A generation ago, the typical employee career path was the classic “ladder,” with a series of clearly defined rungs for employees to climb. Now, according to a report by Gartner, with little physical time in the office, career paths aren’t as clearly defined because there is less visibility of the options for growth.

In addition, employees have spent the last few years rethinking the role of work in their lives – and there’s less drive to climb that classic ladder.

Your organization may benefit from defining career paths within your company, to keep your people engaged and to decide how to invest in your employees’ development. Without the old-fashioned ladder structure to guide you, career pathing requires a holistic approach and careful planning.

What makes a career plan different from employee development?

Before mapping career paths, it’s important to review the differences between employee development, succession planning and employee career pathing. These three practices are related but each has its own distinct goals.

1. Employee development, also called career development, identifies each individual’s role in the organization and the skills they need to keep fruitfully contributing. It also includes what their interests and goals are and how those align within the organization.
2. Succession planning identifies the right people to step into leadership roles when the time comes and ensures that they develop the skills they need for those roles beforehand.
3. Career pathing gives employees a map to the ways they can move within your organization, based on their interests, skills and personal career goals.

When is employee career pathing most useful?

Any organization can map career paths, but it’s especially useful for companies that need people with a specific or hard-to-find set of skills and experiences – this is even more heightened in a competitive job market, where the options for outside talent are especially limited. For example, if your business needs people who are in short supply, like data scientists, or people with a particular set of certifications, like social workers, career pathing can help you build an internal pipeline for those careers.

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