Specialist career paths are an excellent way of retaining experts. In addition, specialist careers offer both junior and senior specialists specific development opportunities. After all, experts don't want to stand still professionally.
However, the set-up of specialist careers is not trivial. A number of conceptual decisions need to be made to ensure successful implementation.
The goals you want to achieve with the specialist career and the appropriate model for the specialist career are key.
- Do you want to create a few positions for experts?
- Do you want to roll out specialised career paths across departments?
- Or is it important for you to "honour" outstanding specialists with specialist positions?
From many years of experience in introducing specialist careers, I can say:
- Often one model does not fit the whole organisation.
- Instead, different areas of the organisation introduce different models.
- It is not always necessary to implement specialist careers for all job families.
The next step towards specialist careers is pilot projects. They only work well if you have made clear decisions in advance. Your concept is the framework that supports the specialist career paths.
Would you like to find out more? Have a look on this page.