The Career Pyramid – A Great Monument to Planning
by Lois MelbourneOne reason Aquire is successful is that the most common way companies visualize their organization mentally and literally is through the org chart. Yet there is another triangular image in the career and talent management visualization which is also important. This is the Career Pyramid.
I have never liked the term “climbing the corporate ladder.” It implies that your career path is going to be linear. I have seldom seen paths to career nirvana as straight lines. Instead, there is an analogy, pulled together by Lindsey Pollak, that aggregates several examples of why building your career as a pyramid is valuable.
This is a great analogy. Now, employers need to recognize that, in order to develop their talent and keep employees interested, they need to provide many lateral moves in their structural design. If employers don’t do this, they are forcing the employees to build the wide base of their career in multiple companies. This is counterproductive for employers.
As organizations go through their reorganizations, downsizing or merger exercises, they need to consider their succession planning and their replacement planning as they relate to career development and retention. Will their new organizational design allow them to add to the pyramid of their employees’ careers? Can they use the analogy to help someone understand the value of a lateral move in building the foundation for future promotions?
If companies would consider the employee development value as important as they do their organizational planning, they would see better employee engagement, further career building, and thus better retention. Great organizational design and planning of the org chart lead to great monuments for personal and corporate history – the well planned career pyramid.
Cheers,
Lois
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