How does professional growth happen? Prospects and risks of career growth: advice to modern youth

In my work, I constantly come across employees who dream of achieving career growth. Unfortunately, not everyone succeeds in this and it does not always depend on the person, but, nevertheless, making a career is not so difficult if you follow certain rules.

The author of this article received his first management position at the age of 20, while the rest of the team was much older and had more experience and education. After that there were many ups and downs that taught me a lot.

This article is intended primarily for those who want to become a leader and manage people.

Why do you need career growth?

Before talking about how to achieve career growth, I really want you to answer the question for yourself: why do you need career growth? The fact is that the answers can vary greatly: some want to earn more, some like to command, and some are tired of working as subordinates. Only a few become managers to achieve new knowledge, gain experience and achieve new ambitious goals. The main difference between a manager and a subordinate is motivation; a manager cannot be solely focused on achievement. If you don’t quite understand what this means, I recommend reading about it, it will also be useful to you in managing people.

I would like to deliberately upset those who want to become a leader, because they will not have to do the work of a subordinate, for example: selling, going to the fields, etc. Even if you become a leader, you still won’t succeed. If you don’t like your job, you need to change it, that is, go to another field of activity. There is nothing worse than doing something you don't love.

A young girl worked for me as a salesperson for a long time, I saw that work was a burden for her, she was not happy, and conflicts often occurred with colleagues and customers. She was a veterinarian by profession, and she kept complaining that she liked it, but the veterinarian was paid too little, so she was forced to work as a salesperson. She also often said that animals are much better than people (i.e. buyers) and stuff like that. I helped her get a job in a private clinic, where she earns more than me, since she treats purebred animals. A person is satisfied and happy because he is doing what he loves.

What is the difference between a leader and a subordinate?

So, you have decided that you need career growth, then you should, first of all, understand how a manager differs from his subordinate. I’ll make a reservation right away that I will not consider professional qualities, such as product knowledge, sales experience, work results. Of course, if you don’t know how to work and fulfill your duties as a subordinate, no one will promote you. So, the main differences:

Motivation to work

As stated above, this is motivation for work. If you need to be “kicked” all the time so that you deign to do your job, then, excuse me, you shouldn’t expect a promotion. Sometimes I hear from subordinates something like this: “... if I worked as a manager, then I would not be late and would work well...”. No one will promote you with the expectation that you will change. Motivation to work always comes from how much you generally like the work and how interesting it is to you. If there is no interest in work, you need to change it, and not look for career growth. You must show by your behavior that your work is interesting and important to you, when your immediate supervisor sees this, he understands that he can rely on you and add greater authority.

Look for opportunities, not reasons

There is a saying: “The strong look for opportunities, the weak look for reasons.” This saying can be elevated to the life credo of any leader. It is from your reaction to life’s difficulties that you can understand what kind of person you are. And how much you can be trusted. Remember, if you often complain that you can’t do something or don’t know how, in general, you constantly come up with excuses for why you didn’t do the work, then you can forget about career growth.

Don't be afraid to take responsibility

There are often times when you are asked to do some work that is not within your scope of responsibilities. You don’t need to give it up right away, first evaluate what it can bring you. Maybe within the framework of this work you will be able to prove yourself and show off your best side.

Many people do not take responsibility because they are afraid of disgracing themselves or failing the job. There is always a risk of making a mistake, everyone makes mistakes and there is no need to be afraid of it. Career growth is guaranteed for people with an active lifestyle.

Self-PR

When one of my former managers was invited to a new position, he said “in the first months I will do self-PR, I need the new management to notice me.” It is very important to be noticed; the problem is especially acute when there are many subordinates and there is a lot of competition for the position. They will always pay attention to someone who is famous, whose name is well-known. One of the self-PR tools is the initiative mentioned above. But this may not be enough to “stimulate” career growth. The best PR option is to earn some kind of encouragement, for example: to become the best employee, etc. Remember - you should be noticed, or better yet, well known from a positive side.

Discipline

Whatever you say, disciplined employees, and people in general, inspire much more respect and sympathy. Constant lateness, systematic failure to fulfill one's duties can nip the possibility of career growth in the bud. In addition, it is the key to successful personal development.

Know your worth

Develop yourself

Career growth through connections

One of the common opinions of employees is that career growth is possible only through connections and nothing will happen to us mere mortals. In fact, this is not the case at all. In market conditions and high competition, a highly qualified employee is a very valuable asset and there is always a demand for him. It is important for you to show that you are such an employee, and the employer will definitely give you a chance.

Is education necessary for career growth?

Another common opinion is that you need to get some kind of special education and you can’t do without it. This philosophy begins to be propagated to us from childhood, but those who graduated from universities with a degree in management can tell you that this education will not give you serious advantages. In general, personally, in all my practice, I have never seen a graduate without experience in this field being hired for the position of an ordinary manager.

Of course, higher education is one of the requirements for employment, but I know a lot of good managers who do not have a diploma and they are hired very well. For me personally, higher education is a good school of life for a person, but it is not such a significant factor in deciding whether to take a manager or not.

