The Rise of Career Lattices: Navigating Non-Linear Progression Paths

In today’s dynamic workplace, the old notion of climbing a single “career ladder” is giving way to a more flexible career lattice. Unlike a traditional ladder where employees move upward in a straight line, a career lattice allows movement “up, down, diagonal, and sideways” across different roles and departments. In this model, professional growth is defined by broadened skills and varied experiences rather than solely by ascending title levels. For example, a software engineer might pivot into a product manager role (a diagonal move) or shift laterally into a new team to learn different skills — all within the same company. By offering multiple pathways for growth, the lattice approach recognizes that employees have diverse career goals and learning styles.

As the table shows, a lattice model expands the idea of success. The traditional ladder focuses on climbing to higher ranks; the lattice “broadens skills and experiences across roles,” recognizing that not everyone aspires only to management. By valuing lateral moves and diverse experiences, career lattices keep employees engaged and organizations more adaptable.

Factors Driving the Shift to Non-Linear Paths

Several trends are fueling the move away from linear career progressions:

• Technological Disruption and Skill Shifts: Rapid automation, AI, and digital transformation are changing job roles everywhere. The World Economic Forum projects that 44% of workers’ core skills will be disrupted in the next five years. As technology evolves, employees must continually reskill, and organizations need flexible paths to redeploy talent. A lattice model naturally accommodates this by letting employees pivot into emerging roles and learn new competencies.

• Rise of the Gig Economy: Freelance and contract work are booming. In the U.S., roughly 36% of the workforce freelances or does gig work. Workers increasingly take on side projects or short-term contracts to build skills and pursue varied interests. This mindset — seeing career as a portfolio of experiences — aligns with a lattice approach. Companies responding to this trend often allow employees to take “gig” assignments or project-based roles internally, treating them as valuable development steps.

• Remote and Flexible Work: The pandemic accelerated remote work, and many employees now expect location flexibility. About 35% of U.S. workers with remote-capable jobs are fully remote, and 41% work on a hybrid schedule. With geography no longer a constraint, people can explore jobs across cities or time zones. This global talent mobility means an employee can move laterally into a role at a different office or even a different country. Employers must adapt by viewing careers as networks of roles rather than fixed sequences, so they can tap into and deploy talent anywhere.

• Evolving Employee Expectations: New generations prioritize meaning, growth, and work-life fit. Many Millennials and Gen Z workers seek purposeful projects and development opportunities; they are less interested in staying decades at one company just for a title. As one analysis notes, younger workers “prioritize work they find meaningful and environments that align with [their] values”. They also want flexibility in when and how they work. In response, firms offer more lateral moves, sabbaticals, or role changes to retain talent. For example, a shift worker might take an intentional step back or sideways (rather than up) to reskill or focus on family, supported by company policy.

• Upskilling and Lifelong Learning: With skills ageing rapidly, both employees and employers are embracing continuous learning. Major companies are investing heavily in training programs so people can grow into new roles. Amazon’s Upskilling 2025 initiative, for instance, has committed $1.2 billion to train 300,000 employees and help them move into in-demand, higher-paying roles. This demonstrates that top firms see value in employees making non-linear moves — retraining and moving across functions — rather than searching for talent externally. It also reflects a broader trend: organizations want agile, skills-based workforces, which career lattices facilitate by embedding learning into every step of the career path.

Taken together, these factors make rigid ladders less viable. Instead, companies are redefining career growth as a lattice of options, where an employee’s path might include side steps into different functions, short rotations, or personal development breaks, all recognized as progress.

Examples of Career Lattices in Action

Many organizations have already embraced lattice-style career models:

• Deloitte: The consulting firm is a pioneer in this area. Since at least 2008, Deloitte has used a lattice framework to let employees “shape their career paths based on their life stage and aspirations.” Its Mass Career Customization program encourages lateral, diagonal, and vertical moves (not just promotions) and puts continuous skill-building at the core. For example, an employee might take a horizontal role in a different service line to gain broader expertise, then return to the original team with new perspectives.

