When Moving Sideways Makes Sense

Slower promotions and a weaker job market have led to a lot of folks feeling stuck in a rut. The solution might be moving to a new role within your company — which can help you grow, stay engaged, and increase cross-functional connection.

Journalist Pattie Sellers originated the phrase “careers are a jungle gym, not a ladder” (even though it’s often attributed to Sheryl Sandberg, the former chief operating officer of Meta, given its prominence in her book Lean In). Moving sideways, or even down a rung, can pay off in the long term if you have the right attitude and orientation. It also typically pays off for employers.

I’ve made sideways moves in my career, and I’ve even moved “down” in power and authority, for a few reasons: I’m a huge fan of continuous learning and also knew that in order to get to longer-term career goals, I needed to spend some time developing new skills. I’ve also counseled people considering major lateral career moves.

What are the signals that it’s time for you to start looking for a lateral move? Maybe more importantly, how do you cope with going against the wisdom you’ve been taught about career progression? This piece aims to answer two key questions: When is moving sideways the right answer? And why is it in a company’s best interest to support lateral mobility and people’s ability to move around internally?

Looking Around Doesn’t Always Mean Looking Outside

The post-pandemic rebound in the U.S. job market has come to an end, and the job market is getting back to a more stable state, making it harder for people to move around. Unemployment recently broke 4% for the first time since 2021, and job openings per unemployed job seeker are back to pre-pandemic levels (1.2 openings per person, compared with over 2 per person in 2022). Layoffs aren’t accelerating, which is the good news, but promotions appear to be stagnating. Jumping ship doesn’t happen as often.

At the same time, more people are stuck in a rut — something almost all of us are familiar with. You fall into autopilot when you start the workday, moving from meeting to meeting wondering, half-heartedly, whether it might be time to look for a new job. At some point in our careers (maybe multiple points), we’ve all had that internal dialogue. It’s not unique at all these days: Just over half of all workers (51%) report being drained at the end of the day, and 44% of all workers report being burned out at work. While feeling stagnated might not be the primary cause of rising employee burnout, it’s certainly a contributing factor. In an era of “doing more with less,” doing more of the same with fewer people is a grind.

All of these circumstances combine to make lateral moves an option that many people would do well to consider. But sideways career moves come with risks and don’t always pay off. So how do you weigh whether it’s time to stop repeating “always upward” as your mantra of career progression?

There may be opportunities right within your organization (and even your job function) to move into a better role.

Sometimes, knowing when it’s time to look for openings similar to your current job is obvious: You’re not learning or advancing your skills, you don’t like your manager, or your team isn’t a good fit, but you’re looking to stay in the same business function and internal mobility is relatively easy.

When I worked at Google as a general manager who oversaw engineering, product, and operations, for example, engineers had tremendous internal mobility. The company was keen to fill positions with internal rather than external candidates and to retain people by giving them opportunities to move around. Engineers had a fair amount of influence on where they got assigned initially and also had the ability to switch to a new team or product to develop fresh skills or demonstrate capabilities that would help them later seek a promotion.

In The Wall Street Journal, one of my favorite reporters, Chip Cutter, recently shared an example from Synchrony, where people can swap jobs for as few as 90 days or as long as a year. “[People] want the ability to think about doing something new and being empowered to do what’s best for them,” said the financial company’s chief human resources officer, DJ Casto.

Many companies don’t make lateral moves as easy as Synchrony or Google does because they lack the infrastructure to encourage these moves, and performance measurements and compensation are designed to support upward movement. Managers can also be resistant, wanting to hoard talented people. But even in these organizations, there may be opportunities for sideways movement if you search them out and build relationships outside your team.

Don’t (Excessively) Fear the Smaller Job

If you still find your function interesting, the best option might be exploring close-in lateral moves in the same function. This is especially true in more expertise-driven and technical fields, such as design, engineering, and finance. Getting exposure to different parts of the business, working on novel projects that stretch you, finding a better boss, being in a team that fits your work style, moving to a more stable business unit — these are all good reasons to change teams and less disruptive than switching job functions.

These types of moves also have long-term benefits: Your network expands, you’re back on the learning curve, and higher energy levels at work are good for you and your employer. Combining an internal move with external learning opportunities, such as taking classes, seeking out tutoring, attending events, and building professional networks, all can help you get out of a rut while staying on a long-term path you find interesting.