How to quickly climb the career ladder?

So you got your first management position; for sales people, this is usually a supervisor. Naturally, after working in this position for some time and gaining experience, the question arises, what next? I want to take a new step up the career ladder. In fact, in order to develop successfully in your career, you need to work quite a lot on yourself. Managing people is an art and you can hone it throughout your life, there is no limit to perfection. Therefore, read literature, go to trainings, get a second education. To move up, you not only need to demonstrate all the business skills described above, but also have life experience and experience dealing with people. From experience, I can say that to grow from a supervisor to a store director or head of the sales department, a year of work is enough. It is important, first of all, to show good performance results and demonstrate growth

One of the priority tasks of a competent manager is to build management of career growth in the company, since the career of employees is an important resource on which the efficiency, sustainability and viability of the organization depends. Career growth of personnel is one of the mechanisms through which the company moves forward.

What is career growth?

An employee's position in a company can change in many ways. Their totality is hidden in the concept business career. An employee can move up the service hierarchy as long as the company's hierarchy pyramid allows it. This process of career growth is called vertical. At some point, for most workers, this advancement inevitably stops, and the lack of career growth becomes a problem for both the employee and his company.

There is also horizontal career– change of activities both within one organization and in the process of changing places of work.

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If you do everything yourself, employees will not learn how to work. Subordinates will not immediately cope with the tasks that you delegate, but without delegation you are doomed to time trouble.

We have published in this article a delegation algorithm that will help you free yourself from routine and stop working around the clock. You will learn who can and cannot be entrusted with work, how to correctly assign a task so that it is completed, and how to supervise staff.

A person’s exploration of the social and professional space around him must be in balance with his internal, individual development. Only then can his career be called complete.

By internal development we mean increasing professionalism (expanding skills, increasing knowledge), increasing the authority and prestige of the employee, as well as his financial well-being.

The external component of a full-fledged career includes promotion, obtaining new positions and statuses, and achieving new levels of material reward. The goal of career growth should be to achieve harmony between external and internal components.

There are several career typologies, and in accordance with them, different types of career.

From the point of view of how promotion is carried out, the following types are distinguished:

“steps” (alternating vertical and horizontal movements);
“springboard” (rapid career growth, reaching a high position and stopping there);
“stepladder” (gradual increase and then gradual decrease);
“crossroads” (the presence of unpredictable points after which a career can go anywhere);
“snake” (sharp career growth to the highest level after a horizontal career).

Considering the possibilities of further movement, we highlight promising and dead-end careers.

Dead ends can be found among narrow specialists who know their job functions very well, but do not have the abilities for higher positions and levels of management.

On the one hand, an employee’s career growth depends on his personal qualities, qualifications and motivation. On the other hand, there are no less important external conditions for career growth. These include:

The limit to growth in this particular organization.
The number of positions that must be passed from the current position to the highest position.
Position level (calculated through the ratio of the number of employees at the next highest hierarchy level to the number of employees at the current hierarchy level).
Potential mobility (calculated through the ratio of the number of vacancies at the next highest hierarchy level to the number of employees at the current hierarchy level).

An employee who makes a career decision without taking these conditions into account is faced with a lack of information. He cannot objectively assess his capabilities in the hierarchy of a particular company. A decision that is made hastily and for emotional reasons, without analyzing external career conditions, can lead to a career dead end.

Formula for professional development and career growth for a manager

Expert opinion

Promotion changes your worldview

Dmitry Dubinov,

General Director of the Derzhava group of companies, Nizhny Novgorod

Your worldview changes a lot when you rise to a high position. Your former colleagues turn into subordinates, the weight of your decisions and your opinions suddenly increases dramatically.

At this point, you need to quickly get used to the fact that a manager, unlike a middle manager, is responsible not only for his own work, but also for the work of his subordinates. The manager has a special responsibility to the company. Paradoxically, it is to structure his work in such a way that his subordinates can work effectively, and the department can carry out its tasks even in the absence of the leader.

As a manager grows in his career, his relationships in the company must change. The new leader builds boundaries with former colleagues in a new way: he must remain loyal, but assert his authority. And he must show his professionalism and ability to work in a leadership position to new fellow managers, and also be ready to build communication in a positive way.

What levels of career growth can company employees achieve?

You can imagine the model of career growth levels as a large pyramid assembled from smaller pyramids. The bottom of each of them is the parts of the company that are manifested in the outside world. They, like bridges, connect one department to another, shape the company’s environment and the behavior of its employees. The middle part of each company pyramid is its internal structure, represented by specific abilities and goals. Finally, the top of the pyramid is the spiritual qualities of the company, its identity, values and mission in society.

Now let’s determine at what level in this model different company employees are:

1. Level of behavior and environment represented by salespeople, agents, account managers and service personnel. All these employees perform routine work with a very important result: they create a network of contacts for the company with the world around it. Their activities are strictly regulated by patterns that “descend” to them from higher levels of career growth. Therefore, they do not have to think about their actions - to work successfully, they just need to stick to the template.

