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Why career ladders are important in a blue collar world.

Think about where your employees come from:  their backgrounds, how they were raised, etc.  Were they raised to be built up, or were they constantly being torn down. Were they always told that things were out of reach for them, or were they led to believe anything is possible?

Most of the time, the employees that come to us to work in our service businesses are coming from a rough background.  Many times our employees come to us with low self esteem. Now, they may compensate by pretending they have an ego and appearing self confident.  However, chances are that is just a defense mechanism. 

Have you ever considered the impact that you can make in your employees’ lives?  Business owners and managers have the opportunity to make a huge difference in the lives of the employees.

And if you think of loyalty, there’s nothing that makes an employee more loyal than having those positive feelings attached to their job.  If their job makes them feel better about themselves, can you see how that pays off ten-fold for your company? 

They will look at their job as more of a career versus a job that fills a void. So creating the career ladder is hugely important. Even if you have to fabricate, or get creative, creating job levels.  

You may think you don’t have job levels in your business, but I bet you do. For instance, Level 1 could be while they’re in training. Level 2 could be a “new grad”, out of training.  Level 3 could be a team leader.  Level 4 could be a trainer and Level 5 could be a field manager. Now these are all just to give you ideas and get you thinking of what possibilities you have in your business. 

You can list office positions on your career ladder, but I tend to avoid listing office positions as part of my field staff’s career ladder.  I don’t put office positions on my career ladder, because it isn’t typical for my field staff member to come with the office skills I would need for those positions.  Of course, there are exceptions.

Once you’ve determined your job levels, it’s time to determine the requirements and benefits for each position.  

Requirements, think, QDS quality score requirements, possibly length of employment, competencies, etc., for each level.  Benefits:  think about the benefits and pay scale at each level.   

Now it’s time to put that career ladder to work!  Add all or part of your career ladder to your recruitment ad.   A recruitment ad that shows possibility for growth, as well as other pertinent information, is going to get attention.  Just think about how your ad would compare to other jobs such as fast food, retail and other manual labor jobs. Would you agree?  Do you see where I’m going?

What about highlighting your career ladder and other unique programs at the end of the interview.  This is actually the recruiting part of the interview.  You’ve done your due diligence, and now it is time to show the potential employee how your company stands out compared to other jobs they may be looking at for potential employment.  You can even give them a copy of your career ladder in a recruitment package.

I’m a big believer in making things transparent.  So, I like to put all of the possibilities for growth up on the wall.  Put your employees in the driver’s seat and let them decide what they will go after.  so putting that career ladder on the wall. 

Want more of the ideas?  Check out Quality Driven Software (QDS)  and Culture First.  Culture First teaches you HOW to improve your culture, and Quality Driven is the tool to help you measure employee success.  Culture First is now part of your QDS subscription. Sign up for QDS, and we will enroll you in Culture First.