Career Paths

Client Needs – A Houston-based client with 23 locations across the country wanted to enhance their transparency and clarity around career advancement for their Director and Project Manager levels, as well as for each department in the firm. In addition, they wanted to adjust the firm’s titles to be reflective of the employees’ roles yet be nimble for external use.

HR Advisors Group was selected due to its long-standing relationship with the client, its HR expertise and knowledge of the engineering space, and its knowledge of the firm. Because of our experience in creating engineering career paths, HR Advisors Group was able to effectively:

  • Explain the process
  • Set realistic timelines
  • Outline HR Advisors Group’s role along with the client’s role in the project
  • Work within the client’s budget
  • Present multiple options for HR Advisors Group’s support in all phases of the project

HR Advisors Group’s Solution – Our consultants met with the leadership team to determine career path priority. The client decided that the Director path and the Project Manager path should be completed first because promotions were imminent, and they wanted the promotions to align with the career path.

Our team advised the client to assemble a Task Force with 4 to 8 members to work with us on creating each career path. The Task Force members needed to be individuals with in-depth experience in the job family outlined on the career path. Our team worked with the Task Force to:

  • Create job competencies which were applicable to all jobs and departments across the firm
  • Pinpoint specific guidelines for each level, including education, typical years’ experience, certifications, training, responsibilities, and knowledge, skills, and abilities
  • Facilitate critical thinking of how the expectations for each competency would change as one advances along the career path

Our team did external research on titles in the industry in order to provide some guidance on potential titling schemes. The client conducted several internal meetings on their own to move the project forward. HRA reviewed and made suggestions on all drafts of the work and created final documents for the Director and Project Manager career paths.

It was important to the client that their Director career path be inclusive to all directors throughout the firm, regardless of their people management responsibilities. Understanding that the focus is slightly different for different types of directors, our team described the expectations for the Director path differently for those who are people managers than for those focused on technical expertise (non-managers).

Our consultants provided guidance and direction on outlining the purpose of the career path and how one interprets the information, as well as graphical representations of career path movement. The client’s marketing department used this document to create their own branded marketing piece on these career paths.

After these two initial career paths were completed, HR Advisors assisted the firm in creating a cost-effective approach for future career paths in other job families by continuing our work with the client in an advisory capacity. Using the template for the initial career paths, the client had their own internal HR representative work with Task Forces for each department to create a draft of the career path. In its advisory capacity, our team:

  • Reviewed the career paths and revised them as needed
  • Asked questions and made comments or suggestions
  • Facilitated Task Force meetings, if needed
  • Finalized the career paths

Key Activities and Learning Objectives for this Initiative included:

  • Create firm-wide core competencies and universal career path template
  • Provide education and guidance for the Task Force on career path development; revise and finalize career path documents
  • Create introductory career path documents including career path purpose, available paths, and job family mobility
  • Maintain an advisory role on all additional career paths

By creating an equitable avenue for advancement for all employees, career paths provide the means to evaluate and promote all employees using the same criteria and with no room for inconsistency. In addition, career paths serve as an aid in recruiting and selection, and provide new hires with the sense of growth and a future at a firm where advancement is encouraged and transparently laid out.

The client’s leadership and technical experts have come to trust and rely on HR Advisors Group for guidance and support on this very important and detail-oriented task of building career paths. As this firm moves into the future, they are well positioned to enhance the careers and engagement of their current employees and be the employer of choice for potential employees, all due to the transparency, clarity and equity that having career paths provides.

Our Work