Given its widespread benefits, it’s easy to understand why many organizations are turning their attention towards horizontal growth. If you want to improve non-linear career progressions at your organization, here are a few steps you need to take:
Swap talent hoarding for talent sharing
Talent hoarding and horizontal growth can’t exist in the same organization. If your managers are possessive of their high-performing employees, these workers might feel like they’re trapped into staying with their current team or department. Over time, hoarded talent comes to believe that their best chance of pivoting their careers lies outside of your organization, causing them to disengage.
In contrast, managers who promote talent sharing benefit from teams that are inspired to achieve their full potential. And their team members take confident ownership of their career development and pursue both horizontal and vertical growth opportunities—ones that align with their goals and your business priorities.
Prioritize mentorship
The right approach to mentoring can empower employees to consider all types of career development, including horizontal growth. Rather than pairing mentees to mentors who hold more senior roles on their team, the most impactful initiatives match people based on their career ambitions and the skills they want to learn.
In the past, mentorship matching was a cumbersome process. Leaders needed to map out their participants’ competencies and goals and make relevant pairings manually. But now that talent marketplaces are gaining momentum, this heavy-lift is no longer necessary. The two-sided platforms match employees with similar interests and ambitions near-instantaneously, so leaders can debut a mentoring program that powers horizontal growth at scale.
Put employees in control of their career progression
There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all career path. Your people each have their own ambitions, skills sets, and goals for the future—and they’re the ones that know what they’re looking for best. So instead of expecting them to follow along on prescribed career paths, why not encourage them to seek out opportunities that align with their goals and your business priorities?
The newest career pathing tools use employees’ profile information to generate various paths their careers can take. Once people have full visibility into their potential growth opportunities, they can sit down with their manager and align on a path forward that benefits everyone involved.
