Hate managing others? Don’t worry, you can still get a pay rise

Second, companies that adopt this approach will have a better chance of retaining top performers who have no interest in managing others.

“[It] allows you to keep expertise in the organisation and get even more value from your investment in those people,” McCann-Bartlett adds.

Propeller chief technology officer Jacob Richter says the drone software company introduced dual career paths about two and a half years ago when it became clear that some engineers wanted to advance their careers without becoming managers.

Richter says engineers can now choose to progress their career as either an engineering manager or a staff engineer. The former is required to conduct one-on-one meetings and performance reviews, while the latter is responsible for some coaching but is more focused on technical leadership. Both tracks offer the same salary ranges for employees of equivalent seniority, and Richter says the system has “worked very well”.

“People want the choice, and I want people to continue to progress,” he says.

The scheme’s positive effect can be seen in Propeller’s employee engagement scores.

In the third quarter of 2020, before Propeller had introduced the non-managerial career path, the engineering team had a 61 per cent favourable score for the statement, “I believe there are good career opportunities for me at Propeller”. But that increased to a 79 per cent favourable score in the fourth quarter of 2021 – a 19-percentage-point jump – after the scheme had been introduced.

“There were a few other elements that could have also contributed to that change, but we largely attribute [it] to the introduction of the dual career track and clearer career progression in general for both [individual contributor] and management positions,” Richter says.

Jonathan Tabah, a director in Gartner’s human resources advisory group, says low scores on career development questions in employee engagement surveys are a big problem for employers these days. Which is one of the reasons why more companies are introducing dual career paths.

“When [a client] starts a conversation with, ‘our engagement survey results aren’t really what we were hoping [for]’, I’ll almost interrupt them and say, ‘Let me guess, employees are dissatisfied with how the organisation is investing in their personal growth and development’,” Tabah tells BOSS.

When it comes to best practice for introducing dual career paths, McCann-Bartlett says it’s important to undertake thorough research to ensure that remuneration for the technical leadership track “is commensurate with the role and the specialist skills that you want to retain in your organisation”.

She says companies should also offer internal secondments and give employees the chance to work in new areas and departments, as this gives leaders the chance to identify in these employees’ “skills and strengths that perhaps would have been overlooked in a different kind of role”.

“Also, where a particular specialist skill has been identified, [they need to] work with those employees to develop very tailored learning opportunities [that] could enable them to become much deeper specialists,” McCann-Bartlett says, adding that managers should be “equipped with the ability to have career conversations with their teams”.

“It could be through partial or full financial sponsorship, further tertiary education or giving them paid time to complete their studies. It could, depending on the size of the organisation, also be through internal training programs.”

Culture Amp chief people officer Justin Angsuwat, who is also an executive-in-residence at Blackbird Ventures, says the move towards dual career paths is “a growing trend”, adding that the two tracks should be compensated equally to encourage people to pursue both.

But if an employee is unsure which track is right for them, Angsuwat recommends they reflect on which tasks give them energy and which tasks sap them of it.

“[Y Combinator co-founder] Paul Graham’s work around the maker’s versus manager’s schedule really resonates,” Angsuwat says.

“If you’re on a maker’s schedule, you get your energy from huge blocks of time focused on building or making something, versus if you’re on a manager’s schedule, you are constantly context-switching and needing to connect dots and being a coach for your team. And they’re two very different sources of energy.”