Talented workers won’t stay with a company if they can’t see a future there. They need a clear frame of reference for the opportunities available to them. Career pathing frameworks provide that.
This article shows why career pathing frameworks matter to both employees and business success, details how to build them, and presents best practices to ensure success.
Career pathing frameworks, also known as career progression frameworks, are a map of a department’s roles and advancement opportunities. They identify the different positions available and describe the necessary prerequisite skills and experience required to hold them.
Using these frameworks, employees can plot out their future on a team or at a company. They’ll understand the progression and which skills they need to develop for advancement. For example, a junior account executive can look at a career pathing framework and see that the next step is account executive, followed by senior account executive, and then account manager.
Career pathing frameworks are also a part of the succession planning process. Identifying each role and its requirements helps build targeted development programs. Employers can rest easy knowing that, when a current employee departs, another individual is ready to take over.
Career pathing facilitates employee growth by defining which skills and professional experiences really matter. When people understand how to advance their careers, they’re motivated to work hard to meet those requirements. This boosts retention and engagement.
From a business perspective, providing internal progression routes decreases hiring costs and supports succession planning. Promoting an employee rather than hiring externally also reduces onboarding time, boosting productivity levels. Plus, employees move into more senior roles with an existing understanding of how teams operate and what the company expects.
A career pathing framework should be a structured map of a department’s roles, outlining key responsibilities and skill requirements.
To build one effectively, follow these five steps.
Begin by charting the roles, responsibilities, and skills for each position in the department. Be sure to explain what distinguishes each job title from the others. What makes a senior account manager different from a junior account manager? The answer should be clear to anyone reading.
Career progression isn’t necessarily linear. An employee may move to a different department or take on new responsibilities without their role changing.
Evaluate whether these career path strategy tracks need to be part of the framework:
Advancement to a more senior position or moving to a new department often requires the employee to learn and develop new skills. After mapping a department’s roles, include any necessary experience, skills, or qualifications.
Each role should be cumulative: More senior positions should include all the requirements of roles below them. If one competency is particularly important, such as accreditation for an accounting role, make sure to highlight this.
Laying out a role and its requirements is helpful, but if employees don’t understand how to get there, then the exercise was pointless. When building a career pathing framework, take extra care to emphasize how to meet these requirements. Highlight any learning and development (L&D) tools at employees’ disposal to better meet these development milestones.
Full transparency allows employees to better understand internal mobility, motivating them to take part in the process.
By monitoring performance, companies can identify when an employee has met a role’s requirements and is ready to progress. Supplement a career pathing framework with regular performance reviews to establish competency levels. This will also make it easier to identify the kinds of support ambitious employees require for greater success.
Workleap Performance offers data-first insight into skills and productivity, helping identify employees who are ready for promotion.
Here are a few best practices to help make career pathing efforts more effective.
Map required skills and experiences to organizational requirements. Alignment between organizational needs and career development efforts ensures that employee growth directly supports future business objectives.
Offering structured L&D opportunities gives employees the chance to develop the exact skills they need for internal mobility. Managers can identify which areas an employee should focus on and use the framework to highlight potential progression opportunities.
Workleap Performance streamlines these conversations by facilitating 360 feedback and providing real-time insights into employee skills and performance. Managers can use Workleap to identify key areas for improvement automatically and offer structured advice.
HR software simplifies the data collection and feedback gathering processes, allowing businesses to more effectively track and measure employee growth.
Workleap’s platforms support career pathing frameworks, providing AI-powered analytics and insights that measure growth and identify when employees are ready to progress.
As you develop career paths for employees, collect feedback to assess how accurate each framework is. Employees at each level may have insights into whether the listed responsibilities align with their day-to-day experiences.
Regularly revisit frameworks and use gathered feedback to identify any areas for improvement. For example, a role’s demands may have shifted in response to recent industry developments. Ongoing updates ensure frameworks remain accurate, relevant, and aligned with evolving organizational priorities.
Workleap Officevibe empowers your HR teams, helping them rapidly gather feedback from employees with pulse surveys. The insights from these questionnaires can help ensure career pathing frameworks are accurate and teams are aligned.
Career pathing frameworks will look different depending on the industry, business, and even department.
Here are a few examples of career path models.
This is a high-level example of a career progression framework for a junior customer support agent:
Here is the sample career progression framework for a junior software developer:
Career pathing frameworks offer clear routes through an organization, fostering engagement and driving loyalty. Alongside providing transparency, these frameworks help companies meet organizational objectives by motivating employees to hone their skills and progress.
With Workleap Officevibe, managers and HR teams can track employee sentiment around growth and development opportunities, and refine career pathing efforts. Using Workleap’s feedback and recognition tools, you can also reinforce positive employee progress and keep employees energized.
Request a demo today and discover how Workleap’s data-driven insights can help you craft winning career planning frameworks.
Employee career mapping identifies all the potential routes an employee could take through an organization. Career pathing is the process of crafting a framework that identifies the responsibilities of each role, their skill and experience requirements, and how to move down that path.
The four career paths are vertical, lateral, role expansion, and dual career paths. The first three are explained above, but a dual career path is when there are two progression routes for an employee to choose from. The choice is typically between a people-management position and a more technical, specialized role.
Regularly asking for employee feedback is the most effective way of identifying issues with the career pathing process. Use tools such as Workleap Officevibe’s pulse surveys to ask whether teams are clear on any available progression options. Use this feedback to update job roles and expectations regularly.
The first step in career planning is to identify every job role in a department. From here, highlight the demands and responsibilities of each position, and any required skills, certifications, or experience.