‘Lean back’: Celebrating career moves beyond the ladder
Submission deadline: 24 January 2025
First Publish Dates: 3-7 March 2025
We’re often encouraged to ‘climb the ladder’ to grow our careers, but what if there’s another way? We’re keen to hear from those who’ve put a different foot forwards (or sideways, or backwards) to find a career that works for them.
About the ‘lean back’ campaign
We’re asking eligible Endorsed Employers to contribute to the campaign with testimonials from employees who have taken a different approach to their career path. They may have stepped down from a senior role, moved laterally within the business, or grown their career in a non-traditional way.
The questions to answer
Supply the testimonial from one employee that answers the below questions:
- Can you share what your career move was and why you chose to take this step?
- What inspired you to take a non-traditional path or make a lateral move in your career rather than focusing solely on climbing the ladder?
- How has this approach shaped your personal and professional growth?
- What advice would you give to someone considering a similar career move?
Word limit: Maximum 350 words in total.
Keep in mind that your submission will be published along with submissions from other Endorsed Employers too. Here are some suggestions to consider to help yours stand out:
- Has a leader in the business stepped down for another role, pursued part-time or opted to job share their responsibilities?
- Do you have any employees who have come to their roles through a non-traditional path?
- Do you have any employees who used to have a senior role in another organization and chose to join you at a different level (for any reason)?
Potential article headlines
(These are only examples and will depend on the actual content submitted)
- Beyond the ladder: Exploring career paths that go off the beaten track
- Career moves that break the mold: How taking a different path led to success
To submit your organization’s advocacy campaign contribution, complete the form below.
Please make sure your submission includes the name, pronouns, role title, and a picture of any person(s) we can attribute the answer to in the article.
FAQs
What type of images do you need?
Please ensure any headshot photos are high resolution (minimum 1MB), ideally taken against light and neutral backgrounds, with the individual’s face visible and not blurry, to ensure we can use them in the campaign.
Ensure to include a description of all images in the image file name, including the name, role title and pronouns of the pictured people.
How will the advocacy campaign content be shared?
The advocacy campaign content may be curated into any number of formats, including long-form articles, shorter carousel-style stories, videos, or infographics. Each content piece will then be shared across a variety of marketing platforms including our website, social media channels and newsletters. Where relevant we will also broadcast through our partner network and syndicate affiliations.
Will all my content be included?
Due to the high volume and variety of submissions for each focus area, we are unable to include every word of every supplied Endorsed Employers’ content. We will carefully adapt, edit, and curate the content to meet the needs of your organization, but also the needs of our audiences, while always maintaining the veracity of what has been supplied.
We rely on all our Endorsed Employers to provide content relevant to the topic details — the more relevant the content provided, the more space it will be given in any individual feature. Our team will be in touch if we need further clarification on your submission.
I need to speak to someone, who should I contact?
Please reach out to your DEI Account Manager, or campaigns@work180.co if you have further questions.
How will I know when a campaign is live?
Once the main campaign content piece is published, you will be provided with the links.
Please feel free to share these across your own channels. If there are specific hashtags that we are using for the campaign, we will provide these to you to utilize when sharing across your own social media platforms.
Will I get to view the campaign before it goes live?
No. The time between drafting, building the content, and publishing is very tight. This along with the number of stakeholders involved in each campaign, and the number of campaign content pieces a single submission may be involved in, it simply isn’t fair or feasible to allow any one client to approve the content before it’s published. We ask that clients get all the content they submit to be approved prior to submitting.