Do I Owe My Employees a Career Path?

http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/do-i-owe-my-employees-a-career-path/

by Sukotto • 15 years ago

57 48 15 years ago

boss.blogs.nytimes.com

No; its capitalism, you owe them money for work.

Should you provide a career path? Sure, you outlined all that in the article. You need to keep highly-skilled longtime employees somehow.

bediger• 15 years ago

Do you "owe" your employees a career path? In a word, no.

But having a career path is something you can pitch to prospective employees as an additional reason for working at your company.

Besides that, the jump from "lead engineer" to "frontline manager" should be something that's not just "be at the right place at the right time" or "sucking up to the right upper level manager" I think corporations universally handle this transition poorly, probably due to looking at people as "human resources".

DanielStraight2• 15 years ago

It sounds like his employees just need a raise. If I was making $500k a year cleaning toilets, I wouldn't care about a career path. Obviously this example is extreme, but if losing people is a disaster, you should be paying them enough that it would be insane for them to leave unless they were planning a complete career change.

As for more responsibility, just give people more say in how the company is run. If your employers are better at something than you ever see yourself being, they probably have insights that you would never have. Ask them. Implement their ideas.

I don't think people really want to feel overpaid or overextended any more than they want to feel underpaid or underutilized. If employees are asking for more money or more responsibility, it's probably because they feel underpaid or underutilized, not because they want excess.

iterationx• 15 years ago

I doubt that you can afford to pay your employees insane amounts and be competitive in most industries.

DanielStraight2• 15 years ago

You misread. I said pay enough that it would be insane for them to leave without changing careers. If you're in the top 1% of earners for your field, it would be insane to leave your job (at least where money is concerned) unless you were moving to a different career. You aren't going to earn more money somewhere else. If you want employees who are "very, very good," you need to pay them very, very well. They've earned it.

ojbyrne2• 15 years ago

I think a few years at $500k cleaning toilets and you'd have enough money in the bank to think about a career change. Even if it was

a. Running your own toilet cleaning business.

b. Retirement.

flyosity2• 15 years ago

What if cleaning toilets is your favorite thing to do in the world? Why start a business (and, ostensibly, pay others to do the thing you love most) when you could just keep on doing it, day after day?

jonsmock• 15 years ago

I definitely agree, especially with the idea of getting your employees further invested in the company, even if it doesn't mean a job/title change. I don't get compensated the way I might somewhere else, but it's awesome to work somewhere where I have influence and my ideas have a shot at being implemented.

Perhaps give your employees stock or the responsibility of making decisions in their specialty areas. Or, give them something like 20% time where they can be creative. Perhaps they'll create some beautiful, original woodwork that gets you press on your blog. Or, perhaps, it just enriches their lives and keeps them happy.

brudgers• 15 years ago

>"you should be paying them enough that it would be insane for them to leave unless they were planning a complete career change."

Golden handcuffs are not going to create fulfilled employees. Just look around HN, golden handcuffs create runway and a strong motivation to use it.

Not that compensating employees well is a bad idea - particularly on a production line good wages create stability. The difficulty is that a production line has less outlet for creativity because the schedule is tight and creative time means shutting down the line. Once a company adopts the factory model, their options are limited and regardless of intentions, everyone cannot become a manager - only one or two will.

KMStraub2• 15 years ago

100% on board with this comment. A dose of humility is something lacking at the top of a lot of companies who wonder why they can't seem to hold onto their talent. Give your employees the feeling that you're counting on them, and your problem will soon be, "Man, I've got so many overachievers."

eftpotrm• 15 years ago

if losing people is a disaster, you should be paying them enough that it would be insane for them to leave unless they were planning a complete career change.

Not to go against the immediate interests of my fellow workers, but how often have we seen advice to people to build up a fund so they can afford to go off and do what they really want - 6 months in the bank (or whatever) to let them really test a theory and start on their dream project? The better you pay those staff, the quicker they can build up that fund and leave you.