• Buffer: The social-media startup illustrates a lattice with dual career tracks. Buffer’s framework distinguishes between Makers (individual contributors) and Managers. Both tracks allow advancement: Makers progress by taking on more challenging projects, while Managers by leading teams. This approach means a software engineer can advance in salary and responsibility without having to become a manager, simply by deepening expertise or leading major initiatives. Buffer even formalizes “levels and steps” that recognize contribution regardless of axis, and it employs mentorship programs to support growth in either track.

• Spotify: The music streaming giant explicitly rejects linear career paths. Spotify’s culture is built on the idea that “growth is not linear”. It offers extensive internal mobility programs — such as gigs, job swaps, and permanent moves — that let employees explore new roles based on skills and interests. Managers at Spotify hold regular career-mapping conversations, and the company provides data-driven learning to fill skill gaps. For example, an engineer at Spotify might swap roles with a designer for a few months to learn product skills, or take on a “gig” in a different country, with the support of dedicated coaching.

• Amazon: The e-commerce giant’s massive upskilling pledge underscores its lattice-friendly outlook. Through Upskilling 2025, Amazon gives front-line and corporate employees access to training (from cloud to robotics) so they can move into new roles — “within Amazon or beyond” — as opportunities arise. This reflects an internal mobility mindset: instead of a fixed manager track, Amazon encourages learning and lateral movement. (For instance, some warehouse workers take technical apprenticeships to become software engineers.)

• IBM: IBM has long emphasized skills-based careers. Its Watson Talent Frameworks provide competency profiles for hundreds of job roles, helping employees chart new paths. One IBM case study describes how a client firm used IBM’s tools to let 4,500 employees “pursue impactful career advancement” by shifting into roles that match their talents. Internally, IBM encourages workers to explore new areas (often through rotational programs or apprenticeships) rather than just climbing one ladder.

Other notable examples include W.L. Gore (the Gore-Tex company), which coined the term “lattice” in the 1950s, and legacy firms like Cisco and Thomson Reuters, which have promoted cross-functional career moves over decades. These real-world cases show that organizations of all sizes and sectors are finding value in lattice models.

Benefits and Challenges of Career Lattices

Advantages

A well-designed career lattice offers many benefits for both organizations and employees:

• Higher Retention: By providing growth in multiple directions, lattices keep employees engaged. When workers have clear paths to learn and advance (even if not vertically), they are less likely to leave. In one survey, 91% of employees said having continual learning opportunities is very important, and a third of recent job leavers cited lack of advancement as a key reason. Career lattices help meet this need for development, reducing turnover. As Hayden Los Angeles’s COO noted, experimenting with a lattice helped his company “hang onto some of our best people”.

• Lower Hiring Costs: Strong internal mobility means companies fill roles from within rather than hiring externally. Lattice programs encourage firms to upskill or rotate existing talent, which can dramatically reduce recruitment expenses. Rather than sourcing and training new hires, an organization can draw on its current workforce and move people to where skills are needed. Over time this results in “huge saving on recruitment costs,” according to industry observers.

• Skills Agility: Non-linear paths help close talent gaps. With a lattice, employees bring their strengths into new areas (for example, an engineer joining a product team can share deep technical insight there). This cross-pollination builds a more agile workforce. One HR expert explains that when stellar employees move laterally, they carry their expertise with them, allowing the business to use top talent in the areas of greatest need. In rapidly changing markets, being able to redeploy people easily is a strategic advantage.

• Innovation and Collaboration: Exposure to different roles broadens perspectives. When employees move between departments, they break down silos and share knowledge. A lattice model deliberately mixes teams and functions, which can spark creativity. In practice, firms have found that cross-functional assignments often yield fresh ideas — for example, an operations manager contributing to marketing planning or a customer-service expert helping product design. This knowledge transfer is built into the lattice: as one HR manager observes, flexible career moves “benefit your organization by fostering knowledge transfer”.

• Employee Satisfaction: Career lattices let workers craft personalized journeys. Employees who prefer to specialize don’t have to become managers to advance, while those seeking variety can gain broad experience. This flexibility “keeps work exciting, yet stable”, preventing boredom and burnout. For example, a technical specialist can stay on track by taking on progressively challenging projects, while another might accept a lateral move into a new field to reignite their passion. In effect, a lattice recognizes success on multiple axes — whether through expertise, leadership, or innovation.

