We have recently launched our Employee Development Pipeline, an ongoing effort to continuously build a culture of success at the Knowland Group, in which people at all levels in the organization have opportunities to grow personally and professionally. The pipeline attempts to address the needs of those who are motivated to take on the challenge of developing their careers.
Work is changing, teams are more dispersed, and people want more out of their careers than a pay check or the fleeting promise of a series of moves up a corporate ladder. Our employee development pipeline is designed to give people opportunities to grow their careers in a variety of ways, which does not necessarily mean moves up a linear corporate ladder. It follows a model of the corporate lattice, rather than a corporate ladder.
Cathy Benko and Andrew Liakopoulos, from Deloitte, express the corporate lattice in a recent article in Talent Management Magazine. The main point they make is that the workplace and career development is changing from a linear corporate ladder structure to one that is non-linear; a lattice model of career progression.
Although, there are linear career paths in our Employee Development pipeline (for example, within sales or customer service) there are also opportunities for people to make lateral moves into other areas of the business. Some employees are already taking advantage of this model, making lateral moves, thus gaining broad experience in the organization rather than staying in a single discipline. We think people who do this are not only are valuable to the organization, but will also stay longer because they can keep their working interesting by taking on new challenges.
We have a long way to go creating our employee development pipeline, and it is a work in progress. However, I am proud to be a part of the process of creating opportunities for people to advance their careers and also to help put an end to the dead-end job.