Depending on the organization and division, employees at this level can also reach the next level – the level of goals and abilities. But their main activity is still focused on the behavior of the company, its lower “bridges”.

2. Level of abilities and goals represented by those employees who organize and plan the work process, that is, heads of departments and top managers.

Here, the daily work of the company is organized in accordance with the strategy and macro objectives of the business. Immediately there is a translation of top-level ideas, the general provisions of the company’s mission into the language of its behavior - specific steps, decisions, the ratio of profits and costs. It is the employees at this level who make the company move forward by doing the most difficult work. They think about how to organize interaction with the market and how the company should behave in order to fulfill its mission and achieve its goals.

This is the level of decision making and creating the history of the company. If the director, the person at the top of the hierarchical pyramid, is the brain and soul of the company, then ability-level employees are its eyes and hands.

3. Company identity, which is the highest level , it is represented by its general director. It is in his head that the true mission of the company is laid down, and it is he who represents the company on the market. In fact, from the point of view of society, the market and the state, the company is personified in its CEO. His personality turns out to be the connecting link that integrates the company into the business system of a particular society. Only through the director and his understanding of the company's goals does the existence of the organization gain meaning.

We analyze the main factors of career growth

Two large groups of factors influence the extent to which an employee’s career growth is possible.

1. Subjective factors include everything that relates to the employee’s personality.

The type of personality on which suitability for a particular type of activity depends. According to one of the many typologies, six personality types are distinguished:

A) realist, or realistic type - a person who prefers to use real tools and operate mechanisms in his work;

B) researcher - a person striving for scientific research and discovery;

C) an artist is a person looking for where he can express himself emotionally;

D) social type - the one who is best realized in interaction with other people;

D) entrepreneur - a person who manifests himself in influencing others;

E) a conventional personality, focused on working with information.

The labor potential of an employee, including such components as level of education, health indicators, demographic characteristics, and level of mobility. All this can be used in career growth.

2. Objective factors include everything that depends on the employee’s environment and the organization.

career policy, the tendency to develop personnel within the company, develop the careers of managers, strategies for personnel career growth;
the current stage of the life cycle that the organization is going through (more career prospects are available in a company that is in growth or maturity rather than in decline);
hierarchical branching of the company, the presence of divisions with a large number of levels of subordination.

Low or high career growth, as well as its complete absence, can also be influenced by random factors. However, taking into account subjective and objective factors of career development is the main part of the personnel policy of any company.

Employees' level of commitment and commitment to the company depends on how successful they feel in the workplace. The desire to be recognized and respected through career advancement is often the best motivator for a professional. The opportunity to gain recognition and respect from colleagues, superiors, and the organization as a whole inspires them to work harder and better. If a company, with decent financial and social motivation, does not provide for the possibility of growth, then the most talented employees will sooner or later leave it.

Therefore, a good leader will definitely base his management policy on planning the careers of his subordinates according to their needs. Many employees are motivated by career motivation even more than by financial motivation. In other words, they are ready to work for a lower salary in a position that offers the prospect of career growth, rather than being “stuck” in a career dead end, even for good money.

Career Managementpersonnel: program and plan

Career management allows you to build an employee's intra-organizational career. This process is the responsibility of human resources services and career consultants. Career development specialists identify employees with high potential for advancement, help them to open up and use their abilities to the benefit of themselves and the company, and develop plans for “moving” and promoting the most promising employees for their career growth.

This work, when properly organized, leads to positive changes in the effectiveness of the organization.

Professional growth, or How to grow a professional within yourself

Career Management Scheme

1) The HR department makes a forecast for the promotion of employees occupying key management positions. The forecast is compiled according to how much the enterprise needs management personnel and how ready it is to develop and promote them.

2) HR employees find different options for employees within and outside the organizational advancement and determine what measures each option requires.

3) The HR department plans the company’s career process - professional development activities, evaluation of managers, policy for reshuffling management personnel.

4) The process of career growth at the enterprise is implemented in its entirety: training, assessment, adaptation of new employees, career guidance, competitions for filling vacancies are carried out.

5) HR department employees strive to increase the motivation for career growth among management personnel.

6) Timely prevention of crisis phenomena in the career process, such as, for example, careerism, is carried out.

7) Coordinated and coordinated work of all parts of the personnel system to manage career processes is ensured.

8) An objective assessment and control of the work of the career service is carried out.

Expert opinion

After a promotion, it is important to systematically introduce the employee to the new position.

Dmitry Sedykh,

Deputy General Director of Engineering Center Energoauditcontrol LLC, Moscow

Our company has a clear plan for the manager’s adaptation to each new level of the hierarchy. From the very beginning of work in a new position, a manager must understand what goals and objectives are set for him, what functions he will now perform, who his subordinates are and to whom he reports, by what indicators the work of his department is assessed, how the previous manager worked and why he I structured my work this way.

