“Up or out” has been the watchword of corporate life forever, it seems, and yet as we slide into the new millennium, increasing numbers of people are finding that there’s another way to move — laterally. But why?

What’s in it for lateral movers and for their organisations?

When do workers benefit?

We all have an individualised “career metabolism”. That means when it’s time for a change, it’s time for a change — regardless of whether or not a spot is available or your family is ready for the move or not. When you stay put in a job longer than your mind and body want you to, there’s a hefty price to pay — emotionally and often physically as well.

When a lateral move is the right choice:

• When you want more challenge but not more responsibility, because your plate is too full with challenges outside the workplace and you don’t want to take up more.

• When your spouse is being moved and your company has a facility in the same location.

• When you and your boss or a colleague have locked horns and there doesn’t seem to be any way to set the situation right.

• When the functions of your unit are being outsourced, but you don’t want to leave.

• When you’re taking courses or completing a degree and don’t want the stress of a promotion at the moment.

• When you’re preparing for an eventual move and want to spend some time in a functional area where you don’t have that much experience.

• When there’s an opportunity to report to someone in another unit from whom you can learn a great deal.

What’s in it for the company?

Two things: one, it allows companies to keep people with good track records after their work has become boring or monotonous.

And two, it saves on the costs of finding and training new employees. It also lessens the likelihood of employees taking company secrets to a competitor.

Lateral moves allow organisations to place personnel where they’re needed. In an organisation with few top slots available, these changes allow the company to give employees new challenges without promoting them. This solution offers an antidote to the “I’m dead-ended and bored” lament heard so often in organisations today.

Shouldn’t I be moving up instead of over?

That depends. In organisations where the leadership emphasises the importance of new challenges and ongoing skill development, it doesn’t seem strange at all.

In fact, lateral moves are welcomed as the energising challenges that they can be. In organisations still tainted with vestiges of military hierarchy, it probably doesn’t go down well. But then again those places aren’t doing well in a lot of ways these days.

Lateral moves work best in organisations where employees have access to flexibility and perks that give them a sense of career progression.

Like all workplace innovations, lateral moves will succeed in places where both leaders and workers dedicate themselves to making what’s good for the company coincide with what’s good for its employees.