Challenges

Moving to a lattice model also presents challenges that organizations must address:

• Cultural Shift: A lattice requires rethinking long-held mindsets. Managers and employees accustomed to climbing a ladder may find the change confusing. Implementing a lattice is “a huge shift in the way your organization, managers, and employees view … growth and progression”. Leaders must actively champion mobility and communicate that sideways moves are valuable. Without top-level buy-in, internal mobility efforts often stall: one study found that many leaders tacitly encourage “talent hoarding,” withholding opportunities because they fear losing their stars. To overcome this, companies should reward managers for developing their teams’ skills and encourage a mindset of shared talent.

• Unclear Career Architecture: Without clear guidelines, a lattice can feel chaotic. In a ladder model, the next step is obvious; in a lattice, the options multiply. Employees may not know what new roles are available or what skills they need for them. As one expert notes, a lattice’s freedom can make employees wonder “if they should stay in their lane, or get off the promotion expressway entirely”. To prevent confusion, organizations must map out career options and required competencies. This means creating transparent job families, skill taxonomies, and career maps so everyone understands how moves translate into growth.

• Visibility of Opportunities: Closely related is the need to expose internal roles. Traditional vacancy portals often hide many possibilities. Under a lattice, employers should actively signpost opportunities. One solution is to implement internal talent marketplaces or dynamic job boards that highlight lateral projects, stretch assignments, and skill-building roles. Companies might also hold “career weeks” or mobility fairs, or use AI to match employee skills with open roles. Without these tools, employees can miss out on potential paths even when the company wants them to move.

• Balancing Breadth and Depth: Some stakeholders worry that too much switching could dilute deep expertise. Companies must ensure that lateral moves still build on core strengths rather than scattering them. This often means pairing lattice mobility with mentoring and training. For employees, the challenge is self-guided planning: individuals must be proactive in choosing moves that fit their goals. In practice, it helps if mentors and managers guide each person’s path, making sure lateral moves are strategic (for example, building complementary skills) rather than aimless.

Overall, transitioning to a lattice involves organizational work: revising policies, updating HR systems, and continually communicating the new paradigm. But the rewards a more resilient workforce and engaged employees  can make it worthwhile.

Strategies for Implementing Career Lattices

Organizations ready to embrace career lattices can take several concrete steps:

• Redesign Career Policies: Update HR policies to explicitly allow and encourage non-linear moves. For instance, include sideways or even temporary downward moves (for retraining) in promotion and performance frameworks. Recognize accomplishments on any track — specialist, managerial, or project-based — with formal career paths and rewards.

• Clarify Role and Skill Frameworks: Develop clear job architectures and skill taxonomies. Document every role, level, and required competency in an accessible way. As part of this, create career “signposts” or maps that show possible moves (e.g. from Role A one can move to Roles B or C by learning Skill X or Y). This removes guesswork for employees and helps managers guide talent.

• Ensure Leadership Buy-in: Build a culture where leaders actively support mobility. Train managers to think of talent as shared resources rather than team property. Tie leadership incentives to internal development — for example, include collaboration or cross-training success in executive bonuses (Cisco famously shifted to rewarding collaboration when it adopted a lattice mindset). Encourage executives to publicly endorse non-traditional career paths, making it clear that doing a lateral move will not stall one’s prospects.

• Mentorship and Coaching: Set up formal mentorship programs and career coaching. Mentors can advise employees on when a lateral move might make sense and help them plan long-term. Some companies also use “career coaches” who work cross-functionally. For example, software firm Buffer uses mentorship to support its dual-track model, ensuring that individual contributors and managers each have guidance suited to their path. Shadowing programs and stretch assignments can also expose employees to new areas with support.

• Internal Mobility Platforms: Implement tools that surface internal opportunities. This could be an internal job board, a talent marketplace platform, or simply regular newsletters listing open roles and projects. Encourage hiring managers to post roles internally first. Some firms allow employees to apply for short “gigs” in other teams, similar to consulting rotations, which formalizes the process of trying a new area.

