Step-by-Step Guide for Developing a Career Progression Framework

Employees who want to grow in their careers have two choices. They can leave your company, taking all their acquired knowledge, certifications, and experience with them. Alternatively, they can remain with your company, exploring rich and exciting opportunities that build on their skills and reward them with more pay. Employers need to give them a reason to stay.

Career progression frameworks provide clear pathways for employees to advance in their careers. These frameworks outline the steps and skills needed for promotions, fostering transparency and motivation. Implementing a robust career progression framework enhances employee engagement and retention.

This guide walks you through an 11-step process for developing a career progression framework for your company.

1. Assess organizational needs and goals

Begin by determining why you are investing in developing a career progression framework. This isn’t a decision you should make alone. So, consider surveying employees of different levels to gather a diverse range of perspectives that will help you answer some of these key questions:

What are the primary objectives of creating the framework?

For example, you may wish to increase employee retention, accelerate skill development, or train your organization’s next generation of leaders.

Who are your primary stakeholders?

For example, Human Resources leaders, managers, executives, and high-performing employees can all offer insights into the competencies required for their roles.

How will your framework align with the company’s long-term strategic goals?

For example, if you expect to expand into a new business area within the next five years, ensure your career progression framework considers relevant new roles.

How will your framework align with the company’s mission, vision, and values?

For example, if your company values innovation and creativity, your framework should include opportunities for employees to develop those skills.

How does the framework align with your performance management process?

For example, will managers, employees, or both use it to assess progress toward individual development goals?

What other scenarios do you expect to use this tool in?

For example, you might use your framework to analyze skill gaps, provide consistency in your hiring processes, or streamline salary structures.

2. Assess your existing framework or relevant resources

Unless you’re a startup, you likely already have an informal structure or resources you can draw from as a starting point for a more formal career progression framework.

To understand your benchmark, examine your current programs, materials, and databases and identify any gaps or overlaps in your progression pathways and competencies.

Assess current roles and skills

Job roles form the heart of your career progression framework. They are the building blocks upon which you’ll define skills and competencies.

Start by creating a comprehensive list of all the roles in your organization, broken down by each functional area. From here, determine:

• Which roles are most critical to the success of your business?
• How many years does it typically take to reach each role from an entry-level position?
• What are possible career pathways within and across functions?

Conduct a job analysis

Next, dig deeper into the specifics of each role to understand their unique demands and expectations. To do this:

• Gather job descriptions, performance data, and input from current role holders
• Identify roles critical to business success and prioritize their analysis
• Use structured methods like the Critical Incident Technique to understand key job requirements and identify key behaviors and actions that lead to success or failure in a range of contexts

3. Select a relevant system and structure for your framework

Depending on your organization’s size and number of departments, decide on the best structure for your career progression framework.

These are some key points to consider:

• Framework components: Determine what will go into your framework—for example, career paths, role descriptions, and competencies
• Framework competencies: Decide which competencies to include, such as core, functional, technical, or leadership
• Framework ownership: Select someone in charge of the project—for example, HR might own the overall framework but collaborate with managers and executives to learn more about specific department expectations, competencies, tracks, etc.
• Framework mobility: Consider different growth directions in the framework—for example, if an individual contributor isn’t interested in leadership progression, does your framework accommodate lateral moves as a type of career growth?
• Framework tracks: Determine if you’ll use distinctive leadership and IC tracks or a single track for both
• Framework complexity: Decide whether to use a single or general framework for your organization. For example, will you have separate department- or team-based frameworks?

Based on these ideas, here are a few ways to structure yours:

Option 1: A single company-wide career ladder

Option 2: Single ladder per level, per department

Option 3: A single ladder per level, per department, per role

4. Decide on the tool to use for the project

Smaller companies and startups may be tempted to rely on a manual approach to designing their career frameworks. However, this will quickly become unmanageable as your organization scales, or you want to add more detail to your roles.

Instead, consider the following as you decide how to document your framework:

Tools and resources for building a framework

Depending on the complexity of your framework, your headcount, and your budget, choose one of the following types of tools:

• Spreadsheets like Excel or Google Sheets
• Specialized career planning software
• All-in-one people enablement software, like Deel Engage, that links your career framework to other key people processes like performance management and learning

Integrating AI into career progression frameworks

Developing a career progression framework from scratch can be time-consuming. That’s why it’s decidedly easier and quicker to leverage artificial intelligence to generate a first draft of a comprehensive competency framework model. From here, you can customize the skills, knowledge, and abilities needed for each role at different proficiency levels.

