Everything you need to know

Written by Dr. Dieter Veldsman

“Whether you’re just starting out in HR or have had years of experience under your belt, planning out your HR career path plays an essential role in helping you achieve your personal and professional goals. You have many possibilities to grow and shape your career based on your competencies and interests. By mapping out your HR career path, you will be able to determine the direction in which you want to progress in the future based on your HR career goals and capabilities.”

Human Resources covers multiple functions besides general HR, and the value that HR professionals add to the business reaches far and wide. You can provide general advice to your business, support the implementation of technology or other digital initiatives, build and maintain a healthy organisational culture, or strategically integrate the HR value chain into business activities.

In this article, we’ll discuss what the modern career path looks like, the various HR career paths that you can take based on four HR profiles that we’ve developed, and three HR career progression examples to help inspire you.

Not so long ago, a career was traditionally viewed as a series of steps leading up to the highest point of success — a leadership position. The typical progression of a worker’s career path went from an employee to a manager overseeing a team, to a director of a function, to a Vice President of a department, to a senior Vice President, and so on.

In other words, your career usually followed the hierarchical structure of your organisation. Each role you took up was simply a stepping stone to support you in your path to a higher position.

However, these days, thinking of a career in terms of organisational hierarchy is no longer the norm. The modern career path is now treated as a series of experiences, each providing you with opportunities to develop your knowledge and skills. Your career might follow an upward trend, and you might still eventually end up in the Senior Vice President position. However, the roles you had before are not just stepping stones to the highest point of your career.

This idea represents the shift from careers as a hierarchy to careers as experiences. According to research from Deloitte, 84% of workers consider this shift to be important or very important. The reason for this change can be partly attributed to the fact that to succeed in today’s disruptive business environment (with the COVID-19 pandemic being a prime example of that), you need a diverse set of skills and competencies that cannot be achieved by simply following the traditional hierarchical career progression.

A successful HR professional needs more than just in-depth knowledge of compensation and benefits, talent acquisition, or learning and development. You also need to understand the operations of the business, including how its products are made, how it delivers its services, how it makes a profit, and so on. This is why it is now very common to find HR professionals who have previously worked in Marketing, Sales, or Product Development.

For a deeper dive into the various HR career path options, the core HR competencies, and how to map your HR career progression, read the full blog article here

Contributors

Vera Njong

Is an Industrial Engineer and Business Strategist at Legion Business Operations Consulting and Technologies (LOTS). She is also the founder and Managing Director of Akah Consultancy where she assists companies to enhance efficiencies and profitability and reduce costs and waste. She specialises in business process reengineering and optimisation, strategic planning, performance management, operations management, and organizational culture and change management.

Dr. Dieter Veldsman is an organizational psychologist with 15+ years of experience across the HR value chain and lifecycle, having worked for and consulted with various organizations in EMEA, APAC, and LATAM. He has held the positions of Group Chief People Officer, Organizational Effectiveness Executive, Director of Consulting Solutions, and Chief Research Scientist. He is a regular speaker on the topics of Strategic HR, Future of Work, Employee Experience and Organisational Development.

Aletta is an award-winning journalist, creative writer, and media practitioner. She currently works for the New Era newspaper. She has extensive experience in marketing, having successfully executed marketing campaigns for clients in the retail and technology industries.

Sandra Marini

Sandra is a recruitment consultant currently working for Recruitment Matters Africa. She has global experience in talent sourcing, recognition programmes, employee engagement, and communications.

Matji Kandovazu

Matji is a Human Capital Practitioner with extensive experience in the logistics and FMCG industries. She is currently an HR consultant at Esquire, where she consults on labour relations, organisational development and general HR management.

Shikesho

Jacobina is a Wellness Officer and Social Worker in the Ministry of Health and Social Services. She is also a co-founder of bwell, a Namibian web-based mental health services platform and mental health improvement movement.