The type of career path model within a company influences your work environment. Ask yourself if your personal goal is to climb the ladder or if you want to develop a broad range of competencies and skills.
“What does the employee career path model look like in this company?”
a. Vertical ànd horizontal
The most common career path model includes both vertical as well as horizontal growth paths.
This means your next step may be to ‘climb the ladder’ through a promotion OR to switch to a role on the same seniority level as your current role. You are stimulated to evolve your competencies on a broad range.
b. Vertical only
Some companies, or some roles, only have a vertical grow path. This means you have to be promoted in order to take a next step. Most of the time this promotion has to happen within a certain time frame. In this case the company has an ‘up or out’ system. The employee incentive mechanism is based mainly on competition.
Decide for yourself: do you want to go up, up, up or develop several different competencies?
Read Part 1 in order to find out which Performance Management process suits you best.