It is not always the case that a new manager should change the work process of a department immediately after taking office. He draws up a plan for his work, indicating the expected results and the time frame for their achievement. At first, the department can work under the new manager in the same way as under the old one, if its work scheme is considered effective and meets the goals of the new manager.

In our country, as in most companies, top-level managers are responsible for more administrative and organizational tasks than professional ones. Therefore, the higher a manager climbs the career ladder, the more often he is required to delegate authority, develop informal leaders in his team, and resolve conflicts between subordinates. This is an additional burden, but the leader must bear it so that his departments can work effectively.

Personnel development in modern business conditions

Career development process: intra-organizational career planning

Career planning – This is the development of a strategy for career growth of specialists in the company, which is carried out by the personnel department.

HR employees compare the capabilities, abilities and goals of each employee with the goals and development plans of the organization. Based on the results, a professional growth program, or career chart, is drawn up.

A career chart is a diagram of the path that a specialist must take in order to occupy a certain place in an organization, having acquired along the way a full set of knowledge and skills necessary to work in this place.

In the absence of a dedicated HR service, the function of career planning falls on the HR manager, the employee himself or his immediate supervisor (line manager).

In addition to the subjective, personal qualities of an employee, objective conditions influence his career growth in the organization. These include:

growth limit in a particular organization;
the number of positions that must be passed from the current position to the highest position;
position level (calculated through the ratio of the number of employees at the next highest hierarchy level to the number of employees at the current hierarchy level);
potential mobility (calculated through the ratio of the number of vacancies at the next highest hierarchy level to the number of employees at the current hierarchy level).

It is the objective, external conditions that determine how promising or dead-end the career path of each individual employee will be.

Subjective factors determine the employee’s attitude towards his career opportunities. Depending on how interested an employee is in the career growth that the company offers him, the effectiveness of his work will change. Therefore, the HR manager should, already at the interview stage, present the potential employee with his possible career in the company and discuss how suitable such prospects are for the candidate.

An important task of the HR manager is to help the candidate correlate his personal goals and plans with career opportunities in the company. From this moment, if a candidate is hired, planning for his career begins.

After hiring an employee, the preparation of an individual career development plan begins.

It is necessary to understand the degree of compliance of the employee with the career growth planned for him in the company. Not all people are capable of a sharp and high career rise. There are workers who are ideally suited for structured, meticulous work in one place. But people with an entrepreneurial spirit and developed creative thinking will quickly become cramped within one position.

If the direction in which an employee’s career will develop was determined incorrectly from the very beginning, then he quickly realizes that his goals in the company do not correspond to the employer’s plans. Having realized this, the employee will most likely leave the company.

Increasing career growth through employee training

Under career development usually understood as a set of actions that increase an employee's competitiveness, that is, the degree to which he satisfies the company's goals and fulfills his personal goals in the process of work.

In addition, career development helps prevent employee burnout, exhaustion of their moral and physical strength and, as a result, a decrease in their ability to work. A successful career development program helps maintain the profitability of a company's human resources.

Development and career advancement enable an organization to achieve its desired human capital. This process uses both the internal structures of the organization and the resources of the external environment.

The model of continuous career development is successfully implemented if:

1. She is supported by senior management.

2. It contributes to the achievement of company goals.

3. It is long-term and integrative.

Advanced training is the training of specialists with completed higher education. It allows a specialist to deepen and improve his knowledge and professional skills, as well as achieve the qualifications that a higher position requires of him.

There are many types of institutions providing advanced training. Special units for employee training can be created within the organization through the system of career growth and personnel development. External institutions include institutes and faculties of advanced training and professional retraining, as well as various internships.

Staff development and training programs serve several basic functions. Firstly, it should be mentioned educational function: Employees learn new skills and their professional knowledge expands. Secondly, education is an important tool for propaganda and ideological education employees, educating them regarding the norms and rules of behavior in the company.

Improving employee qualifications allows you to perform a number of goals:

ensure efficiency in handling new tasks;
teach new methods of work;
prepare for career growth;
help you learn a new profession;
give the employee a higher rank or train him to work with new technical equipment;
stimulate teamwork and new ways of organizing work;
provide knowledge beyond the scope of official duties;
instill a different type of thinking, teach you to think in economic and business categories;
increase independence in decision making;
encourage continued learning and self-education.

Activities to improve the skills of employees should cover the entire company, develop promising specialties and be carried out continuously. At the same time, they are required to have differentiation and an individual approach to each category of specialists.

Training and advanced training can be carried out both directly in the process of work and outside the workplace. On-the-job training has an applied, operational focus. It shortens the adaptation period and reduces training costs, helping a new employee quickly master a specific work process. Methods of this type of training include: temporary assistance, performing tasks according to a scheme from simple to more complex, partial delegation of authority, changing jobs.

Off-the-job training tends to be more fundamental and theoretical. It more fully prepares the employee for new functions and gives him a break from the work routine. Methods of such training include lectures and workshops, business games, case studies and situations, training programs, supervision, etc.

