Welcome to the Career Ladder Resource Page.

Over time the definition of career ladders has changed. To some it means a set path of job progression tied to time intervals, such as is practiced in hospitals, school systems, and union environments. You're a Bookkeeper I for nine months, then you automatically become a Bookkeeper II, assuming your performance is acceptable. HRamp's definition focuses on mastery of skill and growth of knowledge in determining movement on the steps of the ladder. Our ladder allows for horizontal as well as vertical movement. Picture a ladder. There are two vertical bars and many horizontal bars. Now picture our ladder. It may have three, four, five vertical bars. These vertical bars represent the different routes an employee may take over the course of their career. Routes such as technical, project management, individual contributor, general management, sales. An employee isn't restrained to movement only up one vertical path. The employee decides when and where to move next.

The topic of Career Ladders, indeed the concept of career development, isn't on the radar of most HR professionals. In the past 20 years firms have turned responsibility for an employee's career over to the individual. It is ironic that over the same time frame the chant among both HR and other company managers is "attract and retain."

This page is our effort to collect resources and provide assistance to those managers with information they can use to understand, implement, and manage a modern knowledge based workforce. One of our colleagues presented a session at the 2001 NCHRA Conference on the topic of Career Ladders titled "Developing Meaningful Career Ladders for Knowledge Workers".

This seminar approached career ladders from the employee's point of view, as employees frequently wonder where their current job will lead and if it will be a direction they want to go. These questions regarding career progression and future job opportunities are often left unanswered or answered with noncommittal replies. Career ladders address this ambiguity by mapping out possible positions that employees might assume over time.

We have also hosted surveys on the topic of career ladders. Results have been published in Northern California Human Resource Association's "The HR Bulletin" in early 2002. SHRM's High-Tech Net also carries a publication about Knowledge Worker Career Ladders.

You are invited to join others interested in career ladder development. Whether your ideas are for strategy, implementation, or advice and insight, why not share your experiences. Simply send us a short paragraph about career ladders.

Before we publish it, we will contact you. Your anonymity will be respected in any published story, but if you or your firm want to take deserved credit, this is an ideal forum.