Career Progression: Why It’s Essential To Map Your Employee’s Careers
I don’t like gardening. The closest I come to being a gardener is working out where the plants should go so somebody who knows more about plants than I can put them there. That's also a reflector of one of my key strengths in business. I'm full of ideas; I'm full of what's going to happen in the future, and when there's something I want to do, I want my team to help me get it started as quickly as possible. CliftonStrengths calls people like me ‘Activators’. There are many good things about being an Activator and a few not so good things as well, mainly that Activators can become very impatient and frustrated when things aren’t happening.
But let's get back to gardening. Even though I don't like gardening, I do like plants. A couple of years ago, we had this fantastic looking plant with one of those impossible to spell Latin names, but the plant needed to be trained by putting up posts and wires it could climb on to keep it off the ground. I neglected to train it, so the fantastic plant died.
On the other hand, we had another plant in the garden that I couldn’t care less about because it looked like a weed. I neglected that too, and all it did was continue to grow. In the end, it strangled all the other plants around it, including the fantastic one I wish I’d bothered to look after.
Where is this convoluted gardening story going?
It’s a metaphor for what happens when you don’t map out your employees’ careers.
The good ones either get fed up and leave, or because they can’t see where they’re heading and don’t feel like you or their managers are supporting them, they eventually lose the fire in their belly that made them so valuable.
On the other hand, the bad ones will always hang in there, suffocating the enthusiasm of the good ones because they don't care. Maybe they would if you paid them some attention and gave them a goal that motivates them to go after, but it doesn't matter either way. They’ll keep dragging your business down until you find a way to improve them or until they become so disruptive you’ve got a reason to pull them out.
And that’s why successful leaders and managers always help map out their employees’ careers.
Here’s how you do it.
The nuts and bolts of career mapping
Career mapping (also called ‘career pathing’) is when a leader or manager sits down individually with each of their employees/team members to agree where their career should go and plan the best way to make that happen. During that conversation, you'll discuss their goals and ambitions, their strengths, and how you can help them gain any other skills they might need to advance to the next position.
The benefits of career mapping:
It helps you retain your most valued employees: setting up a career path for your team members keeps them motivated and encourages them to stay in your business.
It sets clear goals and expectations: they'll know what they need to do to achieve that next promotion, and an effective leader/manager will set the goals that align with the company's vision.
It increases productivity and enhances job satisfaction: when employees are focused on improving their status and know they're actively supported in that journey by their leaders and managers, they'll work harder and have much better morale. Boosting an employee’s morale is a win-win for everyone. It makes the whole working environment a better place to be.
It might even turn some of your weeds into flowers: sometimes (but not all the time, unfortunately), all a mediocre employee needs to lift their sights and become a more productive member of your team is a reason to do better. If you write them off, they'll keep doing what they're doing. If you give them something to aim for, so they'll realise they could genuinely progress and achieve success in your business if they put the hard work in, a lot of your mediocre players could quickly turn into tomorrow’s rockstars and superstars. If they don’t, at least you tried your best by giving them the option.
Creating a career map for your employees
The keyword here is 'collaboration'. Your employee has to buy into this; you must never give them a map you think they should follow because that might not be where they want to go. You have to identify their goals and plan their journey together.
Before the career mapping meeting: give each employee a self-assessment sheet to complete, where they can outline their skills, abilities, previous experience and achievements, and what their main goals and interests are. Where do they want their career to take them next? Using the CliftonStrengths tool is a fantastic way for your employees to identify talents and abilities they didn’t know they have or be reminded of skills they’ve forgotten how to use. It’s also a very effective way of signposting what their capabilities and potential are right now, so they can build on those foundations, identify any extra knowledge or experience they need, and achieve their career goals faster.
You don’t even need to hire a certified CliftonStrengths coach (like me) if you don’t want to. If you go to the CliftonStrengths website (www.gallup.com) you/they can do a Top 5 CliftonStrengths assessment online at a very competitive price. It doesn’t go into all the depth of a complete 1-34 CliftonStrengths assessment and working with a certified coach who can properly interpret your CliftonStrengths results and know how to put them into practice is always the most effective way to do it, but getting your employees to take even the most basic CliftonStrengths assessment before the career mapping meeting will almost always turn up some unexpected gold.
During the career mapping meeting: work through the self-assessment sheet, spend as much time as needed on each element, and ask them to clarify anything that isn't clear. Talk about their current role: what do they like about it? What would they change?
Ask them questions about their career goals: where do they see themselves in twelve months? Where would they like to be in five years? If there was any role they could have in this business, what would it be and why? Do they feel they're on the right path to achieve their current goals? If not, how could you help them; what can you do to facilitate their progress as a leader or manager? What skills will they need to learn? What skills do they want to develop? What would their dream job be?
Based on their answers, look at the roles or responsibilities within your company that align with their career goals. That doesn’t always mean they’ll start by moving vertically into a higher position; depending on their goals, they may have to move sideways into a different department or team and then begin their climb from there. Whatever possible future positions you talk about, make it clear precisely what that role entails so they know what to expect when they get there.
Once the employee knows how they’d like to progress within the company, create a career map to help get them there. The map must include clear, realistic goals and the skills they’ll need to develop to achieve them. It should also factor in how they’re going to learn those skills. Chart how long it will take to reach the next step in their career. A larger company will have more roles and opportunities to offer so that progression may be faster. A smaller company may be more limited, although this career mapping discussion could point towards a skill set the employee has that a role could be created for.
What are the career mapping pitfalls?
You’ve both got to commit to making this happen. If the employee leaves the discussion full of enthusiasm, does the things they need to do and then starts to suspect their leader/manager isn’t giving them the support they promised, this whole process could do more harm than good.
If your employee is a rockstar who is quite content to stay where they are, they might resist the idea of career mapping or misread it as an attempt to move them on whether they like it or not. At the start of the career mapping discussion, make it clear that that isn't the case, and there's no pressure to advance if they don't want to. However, check in with them periodically to ensure their aspirations haven't changed.
It's easy for a leader to think they’re busy enough as it is, so why should they give themselves even more to do by mapping or pathing their people's careers. As far as I'm concerned, that's only the attitude a mediocre leader would take. An effective, forward-thinking leader knows that giving their employees a career path and supporting them on the way will benefit the business and their leadership just as much as it will benefit the individual. Those benefits begin the moment they know you've got their best interests at heart.