Which isn't to say staff should be underpaid and glad of it! but that salary is only part of what keeps someone working where they are. Pay people fairly for the value they add to your business but treat them well and value their skills and intelligence and they won't need to move on to try out their dream because you'll be providing them a platform where they can test it and you can reap the profits.

c0riander• 15 years ago

I think the more accurately stated question is: Is it better for my company if I create a career path for my employees?

Everyone's knee-jerk reaction to using the word "owe" will be no. But I think the question is an interesting one that I, at least, don't know the answer to. On the yes side, there is the possibility of long-term retention and providing more benefit to employees as a recruitment tool. On the no side, the potential for these employees to then leave for better jobs, the resource drain in creating such a program, the difficulty placing these people within a small company, etc.

So I'm curious to hear what people who've had this experience think -- is it better for the company?

sp_• 15 years ago

I used to work for a startup (employee) and I was wondering the same all the time. One of the perks of working at this company that you were allowed to speak at as many conferences as you wanted to and everybody who worked there made good use of it.

On the one hand, this was basically our primary marketing tool. We talked about our tools, other engineers saw them and convinced their companies to buy our software. On the other hand, our engineers were constantly in contact with people from big companies (Google, MS, ...) that tried to recruit them.

Curiously, only one of our engineers ever left the company voluntarily (that was me, after four years), so apparently the boss managed to create a work environment that was so great that even constant top-dollar recruitment attempts by other companies had no effect.

KMStraub2• 15 years ago

That's great to hear. A company that is so confident in what its doing and its hires, that it trusts and encourages them to expand their skill set and degree of influence.

MaysonL• 15 years ago

No, but don't get bent out of shape when they leave. And they probably will leave, whether you have a "career path" for them or not.

So plan for it, prepare for it, and work with your employees to prepare succession plans for when they do leave.

asolove• 15 years ago

Do your employees owe you to care about the good of your business?

lotusleaf1987• 15 years ago

If you don't it's basically just a dead end job and you're not going to be able to attract high-caliber employees and you won't retain most employees for long. Your employees will just look for another opportunity and as soon as it arises move on.

JanezStupar• 15 years ago

Am I just being idealistic or is this an tremendous opportunity? What is better for owner than his employees to want to take on challenges, by themselves even, assuming they have the chops to pull it off? Employees showing ambition seems like just as good a reason to expand as demand picking up, again assuming that the market is there.

I reckon that the founder/manager/owner is not the only one that deserves a career path (he went from running a one man band to actually managing people). And someone coming to you and saying - I want to do your work has to be the most awesome thing an entrepreneur could get to hear. You have a willing replacement so you can move to something even cooler - now that is some sweet burden.

What seems like a more interesting question to me is how can I get people to want to take my job consistently?

autalpha• 15 years ago

As someone who worked in a lot of environment (factory manual labor, meat packaging, tech), I find that good employers are those who care for the growth of the employees as much as they do the company growth. Even a perception of "care" really goes a long way to create employees' loyalty. I think this video says a lot about this point: http://www.thersa.org/events/vision/animate/rsa-animate-driv....

gte910h2• 15 years ago

Have you heard of golden handcuffs? While there are certainly anti-employee versions of that business trope, there are certainly pro-employee ways to do that. Profit sharing that goes up by year is a good one, as is benefits increases.

Even just increase pay over time past what they'll earn elsewhere. They'll keep doing their highly specialized job because no one else can hire them at a competitive rate.

Find areas they can flex their brains that don't cost you much. Say, publicity stunt woodworking (I'm sure you could make things that get you press), novelty items you can use as gifts to prospective clients, etc, completely designed and done by these skilled tradesmen.

Or hell, just give them stupid amounts of time off. It's very hard to leave a place that has 20-40 days of vacation.

