Reconsider your company's career ladder
Historically, we expect the career ladder to include upward movement, often meaning there’s an expectation of adding employee management to the set of responsibilities. When was the last time you looked at the career progression in your company and considered whether it’s working for you and your staff?
Most of us have worked with managers who should never have been placed in a position to provide employee oversight. Although certainly most skills can be taught, there are some individuals who are just not formulated to manage individuals. What do you do with an employee who excels at their work, wants to take on more, but doesn’t fit the traditional career ladder expectation of moving into managing others?
We need to relook at what it means to move ahead in organizations. Placing people in positions for which they’re not suited is destructive to them and the organization. Capitalizing on their strengths and leaning into those are more likely to prove successful. Talk to your key staff, find out where their true interests lie and determine a path that may appear more parallel but is equally meaningful.
Determine whether working in different areas of the organization or fulfilling other roles that utilize the current skillsets provides a way to refresh and further develop their skills. If you want them to mentor others, and working directly with other staff isn’t their forte, see if they can develop a training or mentoring program to pass on to someone else who excels in teaching and/or working with others. See if you can move them into a project management position, but have someone else assigned to personnel oversight.
Recognize the ability and success of learning new skills as promotions vs lateral moves by providing pay increases and title changes where possible. Develop the positions in ways that require increased responsibilities and accountabilities, but not employee management. Celebrate the moves as you would other, more traditional role changes within the company.
The world is changing and that means rethinking what it means to move ahead. We must stop forcing individuals who are successful in their skillsets into managing others if that isn’t where their skills and desires take them. Valuable employees are valuable for specific reasons. Work with those successes to promote employees and the organization.
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