Your Path to Success: Is It a Ladder or Lattice?

Description: This week, MRA's Vice President of Human Resources, James McDevitt uses his 25+ years of HR knowledge to discuss what it takes to create your path to success! He covers career ladders vs. lattices, core competencies, employee development tools, and more.

Key Takeaways:

1. Employees are generally more engaged when they believe their employer is concerned about their growth, provides opportunities to reach individual career goals, and allows them to contribute to the company’s success.
2. Some paradigms have also shifted, making career paths even more important. Workers value job enrichment, flexibility, and career development more than job security and stability.
3. Frame the career path discussion to include regular development conversations within the performance management cycle!

Resources:

Developing Career Paths Publication

Let's Connect:

James McDevitt Bio

James' LinkedIn Profile

Transcript:

00:00:00:02 - 00:00:23:03

Intro

Hello hello, everybody, and welcome to 30 minute THRIVE, your go-to podcast for anything and everything HR, powered by MRA - The Management Association. Looking to stay on top of the ever-changing world of HR? MRA has got you covered. We’ll be the first to tell you what’s hot and what’s not. I’m your host, Sophie Boler, and we are so glad you’re here. Now it’s time to THRIVE.

00:00:23:14 - 00:00:46:03

Sophie Boler

Hello, everybody, and welcome to this episode of 30 minute THRIVE. We’re so glad you’re here and joining us today. And today, James McDevitt is also joining us today. He’s our vice president of human resources here at MRA. And he’s really here to discuss, give advice on career paths. So thanks for being here today, James.

00:00:46:04 - 00:00:47:00

James McDevitt

Thank you for inviting me.

00:00:47:00 - 00:01:05:23

Sophie Boler

Excited to talk with you. But before we get started, we really want to start with a fun question. And as our listeners know, we’re located in Wisconsin, and we had our first true snowfall yesterday, which was crazy. So I want to ask you what your favorite thing to do in the winter, wintertime activity is.

00:01:05:23 - 00:01:25:21

James McDevitt

I actually love taking my wee Westie, our little pet West Highland Terrier, out for a walk in the snow. He loves the snow. He’s white, so you can’t see him very well. But he loves when it’s really deep, and he’s only got little legs. He jumps across the snow and he loves hunting deer and squirrels and whatever’s out there.

00:01:25:21 - 00:01:27:03

James McDevitt

He just has a great time.

00:01:27:06 - 00:01:31:06

Sophie Boler

That’s just funny to hear—a small little Westie hunting a big deer.

00:01:31:08 - 00:01:33:01

James McDevitt

Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure.

00:01:33:02 - 00:01:33:22

Sophie Boler

Small but mighty.

00:01:33:23 - 00:01:34:15

James McDevitt

Absolutely.

00:01:34:21 - 00:01:48:14

Sophie Boler

Well, that’s great. But let’s dive into our topic for today, and that is career paths. And we’re going to start a little broad. So can you tell me what the difference between an organizational career path and a personal career path is?

00:01:48:20 - 00:02:24:10

James McDevitt

Sure. Great question to start with. They’re definitely related; however, as the name implies, organizational career path is more work related than personal career path. It’s more personal related. So you’re looking at, for a personal career path, you’re looking at development skills, sorry, skills that you need to develop for yourself. Maybe the softer skills, maybe time management skills, maybe dealing with people, managing people, leading people, getting people motivated, engaged, etc., whereas a traditional organizational career path would be more job related.

00:02:24:12 - 00:02:43:19

James McDevitt

How do I want to, maybe I want to be CEO one day. How do I become CEO? What jobs do I need to do? What skills do I need to learn? So the personal career path also would include what do you enjoy doing? What do you like doing? Do you like working with people? So you may want to consider a career with people that would help enable that.

00:02:44:03 - 00:02:52:22

James McDevitt

Do you like building things? Do you like working with computers? These are all different things that you would bring into either a personal plan or an organizational plan.

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