INTRODUCTION

Career planning plays a key role in employees’ performance and retention in the organization. In fact, by planning their career, employees can link their personal aspirations to the organization’s vision and goals creating a positive environment [1] .

Based on the importance we give to the career planning and since, we realized the scarce number of researches that focused on the impact of this factor on employee motivation and retention in the United Arab Emirates, our study will attempt to answer the following question:

How is career planning contributing in retaining and engaging UAE Nationals in workplace?

To that end, we will, in the first part, give a literature overview and then….

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LITERATURE REVIEW

The purpose of this study is to explore how career planning contributes in retaining and engaging UAE Nationals in workplace. In general, we have the power to shape our careers by the professions and positions we take in our life. Therefore, planning career is both organization and individual responsibility. In other words, on one hand, organization shall focus on planning careers and identifying the career paths for their employees and advise them on the logical progression available between existing jobs. On the other hand, the individual should also plan their careers and focus on what they want, develop themselves and look for job opportunities that match their aspirations.

In the below paragraphs, we will review the literature on how organization can engage and retain employees through career planning and will also look at career planning centered on employees. Then we will look at the retention and engaging policies that organization may adopt. On a later stage, we will explore the UAE Nationals are looking for in job and how the career planning play a major role in their decisions for leaving or staying in organistation.

Organization Centered Career Planning

Career planning and internal career development programs are proving to be critical in keeping valued employees in organizations [2] . Meat & Wool New Zealand, a company whose mission is to deliver innovative tools and services to support informed decision making and continuous improvement in market access, product positioning and farming systems, elaborated that, as an employer it is an effective way to contribute to your employee’s development, moreover, they stressed on the fact that, “assisting with career planning can also lead to increased retention, particularly if the organization provides growth opportunities” [3] . Similarly, Gaffney (2005), stated that employers who actively partner with their employees to align career direction with company goals are realizing better retention rates. She added that employees actively involved in their personal development report more satisfaction with their work and tend to stay longer with the organization [4] .

Career planning seeks to understand the employee’s objectives and to map their future by having a discussion on job requirements and financial rewards. Meat & Wool New Zealand defined career planning as the process of making and implementing career decisions [5] . In fact, a specific job or responsibility fits into employees’ career path plans [6] . According to Heller (2008), the ideal career path is smooth and clear of obstacles. He added that “such a path can be highly motivating: encourage your staff to follow it by offering them the support they need to develop the abilities that will ultimately take them on and up” [7] . Consequently, by having a career plan, an employee may make sound decisions for his future, by looking at the situation in a larger context and better evaluate the options. Employee will also know what is the mix of skills, qualification and experience he / she needs to develop in order to achieve his career aspirations and move in a career direction that is designed to meet his interests and financial goals [8] . Yet, it is important to understand the stage which your employee is at before starting career planning with them, as career goals and plans will change throughout a person’s life as they gain experience and achieve previously set goals. [9] Therefore, it is important for organizations to focus on developing enriched and more capable workers.

Most of the employees wonder if there will be opportunities for him/her to be developed and to progress in the organization. In fact, Armstrong and Murlis (2007) consider that “new graduates and MBAs very legitimately ask about how the organization manages and progresses talent, especially in an environment that is likely to have many fewer promotion opportunities than in the past”. They added that they need to be sure that the company has processes in place for identifying talent, for succession planning and for fair and reasonably transparent means of making promotion decisions. They emphasized that to apply this element of reward well, “organizations need to be clear what the career paths are and what the criteria’s are for making lateral or diagonal moves as well as promotions”. [10] Based on the above, we insist on the fact that companies should be keen to provide opportunities for progression because when the opportunities of promotion are limited, it will lead to the employee always having to do the same thing and having no prospect of development [11] and therefore considering leaving the company. According to Leigh Branham [12] , who specializes in employee turnover and engagement, there are seven major reasons for employees wanting to leave their employer and one of them is “Too few growth and advancement opportunities”.

Employee Centered Career Planning

The choice of a profession or specific career is usually made on the basis of some criteria that seem more important than interest in the work itself. In other words, individual do not accept a job for the only reason of importance of the job but also, we can list job security, the prospect of a career, or a higher salary that one could get in the field he/she would actually like to work in. In reality, most people need both money and meaning, both material and immaterial fulfillment. Paradoxically, according to Rothin and Werder (2008), this is not an either/or, but people who decide in favor of a degree or a career path that actually does not interest them at all run the risk of sooner or later suffering from boreout [13] and then leaving the company.

Jack Welch (2005) stated: “Working to fulfill someone else’s needs or dreams almost always catches up with you” [14] . In fact, people often choose careers very different from the ones they would actually like to follow. They choose the wrong options, and their problems grow from that point onwards [15] . Rothin and Werder (2008) insisted that parents can also influence their children’s choice of career, and that there is also pressure from social standards and expectations. They added that if such pressures lead people to choose the wrong course, boredom, under-stretching and lack of commitment are the likely results [16] .

In their book, “Boreout, Overcoming workplace demotivation”, Rother and Weder (2008) [17] identified three career stages as listed below: