02/01/2026
Promotions Are SO Yesterday: Redefine Career Development. Help Employees Thrive
Book Review by Anna Schar
Giulioni, J. W. (2022). Promotions are so yesterday: Redefine career development. Help employees thrive. ATD Press. (176 Pages)
The evolution of career development has been informed by a variety of founding theories in tandem with cultural and historical changes that have impacted not only the landscape of organizations and work itself, but also the workforce (Abu-Faraj, 2025). Examining the value of traditional linear career movement is not a new concept, but has reemerged to address the rapidly changing realities of careers and work (Kaye & Farren, 1996).
It is within this new era of career development that author Julie Winkle Giulioni developed her prolific career focused on workplace growth and development, including co-founding DesignArounds, a firm that works with organizations to champion workplace growth and development (Giulioni, n.d.).
Giulioni shares some of her insights for career growth in her recent book Promotions Are SO Yesterday: Redefine Career Development. Help Employees Thrive. Written in an easy-to-understand style, Giulioni has developed a straightforward, actional framework for career development that is accessible for all readers. While the book speaks to managers within organizations, it is easily adapted for career development professionals who support employees working within organizations.
Giulioni’s multidimensional career development premise states that developing and defining oneself or one’s employees solely in a linear upward fashion is not enough to meet either the employee’s or organization’s needs. She identifies seven distinct dimensions of development for the employee and offers career development professionals and their clients a self-assessment and specific activities to leverage each one.
The Seven Dimensions of Development
- Contribution refers to a desire to do meaningful work and provide value to the work. Increased feelings of contribution can support employee engagement, job satisfaction, and renewed energy. For Giulioni, strategic contribution is the ultimate win-win for both the organization and the employee. Of value to the career development practitioner is the worksheet “Questions to Clarify a Contribution Focus,” which provides a starting point for defining current roles and identifying areas where opportunities for contribution may exist.
- Competence, although not a new concept for career development, is revitalized here by Giulioni’s focus on recognizing challenges and opportunities in a workplace. She states, “Your employee can’t squeeze more hours out of the day for learning. But they can squeeze more learning from each of those hours” (p. 40).
An exciting tool provided by Giulioni is the “Competence-Building Options Matrix,” which plots competence-building activities: one axis represents the ways a person may prefer to consume knowledge and experiences, and another axis represents the nature of the learning or experiential activity. This further allows an employee to drill down on their preferences for learning and skill development.
- Connection, as discussed by Giulioni, is about something deeper and more meaningful than networking touchpoints. A career is rarely developed in isolation, and some employees desire to develop meaningful connection in the workplace. However, as Giulioni points out, connection building is somewhat of an art involving authenticity, reciprocity, and trust. Her “Targeted Connection Plan Worksheet” charts possible activities to develop connection in the organization, including identifying opportunities in internal meetings, activities and events within the organization and group membership, groups within an organization such as affinity groups, peer networks and trade associations.
- Confidence is the frequently overlooked dimension of “trusting and appreciating one’s talents and abilities” (p. 65). Giulioni offers numerous activities to develop confidence including learning from one’s successes instead of one’s failures. She offers questions to “recognize the connection between themselves, their efforts, and the positive outcome” (p. 75).
- Challenge refers to activities and opportunities that allow for growth without overwhelming an employee. Challenge assignments are best developed with employee input and manager approval. One of Giulioni’s assignments is for the employee to investigate the voids in the organization — places where a gap exists, and things fall through the cracks. She outlines a planning worksheet of questions to help clarify and develop a strategic developmental plan.
- Contentment and the idea of strategic happiness has come into focus for many organizations. While this may often take the form of policies and practices focused on work-life balance, Giulioni states this is just one factor of many. She provides a tool, “What Could Make You More Content?” that offers a variety of potential areas for achieving satisfaction.
- Choice, an underpinning of the multidimensional career development framework, is expanded here to recognize opportunities for choice and expanded decision-making. Of interest in this section is Giulioni’s discussion of choice points: places within the job function, projects, teams, or work duties where the employee’s autonomy can be exercised.
Although not listed as one of the seven dimensions, Climb, or promotion within an organization, still plays a role in career development, says Giulioni. She posits that if climb is the objective, employees can explore the other dimensions listed above to strengthen the likelihood of reaching that goal. Essentially, the climb is the outcome, not the process.
Final Reflections
One of the strengths of the framework outlined in Giulioni’s book is the accessibility of the developmental activities, which require no external or expensive programs or software. This is especially helpful for a practitioner working with clients in smaller organizations that do not provide employment development opportunities or resources.
However there does seem to be a lack of strategic cohesion in Giulioni’s overall developmental process. While she calls for manager support and feedback throughout the book’s proposed activities, there is no indication of how one may go about evaluating intended outcomes. It raises questions, such as: How does a career practitioner or manager demonstrate the value of these developmental activities to the organization? Further still, how do these activities integrate into a larger career development framework for the organization?
Promotions Are SO Yesterday is written as a call to action to revise how practitioners approach developing employees. Despite its shortcomings, this framework offers career development practitioners an exciting approach to meet the needs of the client as a valuable employee in an organization.
References
Abu-Faraj, Z. O. (2025, Sept. 4). From baby boomers to gen z: Four generations that redefined career development, education, and industry. LinkedIn Pulse. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/from-baby-boomers-gen-z-four-generations-redefined-career-abu-faraj-kizcf/
Giulioni, J. W. (2022). Promotions are so yesterday: Redefine career development. help employees thrive. Association for Talent Development.
JulieWG. (2024, April 16). About - Julie. https://www.juliewinklegiulioni.com/about/
Kaye, B., & Farren, C. (1996). Up is not the only way. Training & Development, 50(2), 48-54.
Anna Schar is a civilian federal employee who has been working as a career service advisor and management and program analyst for the last two years. A recent graduate of the NCDA Facilitating Career Development training course, Anna holds a Master of Arts in Teaching from Shepherd University, WV, and is currently working toward earning a Master of Science in Organizational Psychology from the University of Hartford, CT. Anna comes to the federal government after serving as a public school teacher in West Virginia for over a decade and brings to career development the dedication and passion for learning and growth she felt in the educational sphere. She can be reached at aschar3@gmail.com.