In our 2022 Talenza Candidate Motivators report, career progression was ranked the fourth highest motivator overall, and 69% of Generation Z candidates said it was their top motivator.

But attraction is only one piece of your talent puzzle. Right now, retention is the other. 

And providing clear, structured career pathways might be just the strategy you need to convince employees they should apply and stick around for their long-term success. 

Career pathways planning as a business strategy 

In the good old days, a typical career path looked like entering an organisation as a junior, working hard and earning your stripes over the years as you progressed up the ranks into management. But these days? Careers can travel sideways (and change entirely!) as much as they can travel up. 

Career pathway planning can be a powerful business strategy that helps you identify transferable skills across the business and from new disciplines altogether. It may help you: 

• prioritise role transfers instead of redundancies so you can retain quality employees 
• identify new roles and job families to meet evolving / future business needs 
• expand your existing talent pools 
• improve company culture, employee engagement, and retention 
• create ​learning and development (L&D) opportunities that ​​upskill and reskill employees based on their personal goals and strategic business needs. 

How to use career pathways for employee development 

Good career pathways should clearly show the steps and skills required for employees to advance in the business (remember, that could be sideways or up!). Here’s how to structure employee development so that everyone wins.

Step 1. Use workforce planning to identify organisational needs 

Think about how your core business is expected to evolve over a period of years and how it will affect staffing numbers, skills, and individual role requirements. For example, a service business plans to launch a product division. 

What are the current gaps and what are the complementary transferrable skills?

Start with known job families and plot skills into a simple framework. 

Step 2. Design a range of learning opportunities to upskill and reskill employees 

​​​Learning and development happens in a variety of ways, like with on-the-job training, mentorship and coaching, job shadowing, team workshops, microlearning, and with formal education and qualifications. Consider the best approach for each skill and ensure it’s incorporated into your L&D programs. 

Step 3. Transparently communicate available career paths and opportunities 

Many (but not all) employees will have some idea of where and how they’d like to progress. You’ll want to communicate what career progression can look like in your organisation from attraction and recruitment – that might look like career path infographics or mud maps, and it could look like employee stories. 

You’ll also want to keep your current employees tuned in and motivated to pursue their own development. Consider offering career coaching and/or having regular development check-ins between managers and their people. Employees should be encouraged to share their ​​career goals and be notified about the different opportunities for their chosen learning path. 

Clear career pathways prove to your candidates and employees that not only are you invested in their success, but there are clear steps and development opportunities designed to help them advance. You’ll create a more engaged and higher-performing workforce, and it should lead to higher retention, too. 

Need help positioning your employer brand in a competitive job market? 

Get in touch with our Talenza team.