Your Guide to Developing Employee Career Paths and Ladders

Did you know one of the main reasons employees leave their jobs is that they have little or no advancement opportunities within the organisation?

Not only does this leave companies with high retention rates and even higher onboarding and training costs, but it also negatively impacts business health. 

Luckily, there’s a way for businesses to avoid this — by developing employee career paths and ladders. 

This article will explain an employee career path, why businesses need it and give you the step-by-step process you can follow to develop talent with career paths and ladders in your business. 

What is a career path?

A career path is a roadmap for your employees that shows them where they can go in their careers. It consists of short-and long term benchmarks that map the route they need to take to advance their careers within your company.

In other words, it’s a map that gives them the exact steps they should follow to go from lower-level positions to their desired roles within your organisation. 

Career paths are usually developed from a collaboration between your employees and the HR manager. 

By looking at a series of aspects, including each employee’s skill set, experience, qualifications, and interests, the HR manager and employee will identify opportunities and pathways they can follow to reach their full potential. 

These career paths are highly beneficial for your business since it keeps employees happy and shows them that they have a bright future within your company. 

Let’s look at other advantages you can expect from career paths and employee training. 

Benefits of career pathing

There are many reasons why career paths are vital to the success of your organisation. Here are some of the main reasons:

1. Higher employee retention

Having a career path for all your employees means they’ll know there’s a future for them within your company and that they don’t have to worry about having a dead-end career. 

This means they will likely stay at your company and grow to high-level positions. 

Continued training and development to help your employees reach their full potential and dream roles will keep them motivated, inspired, and excited to come to work every day. 

2. Better company culture

Happier employees mean you’ll have a better and livelier work environment where employees are excited to do their job. 

This means that your entire company culture will improve, and your company’s reputation as a quality employer will grow. 

In turn, you’ll easily attract quality candidates whenever you need new employees. It becomes a snowball effect. 

3. Better results

Giving your employees a clear view of what they can achieve within your organisation will inspire them to work harder. They’ll be more than willing to participate in corporate training to improve their skills and knowledge. 

As a result, their output will be better, and you’ll be able to deliver exceptional quality work to your clients every single time. 

Steps to develop talent with employee career paths and ladders 

Here are the steps you can follow to develop career pathing, so your employees remain loyal to your company and provide better quality work. 

Step 1: Identify your company’s structure

Determine and chart down what type of employee structure your company has. Look at your hierarchy and relationships between different positions. This will tell you whether your company has a traditional structure, flat structure, or another type of structure and will make career pathing easier. 

Step 2: Define job requirements

Look at the requirements for each job position. All employees should know the skills, knowledge, training, and qualifications needed to acquire a specific job. Also, make sure to indicate what success in a particular role looks like so employees can have realistic expectations. 

Step 3: Develop a road map for different positions

To know what the advancement of different careers within your company looks like, you need to make a road map for each role. What does it take for employees to attain a senior position? For example, what would an employee need to do to become a senior manager? How will they get from job A to job B?

Step 4: Identify training needs

Determine the training you can provide your employees to reach these positions sooner. Often, it’s best to hire internally since these employees already know the ropes. They know your company, your clients, and what standards you expect. That being said, ensure you also identify training opportunities for external hires.  

Step 5: Implement training and development programs

Once you’ve identified the type of training your employees need, you can pinpoint the exact training and education you want to give them to reach their desired roles within your organisation. Here, you’ll discover specific courses or programmes you want them to enrol in — for example, a Higher Certificate in their particular field. 

Discover how business schools can help your employees fast-track their careers. 

Step 6: Create employee career paths

Once you know how your internal training and career development look, you can have your HR manager and employees develop their career paths. This way, you’ll know which employees need to receive what type of training to grow within your organisation. 

Start investing in employee development

Now that you know how vital it is to invest in your employees’ development and training, you need to consider what type of training you want to offer them. 

Look at the career paths of each employee to guide you.

At REGENT Business School, we offer corporate and workforce solutions to help develop your workforce’s skills so they can drive your business into the future.