Albert Galarza is the Global Vice President of Human Resources at TELUS International.
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What does career success look like to you?
For some, success is defined by linear progress, like starting in a frontline role and working your way up to becoming the head of the company. For others, it's more about evolving your career by moving up, down, diagonally and laterally by gaining new skills, knowledge and roles.
This is the corporate ladder versus corporate lattice debate in a nutshell.
It's easy to see these two approaches as representing a binary choice, meaning you must pick one or the other. But today’s workplaces actually benefit from supporting both trajectories—and a lot of the nuances in between.
The Differences Between A Corporate Ladder And A Corporate Lattice
On the corporate ladder, each rung represents a promotion to a more senior role or position with more responsibility than the last and, ideally, a salary bump to match.
That notion of success has existed for generations, built on the idea of there being some kind of predictability and stability in business, which allows a person to climb the ranks as they gain experience and expertise.
The image of the corporate ladder also suggests that the ladder is narrow, meaning those climbing it are doing so in direct competition with their peers and that personal sacrifices are required to make it to the top.
Today's tech-driven world is making it more difficult to predict where business is heading and what kind of employees we'll need in the future. For many, it's harder than ever to set a specific career goal and stick with that plan for years without needing to pivot or get a major skills upgrade.
This challenge has led to the development of the corporate lattice. "The corporate lattice model, in contrast to the traditional ladder, is more adaptive, and therefore better suited to align with the changing needs, norms and expectations of today's workplace," wrote Deloitte when the concept first emerged about a decade ago.
The lattice approach has been put to the test in recent years as the pandemic accelerated the kinds of digital transformations that disrupt our concepts of traditional career pathways.
A Lattice Helps You Grow Stronger Roots
Think of a lattice as a wide trellis in your vegetable garden, there to support plants as they mature. The tendrils of a green bean plant rarely shoot straight up toward the sun; rather, the vine meanders around the trellis, wrapping itself around different parts based on the light, water and nutrients it needs at any given moment. With the lattice's support, the plant grows taller and stronger, producing more beans and deeper roots. This organic approach can be slower, but it allows plants to thrive at their own pace.
But having a healthy garden requires constant monitoring and adaptation. For instance, after significant rainfall, you should hold off on watering so as not to oversaturate the soil and cause the plants to rot. Or consider the advantages of growing diverse groups of vegetables together, rather than mono crops—all plants get the chance to flourish because they are not competing for the same space and nutrients.
Similarly, in the workplace, professionals in charge of learning and development programs should be ready, willing and able to adapt planning as needed. They also need to recognize that diversifying their workforces—like their gardens—makes for more resilient and productive organizations.
Those elements are especially true in a labor marketplace with widening skills gaps. In LinkedIn's 2022 Workplace Learning Report, 46% of learning and development professionals said they noticed notable increases in skill gaps within their organizations in the past year.
However, constantly hiring to fill those gaps is not a sustainable solution. Rather, it's more beneficial to offer meaningful learning and career development opportunities that better engage, motivate and upskill the existing workforce.
Supporting Internal Growth
Notably, LinkedIn's 2023 Workplace Learning Report revealed that employees keep five key factors in mind when considering a new job: compensation and benefits, flexible work environments, challenging and impactful work, internal career growth and opportunities to learn and develop new skills.
Taken together, these priorities suggest that while money matters a lot, having work-life balance and opportunities to grow matter, too. And depending on one’s age and life stage, sometimes those things matter more than maximizing earning potential.
Yet, creating the conditions for growth is not as simple as seeding the field and seeing what sprouts. Rather, companies require career development strategies with measurable, actionable plans. At TELUS International, we take a holistic approach to career development and succession planning while leveraging automation tools to enable efficient and consistent data collection. Additionally, we provide access to team members globally to ensure we find the right candidate for each role.
We believe that succession planning is critical for tapping leadership potential internally and ensuring that we nurture the talent needed to meet the evolving demands of our growing business. At the same time, we recognize that our job as an employer is to ensure all of our team members get ample support to help them accomplish their individual career goals. As such, we offer a number of avenues to engage in learning and development programs in ways that are most convenient for them. This includes virtual self-paced platforms, online courses, mentorship programs and access to in-person courses at local universities.
The Evolving Workplace
As new forces shape workplaces and new generations enter the workforce, companies hoping to recruit and retain top talent must continue to adjust their career development strategies accordingly. Enabling employees to set their own goals and expectations for their development based on their individual preferences and priorities will help employers maintain robust workforces while allowing companies to establish organizational stability, resilience and financial dependability.
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