When you have great people on your team, you want to make sure they see a path to grow and develop at the company (and they stay for years to come!). And that isn’t just the fluffy nice thing to do….it will lead to a higher chance of achieving your business goals. So since that is a win win, let’s dive into what career pathing should look like at your organization.
Let’s first take a moment to define career pathing so we are all talking about the same thing. We define career pathing as a strategic approach to planning and managing an employee’s professional development within an organization. It involves defining clear career progression routes, identifying necessary skills and experiences, and providing opportunities for growth and advancement. AKA what are the different roles on this team and how do I get promoted into the next level (or make a move into a different role)? We note that this is a strategic initiative because you have to be thinking about how the org design and roles reflect the business and help the team achieve the business goals and priorities in front of you.
And this is not just a fun HR project (though if you are an HR nerd like we are….it is also a fun HR project). A strong career path model can boost employee engagement, reduce turn over and increase retention of your key and high potential talent, and create opportunities for development, especially when looking at succession planning. All of that leads to a high-performing team that will hit and exceed your business goals. That is the magic of great HR and culture…when the people and the company succeed together!
We have built and rolled out many career paths, job leveling guides, role descriptions, competency models, promotion expectations and compensation bands in our careers. Here are the three things that will add value to your employees and set expectations with your managers and create clarity in your HR teams – the win, win, win when it comes to career pathing!
1. Don’t over complicate it. Build your model based on what your company needs today and in the near future. It will be a living document, when your team grows, you can update it. When your business evolves in the market, you can adjust the roles needed. You definitely want to include growth roles that may not exist today but you can see in the near future but don’t worry about including every thing that might ever be needed. You will only frustrate your team because it’s unclear the paths available today and create more work for yourself that isn’t necessary.
2. Make it clear and be honest. If there isn’t really a difference between X role and Sr X role, don’t pretend there is. Maybe it’s just a natural progression and you choose to make your comp bands smaller so that there is more room for title growth. And to make the move, it’s about someone’s ability to demonstrate the skills and competencies at an expert level, versus different skills. But don’t make up something that defines a Sr X if it’s not really there. It will only frustrate managers and HR when they are reviewing promotion requests and it will certainly cause issues amongst the team and lead to bias based promotions (or squeaky wheel promotions!)
3. Take the time to get it right. I’m not saying it’s perfect. Nothing is ever perfect, and by the time you try to make it perfect, it will be outdated! But take the time to put the right level of detail. Not just into the career path and leveling itself, but also the roll out, communication, training, etc. So take the time to get the “right” titles, levels, reporting structure, competencies, key skills & responsibilities, average time in role, what success looks like, how to start demonstrating the skills of the next level, compensation bands (even if not public) and alignment across departments. Then take the time to put together an exciting roll out. Include success stories in the organization, give examples of different roles and growth paths, focus on how the company will support development in order to get there, and celebrate all forms of career paths including lateral moves and cross-departmental moves.
If you ask Karen one of her favorite memories in her career, it was working until 3am (we know!) in a conference room with her business leader, when she was an HR BP, finalizing a career pathing rollout. Not only had they found the right number of levels within the department to encourage growth without over promising and giving out promotions like Oprah, but they had a deck with so many stories of different ways people had grown their careers and what that looks like across a successful team.
So yes, it’s a lot of work, but it is so worth it! You are showing your employees ways they can grow and succeed at your company…while increasing engagement and retention (and performance!). The Shine at Work team has several templates and resources to get you started or to help make it come to life at your organization. Because it will be worth it!