Non-material motivation of employees: how they do it in Russian companies

Formation of personnel reserve

Personnel reserve represents an active and trained part of the enterprise, which can potentially replace management personnel. This also includes employees who undergo training and advanced training to occupy higher positions. A reserve is a company resource that allows you to quickly fill vacant positions if they suddenly become vacant for one reason or another. It is formed through careful selection based on the results of personnel assessment, taking into account the personal characteristics and plans of employees. Forming a personnel reserve is one of the most important aspects of career growth that a manager must carry out.

A reserve is a way to prepare a company in advance for personnel surprises. Employees in the personnel reserve undergo in-depth and complete training according to a program previously created for this purpose. If there is a personnel reserve, the likelihood of spontaneous movement of specialists to vacant positions in the event of force majeure disappears. The HR department selects, trains and trains the most qualified candidates for each specific position at any level.

The number and professional ratio of employees in the reserve must correspond to the current structure of the organization and take into account its possible changes.

The basis for the formation of the reserve is the conclusions of the certification commissions. They comprehensively and objectively assess the personality and business qualities of each candidate applying for a leadership position. They make judgments about the candidate by analyzing his specific professional achievements at different stages of work.

To select the best candidate for a leadership position, you need to pay attention to the level of development of his professional qualities and general education, his ability to analyze, determination, organizational skills, how responsibly he approaches his work and the extent to which he is able to accept independent decisions. Also, one should not neglect the results of tests on the level of knowledge of candidates and conclusions based on the results of training events. Of course, it is worth taking into account the physical fitness of candidates, their age, resistance to stressful circumstances and additional loads.

The plan for working with the personnel reserve involves specific training activities to transfer to candidates the complex of knowledge they need, as well as the development of practical and management skills.

The personnel reserve needs planning, forecasting personal movements and accompanying events.

Succession planning considers the entire chain through which an employee can move within the company, including his dismissal. In some organizations, instead of succession plans, a replacement plan is drawn up. For each management position, a list of candidates suitable for replacement is compiled. This is especially true for positions that may soon become vacant.

Expert opinion

Golden personnel reserve is the “cradle” of unique specialists

Polina Akulova,

HR Director, Corpus Group, Moscow

The personnel reserve of our company is organized according to the matryoshka principle. Within the reserve group of personnel there is a separate caste, or golden fund - star specialists with a unique set of business competencies that are most needed by the company. They are distinguished by outstanding leadership qualities, high professional achievements and dedication to the company: employees who have worked in the company for more than three years are included in the golden fund. Heads of departments annually nominate their candidates based on the results of the assessment. Now there are 118 people in our gold fund.

Gold reserve employees are used to temporarily fill vacant management positions, as well as to manage newly opened branches. Even temporary work in higher positions turns out to be useful and motivating for them: they satisfy their ambitions, evaluate their strengths “in the field,” gain experience and receive a significant increase in salary. When the “golden” employee returns to his previous position, he realizes that his chances for professional career growth have increased significantly after being temporarily replaced.

We also use our “golden” personnel as mentors for general reserve employees.

The gold reserve receives individual forms of motivation. They can be paid for a parking space, provided with extended health insurance, allowed to work from home on a flexible schedule, and reimbursed for the costs of training and advanced training. In addition, reservists are invited to business events (seminars, trainings, conferences) with the same rights as the current management.

Work motivation of employees: from needs to opportunities

Career development: career growth for managers

Cases where high positions become vacant due to natural reasons are very rare. Most often, the career advancement of one employee is the result of the dismissal or demotion of another.

Russian companies almost never provide employees with a clear career path. Therefore, employees cannot be completely sure that their successful work will be rewarded with a promotion. To ensure that employees' uncertainty about success does not interfere with their productive work, company leaders must address the issue of career development.

The purpose of career planning and career development for managers

promoting your own employees instead of hiring external managers;
introduction of career incentives and career motivation for managers.

Managing the careers and advancement of middle and lower level managers should address the following: tasks:

determine the criteria and portrait of a suitable leader;
develop candidates' leadership skills and provide career development training;
promote the emergence of an informal leader in the team;
provide managers of all ranks with equal opportunities for career growth;
promote the development of leaders as a team;
unite the organization into a single social mechanism.

Stage 1. Goal setting, building a personnel policy that corresponds to the goals and objectives of the company and allows us to formulate requirements for candidates that are adequate to the organizational culture.

All leadership positions in the company should be analyzed in detail on the following points:

performance results of a manager in a specific position;
the nature of its activities, functions and responsibilities;
drawing up a portrait of a potential employee suitable for this position, defining evaluation criteria and establishing a replacement procedure.

Appointment to a new position and career growth in general presuppose the introduction of a new incentive systems for an employee, which will improve his position in the following areas:

salary increase;
improvement of working conditions (new office, powerful computer, personal assistant, etc.);
great power, authority, level of responsibility; opportunity to command.

