Purpose and audiences
Structured Career Planning connects the employer’s future capabilities with an employee’s work, financial and well-being goals. The guide highlights mid-career conversations around ages 45–54 and re-employment preparation for workers aged 55 and above, while its examples also show employers offering conversations more widely. The process is encouraged, not itself a statutory requirement for every employee.
Full and lite frameworks
Select a full or lite framework appropriate to the organisation. Decide who owns the process, who will conduct conversations, when they occur, where confidentiality can be protected and how outcomes will be followed up. Prepare the employee’s self-assessment and the supervisor’s knowledge of available roles, skills and company constraints before the meeting.
Four conversation stages
The toolkit proceeds from clarifying each party’s responsibilities, to active listening and questioning, to the career discussion itself, and finally a Career Action Plan. Explore development in the current role, promotion, lateral moves, trial projects, smaller roles, another business unit, a new career field or a jointly designed role. Options are possibilities to discuss, not guaranteed vacancies.
Complete the Career Action Plan
Record one-, three- or five-year goals, three to five key tasks, required skills, present competence, priorities and support needed. Turn them into specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound actions, list obstacles and agree on review dates. The employee and supervisor sign off the plan.
Policies, case studies and dated rules
The guide includes sample retirement/re-employment and staff-development policies, plus Maybank, Go-Ahead Singapore and St Luke’s ElderCare case studies. Their approaches illustrate culture-led conversations, career pathways, training and flexible roles. Sample policy scope and the guide’s 2022 age references are examples from that edition; use the July 2026 re-employment guidance for current age rules.