Hey, it's Rachel Cook, your modern mentor. I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise, where we help leaders activate performance and engagement without burning out. Whether it's a bootcamp, a keynote, or a pulse check, we help teams achieve meaningful change. If that's what your organization needs, send me a note, rachel@leadabovenoise.com. So a lot of the work I do with clients begins with an employee engagement survey.
Well, technically it begins when the client gets their survey results and then calls me instead of banging their head against the wall. Though I suspect sometimes they do some head banging before they call me. But either way, for some companies, actually for many of them, that survey is an important data point, but also it's a big source of frustration because what is so common is that certain questions generate a negative response year over year.
Things that feel outside of a manager's ability to control. And this creates a cycle of a lot of frustration, like take career development and progression consistently an area in which employees are unhappy at so many companies year over year. From my vantage point, here's what it looks like. Employees feel stuck like they're working their bleeps off. They're ready for the promotion they think they deserve, and it's not coming.
Managers feel that disappointment directed at them, but they're like, what am I supposed to do? I can't promote everyone on my team, and frankly, I can't promote anyone into a role that doesn't exist. And organizations or senior leadership, they're feeling tired of what they perceive as a sense of entitlement. I hear things like, who is managing these expectations that leave people thinking that hard work will get you promoted every two to three years? Where do they all think they're going?
It's a tough cycle, and whether or not we can solve it completely, who knows? But without a doubt, we can improve things significantly. For me, it begins with how we conceptualize career growth and development, how we frame it, how we talk about it. If we shift and expand our minds, it becomes a more solvable problem, unless you prefer the head beating approach, if it's working.
So today, let's talk about how we can all play a role in moving the needle in the right direction on the career advancement front. Let's start with some math now for future reference. When I start a sentence like that, you should generally run, but this time I think I got it. Because every organization, no matter how relatively flat it may be, will always have more space at the bottom than at the top.
And when all the folks at the entry point are vying for the same few spots at the top, it becomes a breeding ground for disappointment and unhealthy competition. So we have to open the aperture on what actually constitutes career growth, development and advancement.
So Career development is not just about moving up, it's about growing in meaningful ways, like having a sense of the journey you'd like to be on, and always feeling like you're moving in some way towards it. Yeah, sometimes that may be with a promotion, but also maybe by expanding your skills or your confidence, your network, your industry expertise.
If you are somebody and no shade, if you are who has consistently given this one a thumbs down on your company's engagement survey, here are some things you might play with. Can you broaden your skillset? Learn something new that makes you more versatile? Whether it's mastering a new technology, developing a leadership capability, or understanding another department's work growth often comes from expanding your toolkit. Can you deepen your expertise?
Choose something you're good at and become the go-to in your little world? Get certified. Learn advanced techniques. Help your company spot opportunities to use your skill and knowledge in new ways. Think about your legacy. Think about the impact you wanna leave. Maybe it's mentoring junior colleagues, leading a meaningful project or building something that will last beyond you being there. Legacy isn't always tied to title, it's tied to contribution. Proactively seek new challenges.
Don't wait for someone to assign you work. Volunteer for a cross-functional project or propose a new idea. Build your network. Internal networking can be really powerful. Get to know people in other teams or departments. Collaboration and visibility can often lead to new opportunities. And be vocal about your goals. Talk to your manager. Share where you wanna grow and ask for their support. Tell them how they can help you. Managers can't help if they don't know what you're aiming for.
Now, if you're a manager in a company, the focus is on guidance, not guarantees, because managers often feel caught in the middle. They see the frustration on the surveys, but they can't manufacture promotions, but they can focus on helping employees see the broader opportunities for growth. Here are some things you can do as a manager.
Shift the conversation instead of asking what role do you want next, try asking what skills or experiences do you wanna gain this year or beyond the what questions? Ask the why and how, like why does that feel important to you? And how can I help you feel a sense of momentum? So you're actually helping not just support, but even shape their journey over the long term.
You can create opportunities even if you can't offer a promotion, can you offer stretch assignments, shadow opportunities, help them find mentors or get exposure to senior leaders and you can help celebrate progress, recognize and reward their growth even if it doesn't come with a new title, no money required. Just help your team members see the progress they've made and how that's moving them closer to the goals you help them set. And finally, what can organizations do?
Because organizations have to play a role in reshaping expectations and providing meaningful growth opportunities. Here are some ideas. Be transparent. Share the realities of promotion opportunities, guidelines, and criteria for how your company thinks about promotions, but also highlight other pathways for growth. Set clear expectations and reduce ambiguity. You can invest in development, offer training programs, mentorship or job rotations.
Make it clear that growth is about capability and contribution, not just titles and redefine success. Create recognition programs that celebrate skill building, teamwork or innovation, not just promotions. So there you have it. The frustration around career progression isn't just about entitlement, it's about misunderstanding.
By redefining what growth looks like and focusing on broad development, rather than narrow promotions, we can create workplaces where employees feel fulfilled and managers feel empowered and organizations see engagement rise. If your team or organization is struggling with these challenges, I'd love to help. Send me a note at rachel@leadabovenoise.com and we can set up some time. In the meantime, join me next week for another great episode. Visit my website@leadabovenoise.com.
You can follow Modern Mentor on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Thanks so much for tuning in and have a successful week. Modern Mentor is a quick and Dirty Tips podcast. It's audio engineered by Dan Fand. Our director of podcasts is Brandon Getches. Our podcast and advertising operations specialist is Morgan Christensen. Our digital operations specialist is Holly Hutchings. Our marketing and publicity associate is Dina Tomlin, and our marketing contractor is Nathaniel Hoops.