What’s harder — but certainly not impossible — is shifting your career laterally into a whole new business function, where your network isn’t as strong and, more importantly, your skill set isn’t as developed. There’s evidence that changing functions pays off in the long run, especially if you’re aiming for executive levels and general management roles. But in the short term, these shifts often come with a step down the job ladder, short-term declines in performance ratings, and stagnant compensation. And I know from personal experience that taking the ego blow of the “smaller” job can be hard in a world of work judged by titles, budgets, and number of direct reports.

I’ve moved functions a few times in my career, and each of these moves was a bet. They involved flat (at best) compensation and loss of the traditional corporate markers of power and influence. They also involved stepping into situations where I had less experience. But that was exactly the point: I wanted new experiences, both because I’m a junkie for learning and because I knew that those positions would make me a better leader further down the road. Each time I made a move like that, it got easier — the corporate markers didn’t bother me as much, and I had greater confidence in the bet that I was making.

Internal Mobility Can Be a (Mutual) Win

One of my favorite stories about career mobility comes from Allstate, which increased internal hiring from 45% to 60% by having recruiters shift the focus of their time from external to internal hires. They started with coffee chats with employees. The first outreach could be a bit rough, chief human resources officer Bob Toohey told The Wall Street Journal: “When you get a call from a recruiter internally, you start to go, ‘Am I losing my job?’”

Companies such as PepsiCo have committed deep resources to internal skill development to support people’s growth and employee retention within the organization. The company’s myDevelopment program combines a skills-based approach with a database of jobs and individual needs that allows employees to apply for special stretch projects and find 90-day short-term assignments that allow them to test out new areas.

Why is it in a company’s best interest to support people’s ability to move around? As managers and leaders, we know the difference between employees who are just punching the clock versus those who are excited to learn and have the energy to take on challenges. We can improve talent retention, drive knowledge sharing, and spur innovation by supporting healthy internal mobility. Those programs can be challenging — after all, we’re often investing in internal candidates who may have fewer functional skills when they move to a new area — but the payoffs can be great.

Investing in internal mobility programs can have a range of other positive benefits that may be harder for organizations to measure. Increasing lateral moves can reduce burnout, maintain productivity, reduce training costs relative to outside hires, and improve employee goodwill as people realize that the organization is willing to invest in their future.

Longer term, functional and team diversity are some of the biggest levers for driving innovation. Developing leaders with experience across business units and functions pays off: It’s what companies look for in executive hires, and managers who have the combination of deep understanding of the company across functions are inherently better candidates for senior leadership roles compared with external candidates.

Allies and Sponsors Can Lend Helping Hands

I’ve moved sideways at least three times in my career. These moves accelerated learning and longer-term goals. I took risks that worked out, but one key to my success was identifying leaders who would help me cross those career chasms and people who supported me on the other end. I was hired into Google to do business development, but from the start I built relationships with other leaders, such as Sameer Samat, vice president of product management at the time, who was willing to sponsor me in moving into product leadership if I “proved out” over a year or two.

At Slack, I earned the trust of a wide range of executives, including my boss, Tamar Yehoshua, who was chief product officer. She supported my proposal to build a think tank (Future Forum), although that effort wasn’t under her guidance; it took the backing of then-CEO Stewart Butterfield, and the sponsorship of our general counsel at the time, David Schellhase. I’d built “credit” with David over the years, and that investment built the mutual trust that was necessary for me to put together a small team to pursue a fairly risky new venture.

If you’re looking to make a move, it helps to identify allies — people who can tell you about the function or team that interests you, say what skills you need to build, and help you understand where you might be a fit with the function or team. Sponsors are even better: Knowing that someone is committed to helping you through the transition process reduces the degree of personal risk and stress that change can bring.

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Leaders need to help employees and coworkers understand that stretching and going sideways has benefits, even if they don’t show up in this year’s paycheck. Cribbing again from Allstate’s Toohey, “I think we have to get away from just ‘I move up.’ It’s ‘How do I progress?’”

Lateral moves can develop more engaged, loyal employees and build tomorrow’s leaders. For individuals, moving sideways is an investment in building a more rewarding career. If you’re stuck in a rut, it’s time to leap out.