Deel Engage’s AI assistant shaves hours off the time it takes you to shape your career progression framework. Take it from Singular Design, a software development company based in Miami, Florida, which used our tool to create descriptions of their employee roles in Spanish. The company uses a framework with five levels and fifteen sub-levels:

• (0) Junior (level) A, B, or C (sublevel);
• (1) Advanced A, B, or C;
• (2) Specialist A, B, or C;
• (3) Expert A, B, or C;
• (4) Senior Expert A, B, or C.

Singular Design also used Deel Engage’s career module to assign these levels to specific employees and benchmark them for performance evaluations and employee development.

5. Create a leveling framework and progression criteria

Existing companies committing to this process must level their existing roles before assigning progression criteria and compensation bands to them. Ask the following questions as you do this:

• How many job levels will you define per career path?
• How can a worker advance along the track?
• How will you build trust and clarity among current employees?
• Do your levels and related compensation bands match industry standards?
• What job level classification will you use? Which codes will you use to ensure organizational alignment? For example, IC1, IC2, and IC3 generally denote individual contributor levels

Example of Wise’s career leveling framework

Wise uses a six-level leveling framework for its engineers from IC1 to IC6. Each level has a different compensation band, broken down into salaries based on geographical location.

For example, an IC1 Engineer in Estonia would earn EUR 35,000 to 48,000. At the same time, a colleague at the same level in the UK would receive GBP 45,000 to 60,000.

Wise’s Analyst career framework follows a similar structure, although it only uses five levels:

1. Junior Analyst: Career Level 1
2. Analyst: Career Level 2
3. Senior Analyst: Career Level 3
4. Lead Analyst: Career Level 4
5. Lead of Leads Analyst: Career Level 5

6. Develop competency models for each role/team/department

Each person working in a specific role must be competent in a list of skills, behaviors, and knowledge relevant to their position.

To develop your competency models:

• Create clear definitions of each competency, outlining what they entail in the context of the role
• Include behavioral indicators describing observable actions that demonstrate the competency in practice
• Use proficiency levels to illustrate varying degrees of competency mastery
• Include examples of what competencies look like in a range of daily tasks
• Limit to three or four actionable items per competency
• Use active rather than passive voice to address the employee

7. Define career paths for all departments, roles, and levels in your organization

The progression path for each individual contributor or manager from their current position to any other role in your org chart should be crystal clear. To achieve this, involve cross-functional teams from every corner of your organization to ensure the framework is inclusive and relevant across departments.

If relevant to your system, define both career ladders and career lattices:

• Career ladders: Define vertical growth paths within each department (e.g., Junior Developer to Senior Developer to Lead Developer)
• Career lattices: Highlight lateral moves that allow employees to gain diverse experiences (e.g., from Marketing to Product Management)

Develop comprehensive documents detailing the pathways and criteria for each role.

8. Establish performance metrics

For a career framework to be effective, it must have clear measures of success. Establish performance metrics that align with your organization’s objectives and use them to track employee progress against their chosen career path. For example, you could:

• Align metrics with organizational goals, competencies, and career progression criteria
• Use quantitative measures, such as key performance indicators, to rate performance
• Incorporate qualitative measures such as 360-degree feedback to gather broader insights

9. Integrate the career framework with other talent management processes

Once your career framework is in place, you can use it to shape other talent management processes, such as:

Competency-based performance management

A career framework with defined competencies allows you to align your performance management system, ensuring it measures the skills and behaviors that contribute to career progression.

Discuss performance feedback and appraisals in relation to the employee’s chosen career path, identifying areas for growth and personal development.

Learn more about competency-based performance management systems in our detailed guide.

Training and development programs

Based on the granular skills and competency details in your progression framework, design tailored training programs that address any obvious skills gaps. Use this information to:

• Prepare employees to advance along set career paths
• Implement tailored learning paths for different career stages
• Roll out dedicated leadership training

Succession planning

A well-defined career framework supports your company’s succession planning by identifying high-potential employees who have demonstrated mastery of competencies at higher levels. This provides a roadmap for future leadership positions and allows for targeted development opportunities.

10. Communicate and implement the framework

Everyone in your organization must understand how to read and use your career progression framework. HR professionals, managers, talent acquisition specialists, and individual contributors should all be able to view its web of roles and paths and glean valuable insights about how to develop their own or their direct reports’ careers.

Here’s how to convey this knowledge:

Pilot testing

Start by trialing your framework with a small representative group and gather their feedback on any difficulties or misunderstandings they experienced.

For example, test the framework on the HR department to identify missing elements or redundant information. Based on this feedback, make changes before rolling out the framework to the broader company.

