the balancing and interactive process that bring the two systems together. At the philosophical level, employees are concerned with becoming or managing to stay meaningfully connected to the world of work, organizations are concerned with defining their central purpose as an organization, and balancing/interactive processes are designed to balance employees' and the organization's long-term needs and goals. At the strategic level, employees are concerned with enhancing their careers, organizations are concerned with best meeting their organizational outcomes, and balancing/interactive processes are designed to balance short-term employees and organization goals. At the practical level, employees are concerned with staying employable, organizations are concerned ensuring that employees perform tasks essential to the organization, and balancing/interactive processes are designed to balance organizational demands with employee performance. The ultimate goal of balancing/interactive interventions must be to bring individual career planning into alignment with effective organizational development strategies. (Contains 23 references) (MN