Needs assessment for career development programs in the Taiwan Power Company (TPC)

The harmonious meshing of employee career development needs and corporate missions, goals, and objectives is a necessity for the growth and maintenance of both the individual and the organization. This study was designed to investigate Taiwan Power Company (TPC) white-collar employees?? perceptions of career development program needs. The purposes of the study were (a) to identify the perceptions of career development program needs; (b) to explore the underlying constructs among current and future positions in regard to the employee??s perceptions of career development program needs; (c) to investigate the differences among perceptions of career development needs; (d) to determine whether or not differences among perceptions of career development program needs exist among respondents who differ in terms of gender, age, and education; and (e) to discover if individuals who differ in terms of job functions and job roles have different opinions on whether the selected career development programs were already provided or should be provided by the company.This study was conducted using a questionnaire. The data were collected from a stratified random sample of 1,636 white-collar employees in the TPC. A response rate of 82.5% resulted in a final sample of 1,351 respondents. The content validity of the questionnaire was established via expert opinion and the internal consistency of the instrument was calculated using Cronbach??s ??. Frequency counts, central tendencies and standard deviations were used in the descriptive analysis of the current and future position data. Principle factor analysis with Varimax rotation revealed six constructs for the current position data. Similar factor analytical results were obtained for the future position data. Two-way MANOVAs with Descriptive Discriminant Analysis and univariate ANOVAs, with REGWF when appropriate, were used to probe significant main effects. Chi-square tests were employed to answer the research questions regarding the perceptions of whether the 33 career development programs were already provided or should be provided by the company. Differences in terms of current and future positions were obtained for individuals who were classified by job function, job role, gender, age, and education. Twelve conclusions were generated and specific career development practices were suggested.