Dual Career Ladders

I think we’ve all seen a situation where an individual contributor has been promoted into a management position with neither the desire nor the skill to do the job.  The employee becomes frustrated and the company does too.  Not only does the company have an employee in a position who is failing, but it’s also lost a great performing individual contributor.

Why does this happen?

In a traditional, linear career ladder system, an employee is hired and, through a combination of skill and performance, is promoted to higher levels of responsibility.  Along with these promotions come increases in compensation.

The difficulty in this traditional system is that once an employee reaches the highest level of individual contributor, the next move must be into management to get ahead.  If the employee is interested in doing this and shows management competency then everything is fine. 

However, if the employee doesn’t have the competency or just doesn't want to be in management there’s a problem.  Compensation can create another problem. The longer an employee is at the highest individual contributor level, the higher his salary becomes and eventually it hits the maximum with nowhere to go from there.

In response to this problem, some companies have developed dual career ladders --- a management track and a non-management track.  This non-management track allows upward progression for employees without requiring them to move into management positions.  (See the graph above.)  They can continue to progress as individual contributors.

In my opinion only the very highly skilled employees should be allowed to progress onto the non-management track.  This track should be viewed as a real achievement --- reserved for people that continue to grow their skills and ultimately become true subject matter experts, developing a name for themselves in their profession.

This track is not about providing a means to continue awarding salary increases to “red-lined” employees. The last thing you want to happen is to put employees on that track whose skills have become stagnant. Doing so only “muddies” the true intent of the program.   It’s critical that the program not be viewed as an automatic progression.

There may be some of you who believe employees have to -- at some point --- move into management otherwise they will never get that breadth of experience/knowledge to become VP's or CEO.  Breadth of skill is important --- but the depth of these employees' skills is just as important.  And retaining them is better than losing them because they feel they have gone as far as they can in the company.

These dual tracks need to be developed carefully.  Creating a means to retain truly valuable and highly skilled employees should be the key reason  --- not compensation.  Specific criteria for skills and proficiency needed for each non-management level must be developed as well as the steps required to reach each of them. 

Communicating the purpose and requirements of the dual track to all employees is important.  It acts as a motivator for employees to continue to grow their skills and do some serious career planning well in advance of reaching that career path decision --- management or non-management.

When created the correct way, this program can eliminate forcing-fitting employees into management positions they are not suited for.  And most important, it can reinforce the importance of creating a work environment where all employees have value --- each in their own way.

Jacque Vilet, President of Vilet International, has over 20 years’ experience in Global Human Resources with major multinationals such as Intel, National Semiconductor and Seagate Technology. She has managed both local/ in-country national and expatriate programs and has been an expat twice during her career.   Her true love is working with local national issues.  Jacque has the following certifications:  CCP, GPHR, HCS and SWP as well as a B.S. and M.S in Psychology and an MBA.    She belongs to SHRM, Human Capital Institute and World at Work.   Jacque has been a speaker in the U.S., Asia and Europe, and is a regular contributor to various HR and talent management publications. 

Comments

[E. James (Jim) Brennan]

Nice to see a clear explanation of dual career ladders, Jacque.

The comments I started to post ended up growing into an article-sized expansion of your points. The topic deserves a bit more elaboration, displaying the pros and cons in more detail. I'll draft such a new one...

[Jacque Vilet]

Thanks Jim. Some high tech companies reserve the non-management track just for their "techie" positions. No Accountants or HR people allowed! This gets into the issue of differentiating critical skillsets --- critical for the company's survival, etc.

To make it clear, I envision the highest level of "guru" non-management track the most skilled computer scientist at ___(wherever). This would be someone who is well known in Computer Science circles, creates things no one has ever thought possible, etc. A real guru.

From a compensation viewpoint, these jobs --- perhaps all jobs in the non-management track --- would be very difficult to match. Most surveys stop at the Consultant or Sr. Consultant level --- one level short of true management.

The more I think about -- for various reasons --- the more I think surveys are beginning to outlive their usefulness.

[Joe]

I agree with Jim--it's good to revisit some comp 101 topics. You realize with experience that nothing is quite as simple as it's portrayed in a textbook, so revisiting and focusing on the nuance is much appreciated. I look forward to Jim's follow up.

[Phil Wuellner]

We created dual career paths at a prior company I was with. The program allowed one or two individual contributor levels at the manager level. Moving into these positions was a normal continuation of the process that governed movement up to that point - primarily performance and taking on additional or larger levels of responsibility. After that, further advancement up the individual contributor path was governed by a completely difference process. Things like thought leadership, publication in trade journals, conceptual design, and prominence in industry were the criteria. Additionally, appointment to these higher levels required approval by a mgt committee. These hurdles assured that the positions stayed true to the intent.

[Jeff Haynes]

I would be curious as to what the community has seen in terms of "definitions", or "parameters" for what it takes to be slotted in "Manager" levels, versus "Professional IC" Levels. This is a slightly different topic than the one posted here (which is more about career development, and right people in the right place). Heck, maybe it's an idea for another post.... In a practical since, I am asking "when is a job 'management' v. when is it 'ic' ". 1 direct report ? Manage a budget? Manage a program ? 2 direct reports ? Manage outside vendors ? I have my opinions, and have dealt with this before.... I usually say something like "the intent of the structure is to capture true people management as the primary function of the role." But, this could be different in different places... thoughts ?

[E. James (Jim) Brennan]

What Jeff describes is the essential distinction between supervisor and manager. In my lexicon, supervisor always means you have multiple direct reports and people-skills are the essential competency sets. Managers, OTOH, can be individual contributors directing functions with no subordinates and little need for human relations KSAs. It was covered in http://www.compensationcafe.com/2013/05/pay-f.html and http://www.compensationcafe.com/2012/02/is-it-the-person-or-the-position.html.

Ann Bares will publish my article expanding on the career latter topic soon, I'm sure.

[Jacque Vilet]

Phil --- that's been my experience as well. Gaining additional skills and publishing in journals, representing a professional function at a conference, etc. Example: An engineer speaking regularly at the IEEE conference. Seen as an SME in his/her profession.

Also having a company committee review/approve promotions to the next level of IC track employees. Strict guidelines to keep the integrity of the program.

Jeff --- agree with you that it is not easy to separate Manager from IC. The distinction of what takes up the majority of time is what I have experienced. I've found it to be rare to have a first level Manager to spend 100% of the time "managing". There is usually some "doing" as well. Many companies don't have the luxury of having a strict 100% cutoff.

Jim --- I guess we just have different opinions on this.

I don't hear the Supervisor title used unless managing non-exempt employees. Example: Accounting clerks, production operators. Never heard it used for managing exempt level employees. Maybe in government or unionized companies the title supervisor is used. And I realize that you have had a lot of experience in both.

Manager is also used for people who "manage" a large company project or program. Example: managing Benefits with maybe one non-exempt clerk or one professional.

I think surveys make this clear. I know the Radford surveys have definitions for Manager and Sr. level IC.

Thank you for all the comments. Joe is right --- revisiting Comp 101 topics is good for all of us.

[E. James (Jim) Brennan]

Joe -- Look for my follow-up piece, "Reward by Sharing Career Options" tomorrow, November 12, 2014.