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I think the more accurately stated question is: Is it better for my company if I create a career path for my employees? Everyone's knee-jerk reaction to using

I think the more accurately stated question is: Is it better for my company if I create a career path for my employees? Everyone's knee-jerk reaction to using the word "owe" will be no. But I think the question is an interesting one that I, at least, don't know the answer to. On the yes side, there is the possibility of long-term retention and providing more benefit to employees as a recruitment tool. On the no side, the potential for these employees to then leave for better jobs, the resource drain in creating such a program, the difficulty placing these people within a small company, etc. So I'm curious to hear what people who've had this experience think -- is it better for the company?

sp_ 16y ago
I used to work for a startup (employee) and I was wondering the same all the time. One of the perks of working at this company that you were allowed to speak at as many conferences as you wanted to and everybody who worked there made good use of it. On the one hand, this was basically our primary marketing tool. We talked about our tools, other engineers saw them and convinced their companies to buy our software. On the other hand, our engineers were constantly in contact with people from big companies (Google, MS, ...) that tried to recruit them. Curiously, only one of our engineers ever left the company voluntarily (that was me, after four years), so apparently the boss managed to create a work environment that was so great that even constant top-dollar recruitment attempts by other companies had no effect.
- KMStraub 16y ago
  That's great to hear. A company that is so confident in what its doing and its hires, that it trusts and encourages them to expand their skill set and degree of influence.