• Continuous Learning: Allocate time and budget for upskilling. Provide easy access to courses, certifications, and training (online or in-house) that prepare employees for different roles. Amazon’s Upskilling 2025 program is a prime example: it offers employees free training in areas like cloud computing and analytics. By lowering the cost of learning new skills, companies make lattice moves practical. Pair learning with career discussions: managers should regularly review an employee’s development plan and suggest relevant training for desired lateral moves.

• Cross-Functional Experiences: Foster a strong learning culture by encouraging lateral projects and job rotations. Deloitte recommends that high-performing organizations integrate recruitment, learning, and mobility efforts so that cross-training becomes the norm. For example, allow employees to spend a few months in a different department or lead a special cross-team project. These experiences build the versatile skill sets that lattices require. In practice, even simple measures — like allowing engineers to work with designers on joint sprints, or letting marketers take analytics courses  can broaden skills across silos.

• Monitor and Adapt: Use data to track how the lattice is working. Collect feedback and career outcomes so you can refine the system. This may involve upgrading HRIS systems to tag and follow employees’ role changes, learning activity, and performance. Continuously communicate the impact  for instance, highlight success stories of employees who made a non-linear move and advanced. Transparency around who moves where and why will build trust that the lattice benefits everyone.

By combining these strategies, organizations create an environment where a career lattice can thrive. The key is to make diverse career paths visible, supported, and rewarded, so employees feel safe and motivated to explore them.

Navigating Your Own Career Lattice

For individuals, a career lattice calls for an active, growth-oriented approach:

• Cultivate a Growth Mindset: View every role as a learning opportunity. Take advantage of training programs and explore new skills proactively. Remember that employers value adaptability; 44% of workers’ skills are expected to become outdated soon, so staying curious is your strongest asset. Seek feedback and set personal learning goals to prepare for future moves.

• Seek Lateral and Diagonal Moves: Don’t hesitate to explore opportunities outside your comfort zone. This could mean swapping roles temporarily, joining a cross-department project team, or even taking a sabbatical to learn. Career experts note that valid lattice moves include taking on a different assignment or even stepping back a level to retrain. For example, you might volunteer to help another team during a busy season or enroll in a company-supported course and apply those skills in a new role.

• Build Your Network: In a lattice world, relationships matter. Use internal networking to learn about different teams and roles. Connect with mentors and allies across the company who can advocate for you when openings arise. Regularly discuss your aspirations with your manager and HR; they may alert you to suitable opportunities. Attend “career fairs,” lunch-and-learns, or online forums your company hosts for job swaps or shadowing. The more people know you and your interests, the more paths open up.

• Stay Visible: Make your achievements known and demonstrate flexibility. When taking on a lateral project, highlight how your diverse experience benefited the business. Document your skills (e.g. on an internal profile) so automated systems or managers can match you to roles. If you’re interested in a different department, reach out and ask about “informational interviews” or short-term assignments. Proactivity can help you avoid getting “lost” in the lattice.

• Plan (But Be Flexible): Outline a loose career roadmap, but keep it adaptable. Recognize that moving sideways or even pausing for a stint in another field can advance your long-term goals. Regularly reassess your path: as one HR leader notes, “Employees’ career goals and aspirations will likely change over time,” so lattices give you freedom to pivot. Be open to redefining success; for instance, building expertise through varied experiences is as valuable as a promotion.

By embracing continuous learning and networking, individuals can thrive in a lattice. In fact, firms have found that supporting internal mobility keeps their talent pipeline strong 69% of HR executives report feeling pressure from employees for development opportunities. In other words, if you advocate for your growth, your organization may well reward you with the chance to chart a path on the lattice.

Conclusion

As workplaces evolve, career lattices are emerging as a powerful model for growth. They reflect the reality that careers are no longer linear chains but dynamic webs of skills and experiences. By allowing multidirectional moves, lattices help organizations retain talent, respond to changing skill needs, and foster innovation. For employees, they offer personalization of career paths, preventing stagnation and opening doors to unexpected opportunities.

Organizations that adapt — through updated policies, leadership support, and a culture of learning — can harness the full potential of a career lattice. Employees, in turn, should adopt a flexible mindset, actively seeking out lateral moves and continuous development. Together, these efforts can create a workplace where careers are not a climb to the top, but a journey of growth in all directions.