An approach Creating a portrait of a potential manager is based on taking into account a number of his qualities:

professionalism;
knowledge, qualifications, practical experience;
willingness to grow in this job and learn new things;
attitudes towards others and the attitudes of others towards him;
ability to work in a team;
pedagogical skills;
strategies for assessing other people's results and responding to criticism addressed to oneself;
self-esteem and self-esteem;
willingness to compromise and sacrifice something for the sake of the position;
the ability to stay within the hierarchy of leadership and subordination.

Creating a portrait of a potential leader completes the goal-setting stage.

Stage 2. Formation of personnel reserve.

Every year, a pool of 1-2 candidates for a hypothetical replacement should be selected for each leadership position.

Potentially suitable employees can be searched for and offered:

line manager (immediate supervisor);
personnel service;
senior management;
the candidate can declare himself.

To the main methods of search and selection candidates include:

use of different sources of information;
collecting data on the candidate’s performance in past positions;
collecting personal opinions of managers;
results of assessments and tests;
assessment in departments;
discussion during discussions and informal communication;
taking into account the candidate's self-esteem.

Stage 3. Education

To effectively prepare candidates, it is necessary, firstly, to use the consultation and training system “On New Opportunities of the Institution,” which lists the qualities necessary for career growth and gives candidates recommendations on how to achieve them independently.

Secondly, it is extremely important to increase the awareness of company employees about vacant positions and selection for them. This will provide an opportunity for career growth for active and proactive managers who will be able to nominate themselves for promotion.

Personnel training and education: 3 stages of non-standard motivation

Stage 4. Assessing potential employees

Standards candidate assessments:

testing of professional skills;
analysis of the situation in the company;
the candidate's assessment of himself.

A system that does not take into account one or more of the standards does not provide a complete and objective picture. Therefore, any personnel department must be organized in such a way that it has employees capable of assessing the second and third standards.

You need to start your career with yourself!

A successful career largely depends on education, and to a much greater extent not on the diploma received at the institute, but on specialized self-education and targeted improvement of one’s own qualifications. Education is the first step to a successful career.

It is now fashionable to refer to rich and famous businessmen who dropped out of universities but became billionaires and built amazing careers. Fans of such references should remember which educational institutions they left and how their level of education differs from the level of most applicants only dreaming of a career. Only those who could easily enter these universities and could voluntarily leave them have the right to refer to these examples and think that they will succeed. For the rest, study, study and study again, and thereby prepare yourself for a successful career and create an impeccable resume for starting or promoting.

You should not refuse any training programs and courses that increase the level of professionalism. Companies often organize seminars and specialized programs, and organize courses in training centers. Visiting them and successfully passing all the standards will show management that they take their work seriously and want to be useful to the company, and this is already a reason for a promotion.

Correct goal setting

If you have received your education and want to improve your skills locally, then it’s worth understanding the distribution of your own energy and time. If you dream about being the president of a company while drinking coffee at the desk of a junior manager, then nothing good will come of it. You need to direct your energy and time to achieve real goals and set them consistently, choosing a direction and clearly following the points of the plan:

head of department;
Department head;
director of the city branch;
direction curator;
regional manager.

It’s roughly in this spirit that you should make a list of your goals and strictly follow it, directing all your efforts and means to achieve the next goal; no one forbids jumping over points, but you shouldn’t hope for such success. You don’t even need to write a plan, but simply take the company’s staffing table and consider the gradation of positions from lowest to highest. In fact, management will be much closer and more understandable to the desire to step up one step higher than to have their head in the clouds and dream about the same thing that the boss himself dreams about.

Professionalism opens doors

In every organization there are people whom management values very much, constantly promotes, and will never offer dismissal or reduction. Everyone usually knows such people - they have the opportunity for career growth without any delays. We're not talking about personal connections, relatives or favorites, we're talking about cool professionals.

Such employees are valued everywhere, and sometimes entire wars are fought over them in competing organizations. The higher the professionalism of an employee, the wider his career opportunities. Therefore, in addition to a good education, in any workplace you need to try to become the best in your field. When a manager understands that a person can be entrusted with any work according to his profile, and it will be completed efficiently and on time, then the value of such an employee increases significantly.

There is no way to achieve high professionalism quickly and without effort; there is no magic tool that creates experience and analysis. Only direct involvement in business and the desire to gain experience, constant self-education, analysis of the work done and learning from other specialists in their field, elaboration and implementation of methods and developments of their own invention and even competing organizations form a great specialist. Analysis of other people's failures and your own mistakes makes it possible not to repeat them and become a valuable employee of the company, to whom all doors leading to the top are open.

It is believed that it is best to achieve career heights in a large company, since a whole series of steps opens up to a person, waiting to be conquered. Typically, in corporations, the hierarchy of positions is built quite clearly and there is a certain set of tools that promote professional advancement, for example, special development programs or a personnel reserve. With their help, the employee understands what actions he needs to take to get the desired promotion.

