Career Pathways to Success
Are you, or your employees, frustrated with being unable to achieve the next promotion? Are you struggling to achieve your career goals? If so, consider building a personalised career pathway.
This second newsletter continues the conversation around supporting employees throughout the full employee lifecycle and focusses on career paths, personal development and alignment with changes to business requirements. To highlight the point though, let’s focus on the route to the role of the Chief People Officer, because in HR it’s very easy to focus on others and overlook ourselves!
We know that as the top HR executive, the CPO is responsible for shaping the company’s culture, developing talent strategies, and driving employee engagement. The journey to this executive position requires a blend of experience, continuous learning, and strategic insight, whilst aligning oneself to business values, objectives and the market in which it operates.
Career Pathways to Chief People Officer
Aspiring CPOs typically start their careers in entry-level HR roles, such as HR Assistants or Coordinators, with progression into specialist roles, including:
· Talent Acquisition: Managing recruitment and hiring strategies.
· Employee Relations: Addressing workplace issues and fostering a positive work environment.
· Compensation and Benefits: Designing pay structures and benefit programs.
· Learning and Development: Implementing training programs to enhance workforce skills.
· HR Analytics: Using data to inform HR decisions and strategies.
After gaining expertise in one or more of these areas, professionals often advance to HR Manager or HR Business Partner roles, where they start to influence broader HR policies and strategies. The next step is typically a generalist HR position as part of the senior management team, such as HR Director, overseeing multiple HR functions and contributing to organisational strategy.
This was confirmed in the EtonBridge Partner’s CPO Pathways report 2024, which states that there is increasing evidence that the route to Chief People Officer is still firmly through a generalist pathway (79 %). However, experience in other Human Resource specialisms is becoming more highly regarded (5% of candidates), with Heads of Leadership, Learning and Talent most likely to be successful in making the move directly from a specialist or Centre of Excellence role to a CPO position. The remaining 14% of CPO appointments are people with experience in a variety of other functional roles.
Importance of Career Development and Investing in Oneself
We also know that to reach the CPO level, continuous professional development is crucial. This includes:
· Advanced Education: Many CPOs hold advanced degrees in HR, Business Administration, or related fields.
· Professional Certifications: Credentials such as the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) qualifications (in the UK) or SHRM (in the USA).
· Networking and Mentorship: Building a strong professional network and seeking mentorship from current CPOs can provide valuable insights and career guidance.
· Staying Current: Attending industry conferences, participating in webinars, and keeping up with HR trends and best practices are essential for staying competitive.
Investing in oneself not only enhances skills but also demonstrates a commitment to personal and professional growth, a quality highly valued in leadership roles.
Career Pathing
So now we know the career path that most people take to CPO and the career development needed for the role, we can work out a personalised career pathway with short and long-term goals, and from that, a development plan unfolds.
According to LinkedIn’s L&D Career Pathing article, Career pathing is the process of creating a road map to help your team members realize their professional aspirations. It may involve development activities, lateral moves, and promotions that move employees closer to their short- and long-term career goals.
One Pharmatec CEO links career progression and salary growth to the careful navigation of career paths in his article, again highlighting that lateral moves to roles that offer new skills or more visibility can be just as beneficial as traditional promotions, resulting in a higher salary and better career development opportunities.
The benefits of career pathing extend beyond the individual, as they benefit the business by attracting more job candidates (by showcasing the opportunities for progression), improving business performance (by increasing motivation) and future proofing the business (by preparing team members for emerging, mission-critical roles). Yet only 45% of organisations offer career paths for individual contributors. We are clearly missing an opportunity here!
Of course, help is at hand from me at Career Matters should you need it. Whether as part of a full career coaching programme or stand-alone career pathing sessions, I’ll assess the needs of the business and the individual, discuss their career goals, build a personalised pathway and create a development plan. Or for individuals that want to invest in themselves, I can help them directly.
