In our last issue of Astronology®, we kicked off a spring refresh article series by examining ways to create a healthy work environment. Continuing with our theme of the spring refresh season, in this Astronology® we will explore how career paths provide employees with new opportunities and keeps employees engaged.
A career path is a series of progressively more responsible roles in a person’s professional / work life that an employee can follow to reach their ultimate career objectives and future goals. These series of jobs and the experiences that accompany them will provide success to the employee in achieving their professional objectives and goals. Communicating an employee’s career path and setting goals that help guide employees along the path can provide continual motivation. Employers benefit by retaining key workers and burgeoning workers earlier in their careers.
Where to Start?
SHRM explains that “A tool that managers and HR professionals can use during career planning discussions with employees is career mapping. Career maps help employees think strategically about their career paths and how to meet their career goals within the organization rather than leave it to move ahead.” Career mapping includes the following three steps:
- Self-Assessment – the manager and employee will explore the employee’s knowledge, skills, and abilities as well as current experiences, accomplishments, and interests.
- Individualized Career Map – the manager and employee create an individualized career map by identifying other positions within the organization that meet the employee’s interests. This can mean a promotion or a lateral move into a different job family. The position should capitalize on the employee’s past experiences, interests, and motivations while requiring the employee to develop a distinguished level of skill, abilities, and knowledge so the employee stays engaged.
- Exploring Other Opportunities – the manager and the employee should explore other job opportunities within the organization as they become available.
Traditional Career Paths / Ladders
In the traditional career path system, the person is hired through a combination of experience, education, and opportunity, and is progressively promoted to different levels that involve additional responsibilities. This progression continues until the employee leaves for another opportunity, retires, or reaches a level where no further promotional opportunities exist.
The traditional career path also comes with challenges. Individuals may be pushed into a role (such as management) without the leadership skillset. Not only does the employee becomes frustrated due to being ill-equipped in their new challenges, but the frustration becomes contagious, spreading to other employees who are impacted by seeing their new leader struggle. Additionally, there are some employees who simply do not desire to “climb the ladder.” If they are happy and are a solid worker – why force them up a path they do not want? Lastly, some employees may experience a career plateau where the employee feels they have reached their limit of progression or the organization does not have any higher level opportunities. The career plateau could advance to career stagnation – when a person is no longer engaged with their work and become less effective.
In a later Astronology® this year, we will discuss how to combat some of these challenges.
Non-Traditional Methods of Career Progression
Two options for career progression that do not follow the traditional method are job redesign and job rotation. As SHRM explains: “Job redesign can provide increased challenges and opportunities for employees to get more out of their jobs.” The article further explains that one could redesign a job by broadening the job scope and adding a variety of different tasks. You can also redesign a job by increasing the depth of the role and adding to the employee’s responsibility for planning, organizing and controlling tasks of their current job.
SHRM explains that job rotation involves “the systematic movement of employees from job to job within an organization. Typically, formal job rotation programs offer customized assignments to promising employees to give them a view of the entire business.” This method can be highly effective as employees are given refreshing variety and perspective on how their contribution affects the organization overall.
In a later Astronology® this year we will further discuss non-traditional career paths and their benefits.
Providing a career path can energize and motivate an employee to stay engaged with their place of work. Even if your organization does not have the bandwidth to provide a traditional career path, you can consider non-traditional methods such as job redesign and job rotation to keep employees engaged and progressive.
Does your organization provide career paths? What methods are used and how successful have they been? Share your thoughts in the comments below.