The firms interested in career development programs depend on the ups and downs in the business cycle and the labor market. When there is a shortage of manpower, skills etc., firms include career development programs to their retention and recruitment strategies. But, when the business goes in a loss, there is no recruitment. Large companies are the first ones to avail the latest technology to internal staffing and career development.
As the companies are now becoming more data centric, they check their own databases first, mining internal HR data for potentials, before looking outside.
Finally, the firm should do cost cutting, so it starts questioning the purpose of these career development programs for now. Lot of convincing business care is required to maintain these programs during these times. But even in the bad phase, the high potentials group receive career development attention, the exciting part is the method to select the high potentials have been changed.
Earlier an informal process or a rigorous formal evaluation center rating was believed as an economical way to development on the few bets, soon enough to blossom their careers within the next 20 years. The issues with this approach became clearly visible in the highly competitive environment of 21st century.
When organization strategy which was followed for years’ changes overnight, the perfectly groomed CEO for yesterday's strategy might not be the first choice, for the new change thus, companies are now opting for succession planning, they have expanded their definition of high potentials to organize larger talent pool, from which the organization may choose at the right needed time.