When a person starts in your business they start at some level, the bottom, the top or somewhere in between.

Generally it will be at some lower level and will hopefully want to “climb the ladder of success” you provide. For some this will mean a ladder governed by rising pay increments, for others it will be the attainment of various levels of skill achievement perhaps leading to a new title (from assistant to manager etc.)

My suggestion is you figure out a pathway for your staff no matter where they come into the business, so they can clearly follow the path and attain the sense of achievement which goes with it.

There are various examples throughout history of how organisations have used this to their advantage, the main one is the military, where you work up from a “private” to Corporal, Sargeant, and so on. Along the way you have to “prove yourself” to be worthy of the role and the new responsibilities that may bring.

Because of the history of this sort of hierarchy, many people are ingrained to this way of working, so in business we can use this to our advantage.

For some businesses a formal approach is taken, and for others a more casual approach can make the approach far more fun and engaging for that type of employee and business. lets take an example of a business which does a lot of business to business sales.

Because the business is sales focussed the team has to either be supporting the sales team or be part of the sales team. therefore they might create a structure like this.

  • Support Crew – Starting role in the business – probably in admin there can be a range of levels in this category to take in stores and warehousing.
  • Sales Support Agent – These people work with the sales team as the sales support team, making the calls, tracking client contacts etc.
  • Sales Agent – The new sales person starts here, the apprentice if  you like to the sales executive.
  • Sales Executive – The actual sales person, experience and able to lead the sales agents.
  • Sales Coach – You could call this a sales manager role.
As you can see the aim is to provide a start and end point, in time the end point might alter depending on what the organisation is able to offer and how it develops.
By creating these sorts of levels in your business you can now develop the sorts of specific tasks you want people at each level to do.
Steve Gray - Steve is an avid writer and a business Coach - Trainer - Speaker (Steve Gray . biz). You can get his Leadership E Book from Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004XTTUMS The info provided in these articles is for educational purposes only and is intended as a starting point for you to build your business from, not as specific advice.
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