The most employable people in the future won’t be those with the most experience. They’ll be those with the broadest collection of transferable capabilities.
I’ve developed and helped organizations design a lot of career pathways. I built frameworks that outlined the skills, behaviors, and experiences needed to move from one role to the next. The model was familiar, comforting, and easy to understand with a focus on: climb the ladder to success.
For many people, that predictability was reassuring. The promise of greater responsibility, compensation, and influence created a clear picture of success.
But I’m increasingly convinced that the traditional career ladder no longer reflects how careers actually work. Recent workforce research suggests that many professionals will hold multiple careers, not just multiple jobs, over the course of their working lives. As people work longer and industries transform faster, the linear path becomes less realistic.
The future isn’t a ladder. It’s a lattice.
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Instead of moving only upward, people will increasingly move sideways, diagonally, across functions, into new industries, and toward entirely new capabilities. And honestly, I think that’s a good thing. Some of the most successful leaders I’ve worked with didn’t follow a straight path. They built broad experiences across different roles, projects, and disciplines. Those learning in the flow experiences helped them develop adaptability, business acumen, curiosity, and the ability to connect ideas across functions.
That’s why I believe we need to shift from designing career paths around jobs and begin designing them around capabilities. Instead of asking: “What’s the next role?” reframe the question and ask: “What’s the next capability?”
It opens opportunities for employees to develop smaller, transferable skill sets that build upon existing strengths and prepare them for a wider range of future opportunities. Instead of developing big, long courses and programs consider creating modular experiences that broaden and build people’s capabilities such as:
Strategic thinking
Data literacy
AI fluency
Communication
Influencing without authority
Coaching
Project leadership
Systems thinking
These capabilities remain valuable regardless of job title and we need to remember that growth doesn’t always happen upward, it happens outward too. As a leader, be intentional in creating opportunities for people to learn, adapt, and grow. You’ll be surprised by their levels of engagement using learning strategically.
How is your organization thinking about career development today? Are you still building ladders, or are you creating lattices that help people acquire capabilities across functions and disciplines?
And if your organization is exploring career pathways, capability frameworks, workforce transformation, leadership development, or internal talent mobility, let’s connect. Helping leaders build learning-centered talent strategies is work I’m deeply passionate about.
Because in a world changing this quickly, the most valuable career path may not be the one that moves people up. It may be the one that helps them keep learning.
Bill Ryan
Bridging Distance, Building Excellence – As founder and CEO of Ryan Consulting, I transform how organizations thrive in remote and virtual environments.
For over 25 years, I’ve been fascinated by one question: How do we create extraordinary connection and performance when teams aren’t in the same room? This question has guided my career helping organizations harness the full potential of their distributed workforce.
My approach is refreshingly practical. I align what I call the 3P’s—Purpose, People, and Process—creating frameworks where remote teams don’t just function, they flourish. In today’s landscape of rapid change, this alignment isn’t just helpful—it’s your competitive edge.
Working together, we’ll craft solutions precisely calibrated to your organization’s unique challenges. Whether through customized workshops on performance support, process refinement, mobile solutions, or organizational effectiveness, I bring proven strategies that deliver measurable results.
My greatest satisfaction comes from watching leaders, teams, and individuals discover they can collaborate more effectively across distance than they ever thought possible. In a world of constant change, that’s not just good business—it’s transformational.
Ready to reimagine what your remote workforce can achieve? Let’s connect.