Henry Zhang has been with Citibank in Beijing for just two years, and he is already the head of e-commerce for Citibank China, thanks to Citibank's fast-track program that identifies talented local employees and sends them for two-year intensive training abroad.

Increasingly, companies are introducing aggressive in-house career development programs such as the one at Citibank in order to recruit and retain the best people, and a new study by human resources consultant Drake Beam Morin confirms that these programs help increase company productivity and profitability. Companies that don't have career management programs can experience staff turnover rates in excess of 15% to 20% a year.

Of the 148 companies DBM surveyed, 47% saw a decrease in staff turnover after introducing career management programs such as in-house training, setting annual goals and initiating performance reviews. About 45% felt career development programs helped general productivity and in turn profitability.

"I think the vast majority of companies understand that career management is important," says Larry Cambron, who is president of DBM Asia. "But the difficulty is in the delivery. These days, corporations have to have short-term focuses. They have to diligently find the balance between thinking long-term for their employees and focusing on the short-term quarterly earnings."

Career management, according to Mr. Cambron, can be divided into two types: passive and active. Passive management programs include initiatives such as regular performance reviews and setting performance goals, both of which are already commonly found at multinationals and publicly listed companies around Asia. Active career development includes in-house training, promoting from within and offering overseas postings.

Successful career management requires companies to put some of the career-planning responsibility on employees to plan their own careers, Mr. Cambron said. Singaporean and Hong Kong companies tend to fall short on this aspect, whereas Australian and New Zealand companies let their employees have more flexibility in shaping their careers. Up until a few years ago, many companies in Singapore and Hong Kong offered their employees lifetime employment, explained Mr. Cambron. Career management wasn't a concern or a necessity because jobs were guaranteed.

"But now that jobs aren't so secure anymore, you have to think about how you want your career to progress," Mr. Cambron said.

According to the DBM survey, about 82% of the companies held regular performance reviews. Seventy-four percent offered in-house training. But some companies fall short by not allowing employees enough time and resources such as career counselors and internal kiosks to design their own career paths. Only 37% of companies surveyed allowed for that.

Mr. Zhang graduated from Fudan University in Shanghai with a master's in marketing but he didn't know much about the intricacies of building an e-commerce business. He joined Citibank's corporate banking arm as a relationship manager, working primarily with companies on managing their bank accounts. When Mr. Zhang was assigned to the Singapore office for the fast-track program, he quickly had to learn all the products and services offered by the bank's e-commerce division, a part of the bank in which Mr. Zhang said he might not have realized he had an interest. The fast track program gave him the opportunity to look beyond his comfort zone in marketing to test out his abilities in unfamiliar territory.

"I had to overcome some personal hesitation and tell myself, you have to dare to try," said Mr. Zhang, who doesn't think he'll return to marketing, for now. "It forced me to be more independent and motivated to learn about different things."