Or even make a community oriented approach. Have them teach a class on X etc to the community, mentor at risk kids, etc.

sosuke• 15 years ago

If you're going to use the vacation time route then please don't go to unlimited vacation. To some employees unlimited vacation is the same thing as none.

gte910h2• 15 years ago

I want to run a company someday where if you've not taken all your vacation, then at the end of the year your email, phone forwarding and door access card all turn off till Jan 1.

ryanhuff• 15 years ago

Some jobs are just jobs. Do job x for pay y. But in many employee/employer relationships, there is a tremendous opportunity for the employer to have a lasting impact on peoples lives beyond the paycheck, and its more than a career path at a company. Is it just a job, or a building block of one's career that ultimately impacts the employee, and his/her family for years to come?

Whether providing a career path at the company, or providing employees with improved skills and marketable experiences that will set them up for the next step in their "portable career path", businesses should recognize there is social responsibility in the employer/employee relationship. As an example, the career positioning and experiences gained by a 25 year old employee can have tremendous and direct impact on their life, and that of their families.

With that said, there are certainly limits to what a business can sustain. Some forethought in employee selection (right people on the bus), a little bit of coaching and mentoring, and understanding the goals of the employee can go a long way to creating a work experience that goes beyond the basic career path.

michaelpinto• 15 years ago

The traditional notion of a career path is that you get promoted from job x to y — this works in large organization. However in a small biz a career path is taking on the extra work load and creating the job you want to grow a business. That atmosphere must come from the CEO, however the employee must have an intraprenurial mindset.

PaulHoule• 15 years ago

My favorite quote from that article is "That made for an interesting job, but it wasn’t efficient enough to support living wages and benefits."

It points out a real contradiction. If you want to be able to pay people a lot, you need to create an environment where they can be highly productive. The answer for that, in industrial systems, is specialization. If the people are having to think a lot about what they do, they'll spend their time thinking, doing different things, and fixing problems caused by doing things differently -- this work isn't paying work since it comes off their wages.

Another part of the problem is that there are fewer spots the higher up you go on the pyramid. The other day I was browsing the remainder rack at my local Uni's bookstore and found that there's now a "One Minute Manager" book about managing yourself.

I guess these days organizations are being hollowed out, so that few people have a chance to be promoted to management and that many of us don't get the managerial attention we need.

jamesbkel3• 15 years ago

Sort of on the same note as providing a good environment... at probably the best company I've worked for, my boss wouldn't blink if I came to him with a request. Be it a software package, new machine, more hours/machines on EC2.

He realized that compared to what he was paying me to work, these were small costs to make sure I could work effectively and to help build the company. Consequently, I had enough respect not to abuse the privilege.

I'm always shocked when I talk to friends at other companies who bitch about working with shitty machines or generally not having the right tools. Generally my rule of thumb would be 10% of salary for upgrades/tools/software. Think about it: for a salary of $50k, what's adding another $5k/year to significantly improve an employee's productiveness?

Also important is to let them make the decision, not just arbitrary upgrades.

javanix• 15 years ago

Those improvements aren't as fleeting either. If the employee leaves, whatever process improvements they had gotten with that 5k has a good chance of sticking around and helping for the future.

jarek• 15 years ago

In some cases, your boss may understand and support this position, but be constrained by his higher-ups. This is especially the case at companies where technology is on the expense side.

icefox• 15 years ago

With the one exception being when developers are given the same horrible machine that the end users will have so it wont be a mad rush at the end to try to optimize it.

jtbigwoo• 15 years ago

I knew a secretary at a big telecom equipment company that had been paid in stock back when the company was just getting started. Twenty-five years later, she was worth over $10,000,000 and still working the same job. She didn't have a career path, she had two things:

-a job that made a difference at the company

-a share of the rewards

Give your employees those two things and they'll stick around.

shasta• 15 years ago

I think you mean - she didn't have a career path, but she had two things:

- a job that made a difference at the company

- $10,000,000

jshen• 15 years ago

He had it right. A share of the rewards is a gamble that there will be rewards, but the outcome is unknown when the promise of rewards are given. She only knew that if the company did well that she would also do well.

rythie• 15 years ago

She obviously either took a risk or didn't need the money back then. Many people refuse to take stock instead of a salary.

tibbon• 15 years ago

Stability means a lot though when assessing this situation. A barely funded startup with a set of rookie founders? I'm going to be hesitant to look for the super long term.