Unfortunately, not all companies can boast of such capabilities, since the needs of modern business often dictate the need for flat organizational structures. With this management model in small companies, there are three main levels of hierarchy: top managers, middle managers and specialists, where the latter serve only as performers. This is done to speed up the exchange of information and complete tasks as quickly as possible, since the more complex the organizational structure is, the slower all business processes are. It turns out that in small teams the prospects for advancement are significantly limited: if an ordinary employee becomes a mid-level manager, then his next step is director, and in order to occupy it, the position must first become vacant.

Of course, this does not mean that in such cases the likelihood of improvement is completely absent. With the right approach, it is possible to organize an effective growth system aimed at improving both professional and managerial skills.

For example, we can divide employee development into two types - career and professional. If we visualize this system on the coordinate axis, then development in the role of a manager will be on the horizontal, development as a specialist on the vertical, and the graph will express the dynamics of growth in both parameters. Any career has a dual nature - professional development and career growth, this is practiced all over the world. Those with ambition and management skills strive to occupy relevant positions. Of course, not everyone is so ambitious, there are people who are indifferent to the role of a leader, they are more interested in their professional projects, and they grow into the role of an expert.

Different companies have different ways, but the most successful employee development model is the one that focuses on improving the person as a specialist. You can develop a system of grades, each of which will imply its own set of competencies, from specialist to manager.

Mastering new skills is a key condition for moving to the next level, since promotion always involves additional work tasks.

In parallel with this, the company needs to develop its own personnel, try to provide opportunities for internal promotion for each employee, in order to offer him a promotion in the next year or year and a half. This applies to both specific positions and expanding the range of responsibilities, for example, work on internal company projects in which colleagues of various specializations participate. You can also involve employees in initiatives related to activities outside of work: participation in sporting events, team competitions, quests.

A big mistake is made by those organizations that do not pay attention to internal training. It would be optimal to develop your own program, customized to the needs of the company and employees. It may include the basics of management, effective communications, as well as various industry courses - it depends on the focus of the company and the current situation within the team. Such classes can be taught either by the managers themselves or by invited speakers. Such activities are often very popular within the team.

1. Don’t be shy about making yourself known.

Often, employees do not express their desire to develop and expect that management will sooner or later notice how talented and promising they are. If you want career growth, then you need to put aside false modesty and directly contact your manager or HR manager. Practice shows that management usually thinks differently than subordinates and believes that if a person has any needs, he himself will come to talk about them.

Modern business is very dynamic, and companies often develop new directions. So don’t be afraid to offer some ideas for development; from them, an internal project may well be born that will be entrusted to you. This applies to both employees who already occupy serious positions and novice specialists. There are often examples of employees who started their careers from starting positions achieving incredible heights.

2. Your development happens here and now

Often managers occupying top positions believe that they have stopped in their development and that further growth is no longer possible. This is wrong. As a rule, an employee is not a specialist in career management and therefore cannot always objectively assess his prospects in the company. Meanwhile, periods of “stagnation” usually only seem so. During the period of work in a specific position, a person is faced with similar tasks, which, in ever-changing circumstances, require a completely different approach, often even the opposite.

Therefore, I am sure that talking about a “career ceiling” for a senior manager is irrelevant; there is no limit to perfection in this role. I repeat, today business is developing very quickly, often directors of some functions, having been very successful and efficient for a long time, as the scale of the business increases, they simply can no longer cope, and the company is forced to transfer them to deputy positions, and to attract an outside candidate for the role of top manager. It happens on the contrary: the active development of the company and the expansion of the strategic horizon spurs the professional growth of managers, and they willingly take on fresh tasks and conquer new heights.

3. Learning and growth

It’s great if employers provide training opportunities at the company’s expense. However, not all organizations are willing to invest in the professional development of employees, so most of them engage in advanced training at their own expense.

Since career development involves the constant development of new competencies, it is necessary to pay due attention to self-education. This advice may seem rather banal, but practice shows that the most successful career growth stories happen to those who are “on trend” and manage to navigate the constantly changing world of business.

Today people often change their field of activity, and the key condition for professional success is the ability to learn and quickly adapt to new realities. Therefore, it is necessary to constantly expand your professional horizons: read business literature, specialized Internet portals, attend conferences, and also take an interest in related fields. In addition, in the vast majority of areas there are autonomous areas that are quite possible to master on your own, for example, with the help of master classes or online courses. Subsequently, the acquired skills can be implemented in the workplace, expanding the area of your responsibility. Many companies, by the way, pay additional bonuses for this.

Career growth remains a rather abstract concept for many people. Attention should be paid to the fact that any growth is impossible without development, and therefore many could feel that the position they hold does not allow them to realize their potential. There is a feeling as if you are standing still, and this cannot be allowed.

Every employee must understand one fundamental thing. Career growth will depend not only on the desires and personal preferences of the bosses themselves, but also on the goals pursued by the person himself. The clearer the plan, the more likely it is to get the best position in a given company.

