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Promoting Employee Loyalty with Customized Career Path Models
No one really wants to journey out into unknown territory without a map, compass or explicit directions. After all, this is one of the reasons we have GPS technology. The same applies to career pathing; employees want to know how best to travel to their destination and will seek out this information before joining your ranks. Today’s workforce is more informed than ever before. Potential employees are thoroughly researching organizations before applying since applicants need to know that the company they work for will provide them with a career and not just another typical job. A stagnant work environment discourages workers from both applying to and staying loyal to organizations. Human resource departments that can create effective competency models that describe required skill levels for job advancement can provide employees with goals and a clear path to obtaining their goals.
Traditional career path models have worked in prior years because their objectives are straightforward. In those models, employees gain the proper amount of experience to advance up the corporate ladder. These models, however, have developed several flaws over the years. For instance, each position of advancement is generalized with a multitude of responsibilities. Companies that promote in a traditionally linear pattern tend to have more low-level positions and few supervisory positions. Oftentimes, the level of skills needed to be promoted from entry-level toward executive level is too marginally different to be accommodated by traditional career pathing. Furthermore, obtaining promotions on a traditional career path can take years because there are fewer positions to advance toward that are obtainable without additional training that many companies do not provide. This is an oversight of epic proportions, as the employee is not growing and advancing within the organization. This leaves a gap in the number of promotable employees who are “home-grown” and already loyal to you and your organizational goals.
The WIIFM: What’s In It For Me?
Creating customized training programs that will enhance the steps in a career path is a cost-effective way to boost employee morale and to decrease turnover rates. Customization allows for human resource departments to create competency models that describe a multitude of positions that can be used as steps for employees to move forward on their way to becoming who they desire to be. Companies who utilize advanced training modules and create these enhanced career paths will be more likely to retain their employees because those companies are clearly presenting their employees with a line of sight between their individual contributions and the organization’s short and long-term strategies and goals. Employees who are routinely given more duties and responsibilities with an increase in position and salary will work harder and remain faithful to a company for three times longer than employees on traditional career paths.
Training throughout the entire extent of an employee’s career at a company not only advances the employee forward, but will keep all employees current on economic and technological trends throughout the industry. Although it is a positive side effect of rigorous training, it is also an attractive way to show potential employees that your company is willing to continuously enhance the experience and knowledge of all their staff, regardless of employment level, within the organization.
Promoting the implementation of customized career pathing is an invaluable asset for organizations to attract and retain industrious workers. Creating competency models that thoroughly describe skill levels needed for each position gives employees an outline for specific training needed, and in turn, gives employees goals to strive for and achieve as they work diligently towards promotion. The road to the corner office does not have to be an uphill battle and organizations that desire company loyalty should invest time and training in their employees from entry-level positions on up to the executive level.
Want employee loyalty branding ideas and implementation? To learn how our training and development and employee engagement consultants can help with devising career path planning programs and more, give us a call immediately!
About the author
Tamsin is a senior manager at Hureco Maverick; she is also a coffee lover, cruciverbalist, altruist, and advocate for corporate social responsibility and volunteerism.