A New Model for Employee Development

In last week’s newsletter, I examined mentoring in 2025 and discussed whether it’s working as it should. The TLDR version? Not exactly…

This week, I’ll take a look at where mentoring helps support the broader goal of growing people in the organization, and the other components needed to fulfill that goal.

You should find this helpful, whether you are a mentee, a mentor, someone who wants to grow in your job, or an organization trying to get employee development right.

So let’s dive in.

Mentoring as a Cure-All

Mentoring really took off in many enterprises during the pandemic.

That’s hardly surprising. As workers suddenly started working from home, many organizations were worried about a lack of vertical networking. This type of networking can be vital for an organization – it allows wisdom to flow down in an organization, and talent to rise.

With no casual networking events featuring leaders, and minimal opportunity for serendipitous connections, organizations needed an alternative, and found it by formalizing mentoring programs.

Even as many organizations have started bringing people back into the office, most have kept these programs in place, basically because they work! Both mentors and mentees typically appreciate these programs, and grow as a result of their involvement.

All of this is excellent news, but in some organizations it’s come with an unfortunate side effect – deprioritizing other services aimed at helping employees develop.

And THAT is a mistake.

What’s Needed to Learn and Grow

To explain why I believe over-relying on mentoring is a mistake, I’d like to take a step back and discuss what is needed to help people consistently grow in the workplace.

In our research, we have found that mentoring is a very important part of this picture, but still only one of five components, which we’ve put together in a model summarized by a handy acronym: SCAMP.

The SCAMP Model (Courtesy BillionMinds)
This model applies to everyone—from early-career employees to the CEO. No one in an organization is exempt from needing to build capabilities, think things through, grow as a person, receive advice, learn from others’ successes and failures, enrich their network, and feel supported.

That said, there are differences in how this is accomplished. Sometimes it’s formalized, sometimes it’s ad hoc, and often it’s a combination of the two.

Which brings me to perhaps the most troubling aspect of the model. In almost all cases, the employees who receive the least support across the five dimensions of SCAMP are those lowest down in the organization.

Why Lower Level Employees are Left Behind

The higher you are in an organization, the more likely you are to get some of SCAMP by default. Your network will typically be larger, you will have more opportunities to learn on the job, and in some cases, parts of the model will actually be part of your job — for example, if you present to the board, you will get advice whether you like it or not.

Then of course there is simple math. Most organizations are structured like a pyramid – with fewer people in senior roles and more in junior roles. Providing high quality support across SCAMP for dozens of senior people is far less expensive than doing so for thousands of lower level employees.

So unfortunately, many organizations don’t even try to address all of SCAMP. They rely on failed approaches like course catalogs to try and address skills development, supplement it with a mentoring program, and leave everything else up to chance.

Ignoring the problem in this way is understandable, but it’s also highly counter-productive. Millions of employees leave their jobs every year because they don’t have enough opportunity to grow where they are. Plus, it’s much cheaper for organizations to hire senior roles from within their own ranks, and those people also come with internal knowledge that can otherwise take years to develop.

There is a better way, both for the employee and the organization.

How to approach this as an Employee

Take this SCAMP model and internalize it, because if you can get support across all the different elements, it will help you grow where you are and reach your goals much more efficiently.

Think across these different dimensions and isolate the areas lacking…

• Skills Development – do you work on your skills a tiny bit every day? Do you actively seek to learn from your daily activities, as well as using more formal learning programs? Are you balancing durable (soft) skills development with more technical skills training?
• Coaching – Do people around you help you think through challenges, rather than just give you answers? Is your manager functioning well as a coach, and if not, could you ask them to step up?
• Advice – Do you have access to quality advice from people who take the time to understand the problem in full? When you receive advice you disagree with, are you able to process it well, and figure out if it’s worth acting on?
• Mentoring – Do you have access to people who have sat in your shoes? Are you good at asking for introductions to others, and do you make it easy for a mentor to introduce you to others (for example, with a forwardable e-mail)?
• Peer Support – Do you have friends and colleagues who understand deeply the challenges you face and can empathize? Are you able to share your challenges with others, or do you keep them so close to your chest that they are unaware of your issues?

It may well be that your organization doesn’t provide you with the support you would like across these dimensions, but in a hyper-connected world, that’s no excuse for giving up. With imagination, you will often find ways to get resources to help you inexpensively or for free, and if you do, it will likely benefit you hugely.

How to approach this as an Organization

The SCAMP model serves two purposes – a checklist for employees to manage their own growth, and a strategic template for their organizations.

When we work with organizations, we use a “weakest link” approach. We start by assessing how employees’ growth potential is being realized, using the results to understand the weakest area across SCAMP. Then, we find a solution designed to address that weakest link before moving on to the next.

The solutions can be varied. For example, if coaching is lacking, the organization might hire coaches, but it could also turn managers into an army of coaches through targeted skills development.

There is one other critical component. We use the model to help organizations build a human-centered, skills-based culture—one where learning and growing are not considered the province of high-potential employees, but are expected of everyone.

Of course, an organization can do this independently. Once you internalize that employee development involves more than course catalogs and mentoring programs, you will start to invest in a more holistic approach to employee growth, and begin to see a culture shift, where your employees are genuinely prepared for whatever is next in your organization.

Next Week

Why old-school career development is broken, and how to future-proof your career as AI becomes more dominant.

See you then!