A career path is a sequence of roles or experiences that an employee may move through towards their career goals. These are not necessarily linear and may include lateral and external moves in line with employee aspirations and organisational needs.  

The nature of a career has changed from a life-long contract to a journey of learning and many companies are shifting from structured to flexible, open and dynamic career models. Transparency of different pathways through the organisation not only empower employees to own and drive their career development, but also helps the organisation to harness the skills, competencies and motivations of their workforce required for changing business needs.

Small and medium organisations are often able to offer, but also require, higher levels of flexibility in how careers are managed. What they often lack are the structure and process to make these opportunities visible to managers and employees. Laying the groundwork for a more robust Career Conversation will help small and medium sized organisations retain their best people and allow them to grow their careers within the organisation.

Our 4 step process will help to quickly establish career paths as the framework for enhanced and anchored Career Conversations.

1. Review business needs and current state of the organisational model and agree a broad job family structure
2. Create role profiles with clearly defined success criteria
3. Map roles to the new framework and define career paths that align with the organisation’s talent mobility needs
4. Train line managers to conduct Career Conversations in line with new framework