Dual Career Ladder
A dual ladder career system is essentially the practice of offering two separate career paths within an organization – one for managers, the other for people with technical aptitude - that offer equitable pay scales at each "rung" of the career ladder. The whole idea behind this system is to provide an alternative method of career progression to technical workers such as engineers, programmers, and scientists who often feel "forced" to move into management to progress their careers and take home a larger paycheck. As a result, many skilled technical workers end up in management positions that are highly administrative in nature and much of their technical knowledge and expertise is not fully leveraged. The technical ladder is seen as a way to retain highly skilled technical workers who are interested in technical lines and a desirable option for them to advance through the excellence of their technical work.
A dual career ladder is a mechanism to stimulate employee career progress without compromising their research or professional interests. The dual career ladder stimulates innovation by enabling professionals and technically sound employees to progress without having to switch to a managerial stream. It is a way of establishing two distinct "career paths": one for an individual contributor and the other as a part of the management.
So early in an employee's career, a branching point is reached, and a person is provided with a choice of (or is chosen for) either the managerial ladder or the technical ladder. The titles are different in each ladder, but pay and perquisites are similar, rung for rung. Of course, the managerial ladder extends into the executive ranks (GM and CXO), while the technical ladder stops far short of this. This makes the managerial ladder appear more desirable to ambitious young employees. In theory, people can switch back and forth between the managerial and technical ladders. Unfortunately, switching between ladders is considered difficult and not pursued by many employees.
Both the technical and management roles offer equal opportunities to experiment and try something new, but the cost of failure is much higher in a management role. So if you are a Maverick, pick a technical career path :). The Technical Dual Career Ladder is usually expanded even above the Senior Management Level to appreciate the value of individual contributors to reach levels up to that of a Vice President, and in the process, allowing the company to continue to attract and retain the crème de la creme - and retain our world-class product and technology status.
Three things are important for any role “TOP” -Talent, Opportunity, and Passion. Management is tightly coupled with the “O” part of it. With passion, you can generate talent and create opportunities, so it’s very important to have passion. Managers can offer the environment around TOP.
“Technical people are the influencers of change rather than the controller of change vis-à-vis the management ladder”
At many companies, people have switched back and forth between the managerial and technical ladders. This is actually quite a good career strategy because it gives an opportunity to the employee to experience managerial responsibilities while allowing him to remain technically competent. Identifying one’s strengths becomes the key ingredient for success in both the technical and management career paths.
Cost of an incorrect choice:
The number one problem that organizations have while implementing a dual ladder system is the failure to properly identify the right individuals for each career path. For many organizations deciding which path a worker should follow boils down to little more than an educated guess. Even worse, some organizations rely on their team members to determine which career path is best for them. While it's great to get an employee's input about their career aspirations, the employee has a tendency to choose the wrong career path for the wrong reasons and their employers are usually the ones who end up paying for it.
One reason for this is that despite equitable pay scales, the management ladder is often preferable to the technical ladder as one's status, prestige, and power within an organization are often measured by the number of individuals one has underneath them as direct or indirect reports. Given the choice of which ladder to pursue, many individuals will choose the management ladder in an effort to gain greater respect and prestige within one's organization even though an "equitable" position exists on the technical ladder.
This can pose some serious problems for an organization as employees often pursue the management ladder when they are a better fit for a technical career. The reason is that as it becomes clear that an individual is not fit for a career in management he or she will often be sent to the technical ladder to see if they fare any better there. While this seems like the natural thing to do, the technical ladder becomes a sort of "consolation prize" to the individual removed from the management ladder, and many times he or she will choose to find employment elsewhere as a result of being "demoted" to the technical ladder. This goes contrary to the purpose of establishing the dual ladder in the first place: retaining highly skilled technical workers.
The only way to ensure that a dual ladder career path is successful is to put into place systems for determining which career path is the best fit for each individual. This?not only involves asking an employee which path they would like to pursue but following up their interest with an objective method of determining which path is really best for them and for the company.
Identify your strengths:
More people know intuitively what they’re not good at than take the time to analyze where their strengths lie. Yet it is only by performing in areas of strength that good performance can be built. People tended to go into the same line of work as their parents or close associates. In the future, however, there are far more choices, and people will be far more likely to go into professions that match their strengths.
To find your strengths, use a feedback analysis: Whenever you face an important decision, write down what you expect to happen as a consequence of your choice. Then review it 12 months later. Within two or three years, your strengths will become apparent, as will your weaknesses.
You can use a feedback analysis to:
The feedback analysis is also useful to evaluate:
Edgar Schein at MIT has identified eight themes and has shown that people will have prioritized preferences for these. For example, a person with a primary theme of Security/Stability will seek secure and stable employment over, say, employment that is challenging and riskier. People tend to stay anchored in one area and their careers will echo this in many ways. It is important to stimulate one's thoughts about own areas of competence, motivation, and values. This will reveal the career anchors. Here are the eight career anchors:
Aspirations and career anchors should not be mutually exclusive. Understanding one's career anchors help to negotiate better when one is to make a decision around his/her dominating conflicting career anchors. Life planning and financial planning automatically address career planning most of the time. With less experience, it’s natural to have more career anchors but as we gain more experience, the dominant career anchor becomes obvious. During the initial years, when there are 3-5 career anchors, trade-offs are always within this circle of anchors.