Employees who show determination and know how to organize and structure the company’s activities will always strive to improve their positions. They are only interested in those vacancies that have the opportunity for career growth. This is the only way to develop the level of your professionalism, honing the necessary skills in practice.

To summarize, we can say that a career comes down not only to the personal preferences of the boss, but also to the potential of the employee himself. Only the coordinated activities of the manager and subordinate will achieve truly great results in the development of the company.

What should you focus on?

Professional growth is not attractive to every person: some people like their current position, have no ambitions to get a new one, and others are not able to cope with the assigned tasks. In any case, each person will have his own individual goals in the company:

Someone wants to reach a new level of income.
For some, it is important to satisfy their ambitions and increase their social status.

In many ways, people choose a combination of the goals described above and begin to implement them. Career growth has an individual style and involves solving the company's tasks. Despite the complexity of the issue under consideration, some typical trends can be identified that are correlated by gender.

Men, as a rule, begin building their careers, focusing on “climbing” the hierarchical ladder. The ultimate goal is a leadership position, and therefore the maximum amount of effort will be applied. As for women, they can show a mediocre attitude towards the company itself for a long time, gradually developing the level of their professionalism. Many are surprised when representatives of the fair sex become great directors in a short period of time.

How can you grow?

Career growth is multifaceted, and therefore a misconception is often heard in society that says that development in a company is only possible vertically. It may seem to many that a career is presented in the form of a ladder, where a higher position acts as a step.

It is worth noting that career development is also possible in a horizontal direction. Professional growth is based on the development of skills and qualifications necessary to improve effectiveness within the current position. Horizontal development has its own characteristics, which are often forgotten.

The employee is transferred to a position adjacent to the position held, and the income level remains the same or increases slightly. For example, a marketing employee can move to another department and sign contracts, if before that he was only involved in business communication with partners. Of course, professional growth should not keep you waiting.

It must be recalled that horizontal development does not prohibit vertical growth: after a specialist learns the specifics of the work of related departments of the company, he can become its manager, or combine several roles in his candidacy.

Vertical growth begins both within the organization itself and within the entire industry. Everything will depend on the employees’ goals and a strong desire to develop. Most careerists prefer the second option. Development within the entire industry and this decision is due to the constant increase in income received. The current place of work does not always satisfy the needs of the employee, then he goes in search of a new place.

But before you go on a “career journey”, you need to understand that professional growth will last more than one year and during this time drastic changes will occur. As world practice shows, many popular industries that were on a wave of popularity quickly went bankrupt in the 90s and disappeared from the market. If you want to earn high incomes and make responsible decisions for yourself, then professional growth is the right choice.

Factors influencing the result

We must start with the fact that career advancement is impossible without obtaining the appropriate educational level. In addition, it must meet international standards and graduating from such universities is not always easy. Some professions simply will not allow “vertical ascension” without a higher education. For example, an accountant, no matter how hard he tries, will never take the position of chief accountant until he has the appropriate educational level.

Of course, the role of higher education is quite large, since it reflects a certain set of professional knowledge that can be used in the labor process. In addition, it is easier for superiors to find contact with their subordinates if appropriate confirmation of the quality of knowledge is received. We must not forget that professional growth is impossible without constant self-education.

The next factor that is of great importance for a potential careerist is efficiency. But in this matter, extreme care should be taken, since irregular working hours are viewed ambiguously by the manager. He may think that the person is not completing the work on time, and this will indicate a lack of appropriate planning skills. No one wants to promote a specialist who does his job poorly.

Everyday professional growth plays a big role, but not the decisive one. You can continually improve by staying in the same position for many years. How to get out of this situation? You need to understand that today's market is constantly evolving and many companies need people who can increase profitability or take a new market share. The manager understands that professional and career growth are the same, and therefore only a few deserve promotion.

As soon as it becomes clear that the employee brings obvious benefits, the lack of dynamic growth will lead to the loss of valuable personnel, and this cannot be allowed. Only key employees are very popular, both among management and colleagues.

Among the negative factors are:

intrigue;
dissemination of deliberately false information;
currying favor with management, etc.

As practice shows, such people begin to spoil the internal atmosphere, but a lot of money is spent annually on team unity. An experienced manager will question the effectiveness of an employee who spreads rumors. Most likely, the efficiency of his work is low, and therefore there is time for other activities. Lack of motivation, punctuality and low efficiency will lead to early dismissal.

What development plan should I draw up?

As mentioned earlier, a career is the combined result of an employee and an employer. The vast majority of successfully growing companies strive to ensure that their employees constantly develop. A plan is mandatory; it helps to build a clear vector for further activities.

There are several development plans. For example, one organization has a standard plan, and promotion will be received after achieving certain indicators or the onset of a time period, while another does not have a standardized approach and the opportunity for growth is available to every person.

If none of the options are being considered at your current place of work, you can take the initiative and communicate with management. This approach will clearly demonstrate interest in the development of the organization.

Each person consciously writes a career plan, which he continues to follow throughout his many years of work. Your direction must be adjusted depending on the changing state of the market.