A company that has a near monopoly and provides essential services? That's stock that will probably have value in 30 years or longer.

grammaton• 15 years ago

I think much the same dynamic is in play in the average developer's career.

Think of all the job postings you've seen asking for 5 years experience in language X and 10 years experience in platform Y. Employers seem to want ever more specialization out of their developers, which for the most part is exactly the opposite of what is in the developer's own best interests. What developer wants to end up wedded to a single platform or language - if they're smart, or even just ambitious, they'll know that technical knowledge has a frightfully short shelf life. Not to mention that the only way to get a promotion or raise as a developer is typically to jump ship and go somewhere else. So it seems to be in their own best interests to branch out and try new things, which typically involves going elsewhere.

In the software industry, at least, employers by and large feel little if any obligation to give their developers a career path, and that's why most developers move around so much. Not that I don't understand the employer's motives as well - especially in a field as in demand as development can be, why should they feel an obligation to give us a career path when we can essentially write our own ticket if we choose to?

Don't feel any obligation to give your employees a career path, then - but don't expect them to stick around either. And no, it's not because they're lazy or spoiled or entitled or disloyal - it's a simple matter of economic incentives.

wtracy• 15 years ago

Well, whether or not specializing in one technology is good for your career depends on your career goals.

Being an expert in one obscure technology is an excellent way to become a consultant.

If you don't want to spend your career maintaining someone else's code, then it's probably a bad idea to specialize in one technology.

orky56• 15 years ago

If you were to set up a rotational program that identified leadership, it would be beneficial to both parties. Imagine a group of high potential workers who rotated around doing each other's jobs. They would have new skill sets and would be able to do their original jobs better. Productivity would go up for each individual task and they would be able to cover for each other if one were to fall sick or get laid off.

There seems to be a bias that a career path exclusively means promotions but in this case rotations can provide new challenges and benefits that will naturally cause an increase in pay.

ibagrak• 15 years ago

I read the article and I didn't see a word about career path. The answer to the question is still a "no", in my view.

Once I hire a person, I expect them to approach me with their career aspirations and ideas. It is primarily their responsibility to come up and discuss/suggest opportunities for growth. Failing to do that, I actually think they become one of those idle 6s the article is talking about. I should also note that at this point I start looking for a replacement.

But do I owe them a career path? No. I owe them honesty and transparency, which includes not misrepresenting what the opportunities for growth are for a particular position they are being hired into.

Of course I am talking about those roles where personal ambition is indispensable, and where proactive behavior is highly valued. Genuine desire to grow and evolve is very natural and needs to be accommodated, but it can't take the form of personal interest completely eclipsing team interests and overarching direction and goals. That's a balance every manager needs to strike.

crpatino• 15 years ago

> Once I hire a person, I expect them to approach me with their career aspirations and ideas.

You may consider that under this strategy, your work force will self select amongst the extrovert go-getters. This may be exactly what you want, or the complete opposite. It all depends to what degree your business relies on typically introvert traits such as creativity or lateral thinking.

But if you are ok with that, I am ok with that.

invalidOrTaken• 15 years ago

He should give his employees a raise if he can afford it, and raise his prices if he can't.

And if raising his prices isn't feasible, maybe his employees don't deserve a raise.

DennisP• 15 years ago

This talk by Daniel Pink seems relevant.

http://www.thersa.org/events/vision/animate/rsa-animate-driv...

bluesnowmonkey• 15 years ago

If you've had a guy spend 18 years building bases for conference tables, his brain is mush. Even adults have to be exposed to new ideas and challenges in order to continue to grow mentally. So he's not loyal -- he sticks around because he's become useless for anything else and probably doesn't even notice.

I know developers who've written basically nothing but RPG for 18+ years. Same principle. Mush.

Do I Owe My Employees a Career Path?

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