Applying your strengths.
The most successful people put themselves in situations that match their personalities as closely as possible. This also extends to personal value systems – high achievers gravitate to organizations that share similar value systems and ethics. Each of us has our own operating style and “Fix-it” formula, identifying and applying is the key to success. For example:
Perceptions to be aware of in the management ladder:?Anyone who opts for the management ladder might have to manage common perceptions that may not always be true. The more common perceptions are:
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Perceptions to be aware of in the technical ladder: People who opt for the technical ladder too have to manage perceptions and expectations. Techies are encouraged to focus deeply on technologies and become experts, and take on leadership roles in developing emerging technologies. Many people do this well but have a tough time communicating ideas and concepts to the management. The problem is that the techies have a hard time navigating the maze of business and communication - they haven't been trained. And the higher up the technical ladder they are, the worse it gets. If not managed effectively, they might be put into advanced technology or advanced design departments where they might be used as occasional consultants or safely ignored.
On either ladder, the best method is to manage one’s career oneself. To be truly successful in either career path, one has to be involved in the other aspect of their job.
Journey:?
Both the ladders offer a smooth journey in their respective growth ladders as long as the individual is willing to invest time and energy. One needs to understand not the difference in the titles at different levels but the job description and responsibilities at every level. Competency enhancement means executing tasks more productively. Whenever one moves up a notch in the respective ladder, it implies that the organization recognizes an individual’s capabilities to impact business qualitatively and has confidence in one’s future ability.?Expectations include:
With a promotion, the employee is being recognized for the confidence in their future ability. This cannot be achieved without sustained contribution and demonstration of key competencies. From an organization standpoint, promoted employees represent credible talent who are future bets. The organization will invest in them as these talents are scarce and extremely valuable.
Career development is no longer only about gaining the skills and knowledge you need to move up within one company. Career development today is about achieving flexibility and continuously evaluating and developing your skills in order to remain employable and fulfilled over the long term, regardless of who you are working for, and what industry you are working in.
To achieve this level of flexibility, you need to have a very strong sense of who you are and what you want from your work. Not everyone is motivated by the same thing, and our ambitions vary greatly. Some people thrive on being creative and innovative whereas others prefer stability and continuity. Challenge and constant simulation may be important to one person while creating a work/life balance is paramount to another.
Expanding responsibilities in a Technical Path:
?All engineers start with Language expertise like C/C++. So they start with debugging others’ code or writing their own code. Slowly with time, they move to implement the solution defined by the project lead. Once they master this art, they move on to finding solutions for the problems identified. Finally, the senior R&D engineers graduate to identify problems for other junior engineers to solve. With every technology or domain change, this circle of innovation and learning starts all over again.
Expanding responsibilities in a Management Path
Key components of leadership are setting a direction, aligning, and motivating people. Leadership is about dealing with change. Leadership produces vision and strategies that have a greater impact on a business over the long term. The growth path in the management path can be categorized into five levels:
Encouraging the Right Choice: Initial argument from engineers was that the dual ladder encourages mediocrity by rewarding employees for loyalty instead of performance and serves as a dumping ground for those not fit for management. But after listening to the speakers, some insight into the dual ladder career path highlighted that it mainly encourages the retention of highly skilled technical people as they see a path of success in their line of interest.
Moving from an individual contributor, engineer, consultant, technical or sales representative, etc. to a management position is not just a step up the corporate ladder, but a jump to an entirely new area in terms of skills, motivations, perspectives, responsibilities, and impact to the organization. It is also important that hiring managers think ahead when interviewing candidates for individual contributor jobs; they should identify people with management potential and position them for future growth within the company. If the training and mentoring process begins early, then both the supervisor and the new manager will have a greater chance for success. Norman Augustine, former CEO and Chairman of Lockheed Martin, Inc. was once asked about the best way to manage. He said to follow three steps:
Good managers know that employee satisfaction is essential to healthy teamwork, initiative, and productivity.?Based on an in-depth study of the most innovative ideas for creating a culture where employees thrive, the company's recruiting & retention tools will have all the ingredients that one needs to find and keep the best employees.
“I can go far alone but I can go further with a coach”
Still, have doubts? Talk to leaders who have taken either of the paths with these questions.
Key questions to ask someone who is on the technical ladder
Key questions to ask someone who is on the management ladder
Thought leader in AI startups, generative AI, and drug discovery. Redefining venture capital. Inspiring professor and a dynamic speaker. Twice "Entrepreneur of the Year" and a "Fast-50" honoree.
1 年Good article. This can be a challenging decision for someone who is highly talented technically but aspires to be in the C-Suite. It seems the only path to the C-Suite is the management path.
Inpiring
étudiant à Université de Bangui
2 年Love this
Technical Lead, Manager
2 年Thanks for wonderful insight.
Principal Engineer @ Synopsys Inc | Generative AI, Statistical Learning, Information Experience
2 年This is insightful. Two thoughts: - I think as a manager, you would expect a high degree of people skills, which typically comes with maturity. You can get young managers, who struggle with the "people" aspect of being a manager.? - As they get more senior, I would expect Technical Contributors to support/solve multiple problems across multiple managers. This is missing from the figure in the "Expanding responsibilities in a Technical Path:" section.