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A graphic with a staircase titled: Level Up Your Company with Career LaddersFrom the Pros at Mineral

A career ladder is a way of thinking about and designing a job not only as a set of duties for the here and now, but also as a pathway along which someone in the role could progress over time. Small businesses and teams often struggle to provide their employees with avenues for advancement. They typically don’t need a complex corporate hierarchy with senior leadership roles and middle managers, so promotional opportunities may be scarce. For employees who prefer to work in a smaller-sized company, the lack of mobility is usually a worthwhile tradeoff. But not always. The absence of opportunities for advancement is a big reason employees cite for leaving a job.

Fortunately, there is a straightforward way to create meaningful mobility within a job that doesn’t necessarily add any layers to the organizational structure. It’s called a job ladder or career ladder.

A career ladder is a way of thinking about and designing a job not only as a set of duties for the here and now, but also as a pathway along which someone in the role could progress over time. Jobs designed this way typically have three to five tiers, depending on the current and anticipated needs of the organization. Each tier comes with a different or additional set of responsibilities and expectations – and has its own pay range.

By creating a ladder for your jobs, you provide employees in those roles with a tangible set of goals and rewards for developing their knowledge, skills, and abilities and staying with your organization. If done right, career ladders can also help protect your organization from claims of discrimination because they establish objective and transparent benchmarks to justify promotions and pay increases.

Are Ladders Right for Your Jobs?

Career ladders don’t make sense for every job. If the work and the competencies needed to do it will remain substantially the same over time, and you won’t be able to afford regular pay raises, career ladders might be of little use. However, if you expect the person doing the job to develop in the role, eventually taking on new responsibilities and ownership while requiring less day-to-day oversight, career ladders can be a great tool.

For the record, advancing up a career ladder doesn’t have to end in a management position. You can have career ladders that begin and end with nonsupervisory duties, ladders that add management at a certain step, and ladders in which employees begin as managers.

Creating a Career Ladder

The particulars of a career ladder will depend on the nature of the job and its potential for growth. A high-skill job with little potential for change over time might have only three tiers based on whether the individual in it is new to the role, experienced in it, or been in the position for many years. A job with more room for growth might start at an entry or intermediate level.

For each level, add a descriptor or number to the job title (e.g., Associate or Senior Marketing Specialist, or Sales Associate II) and an overview of the job’s responsibilities, its deliverables, its core competencies, the degree to which its work is supervised, and the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to do it.

In general, the higher the level of the job, the more you’d expect from someone doing that job. A Copyeditor I might be an entry-level position responsible for proofreading content for any typos and deviations from the team style guide. A Copyeditor II might also be expected to catch typos and errors of style while also being responsible for improving the quality of the writing. A Copyeditor III might do all this to varying degrees while also being responsible for checking the work of other copyeditors and helping develop the team style guide.

Deciding what to include at each level can be daunting. We recommend starting the process by exploring the following questions:

  • How will each current role need to evolve to meet the future needs of the organization? Think about the competencies and job duties that will be important for success in two years, five years, and ten years.
  • What additional knowledge, skills, and abilities would your current employees like to develop? You probably won’t be able to grant their every wish, but by collaborating with employees on the evolution of their jobs, you get on-the-ground insight you might have overlooked and a better chance of buy-in from your employees.
  • What tasks are managers currently doing that could be delegated to their direct reports in the future?
  • What gaps currently exist that could be filled by employees receiving training or other professional development?
  • What hopes or expectations do you and managers have for employee self-sufficiency? While an entry-level role might require constant oversight of work, you’d expect someone in a role over time to need less day-to-day supervision. That expectation can be captured in a career ladder.
  • If you were going to rehire for the role or hire a second person for it, what changes would you make?

Don’t worry about getting the details of each job tier right on the first try. You can always make changes in the future. In fact, your career ladders will need to evolve as your organization does. The important thing is that your organization and your people are leveling up together in ways that serve you both.

As always, reach out to the experts at KMA for guidance on employee development, or any HR questions you may have.