Career pathing is a structured, comprehensive development planning process intended to help employees visualize their career potential within a company. The process requires employees to take an honest look at their career goals, skills, needed knowledge, experience and personal characteristics. They are then required to plan for achieving what is necessary in each of these areas in order to advance in their careers.

Career paths provide employees with an ongoing mechanism to enhance their knowledge and skills, often leading to a mastery of their current job, promotions, and new or different positions.

Implementing career paths within your organization can improve morale, career satisfaction, employee retention, productivity, and responsiveness in meeting company objectives.

Organizations that use formal career pathing processes tend to have more engaged employees, because employees believe that their employers are concerned about their growth-providing avenues to reach individual career goals while fulfilling their company’s mission.