Communication

Next, develop a communication plan with clear, relevant information that enables employees of all ranks and roles to understand why the framework exists and its benefits. You might use multiple communication channels, such as:

• Town hall meetings
• 1:1 conversations
• Email series
• Internal communication tools, such as your intranet or Slack channels
• Webinars
• Onboarding documentation for new hires
• A dedicated point of contact to answer questions

Manager training

Managers are a vital piece of the communication puzzle. They’ll use the framework to develop their competencies and advance their and their direct reports’ careers. However, they can also help explain the new system to their direct reports and offer ongoing support and resources as required.

11. Monitor, evaluate, and adjust

No career progression framework is set in stone. Remaining relevant and effective requires ongoing monitoring, evaluation, and even occasional adjustments.

Baking the following tasks into your routines prevents your framework from becoming outdated:

• Establish a process for regular review and updates of the framework—for example, you might schedule an annual review or conduct an unscheduled review following any major changes such as mergers and acquisitions
• Use metrics and feedback to make data-driven adjustments—for example, if your goal is to improve employee retention, monitor your staff retention and turnover rates to determine if there’s any increase in the number of employees choosing to stay and progress internally
• Create a feedback loop involving employees and managers—for example, by setting up surveys or building time to discuss career growth into your performance 1:1s
• Stay updated with industry trends to ensure the framework remains relevant—for example, you might use a third-party benchmarking company to compare your framework to others in the industry and identify any gaps or opportunities for improvement

Successful career progression framework examples

When developing your framework, it’s great to be inspired by how other companies have constructed their models. Here are three interesting real-life career progression examples you might find helpful:

roadsurfer

Motorhome and campervan provider roadsurfer was founded in 2016 and now has over 500+ employees across Europe and North America across 16+ countries. The volume of roles involved means that designing any career progression framework is a tall ask.

Speaking in a recent webinar, Learning and Development Manager Louisa Peters shared how roadsurfer previously used Excel to manage career pathing, but this quickly became outdated as the organization grew. roadsurfer now uses Deel Engage to improve visibility throughout its org chart:

By investing in this role and growth transparency, roadsurfer’s framework now includes 100+ career paths and 150+ competencies, with career paths defined by the department and using both individual contributor and manager tracks. Each employee’s career path incorporates five or six competencies, including core values and leadership principles.

Sourcegraph

Code intelligence platform Sourcegraph uses department-specific career paths based on department and divided by individual contributors and leaders.

For example, the differences between a Sales Development Representative at levels P1 to P3 are as follows:

• SDR (P1): Knows and understands key competencies but is more task-oriented and continuing to develop. Is developing confidence in independently driving the pipeline. Regularly requests/requires leadership assistance.
• SDR (P2): Knows and understands key competencies and is continuing to develop in those that are most complex. Is confident in independently driving the pipeline. Occasionally requests/requires leadership assistance.
• SDR (P3): Mastery of key competencies. Capable of independently driving pipeline while also coaching less senior SDRs to independently drive pipeline. Occasionally requests/requires leadership assistance to develop coaching and people management skills. Expert across the majority of competencies.

Sourcegraph also includes intricate details of the promotion process for career advancement within the SDR team. This involves information about the interview process, a decision meeting, and scoring criteria for an SDR presentation.

Dropbox

File hosting service Dropbox uses a career progression framework for the following roles:

• Software Engineer (SWE)
• Quality Assurance Engineer (QAE)
• Reliability Engineer (SRE)
• Machine Learning Engineer (MLE)
• Security Engineer (SE)
• Technical Program Manager (TPM)
• Engineering Manager (EM)

The company breaks its framework down into two main components:

• Level expectations determine the scope, reach, and levers for impact at every level—these are the components that differentiate between an IC3 and IC4
• Core and craft responsibilities are the key behaviors specific to a role and team, which identify how one can deliver impact based on your level-specific expectations

To better understand what this looks like in action, let’s examine part of the IC1 Software Engineer framework. Their level expectations include:

• Scope: Area of ownership and level of autonomy or ambiguity

“I execute on defined tasks and contribute to solving problems with defined solutions.”

• Collaborative reach: Organizational reach and extent of influence

“I work within the scope of my team with specific guidance from my manager/team lead.”

• Impact levers: Technical levers are typically exercised to achieve business impact

“I primarily focus on improving my craft as an engineer.”

As an example of an IC1 Software Engineer’s core and craft responsibilities, here are some statements related to “Ownership.”

• “I follow through on my commitments, take responsibility for my work, and deliver my work on time.”
• “I ask questions to clarify expectations.”
• “I own my decisions and mistakes and learn from them.”
• “I contribute with urgency to operational issues (e.g., SEVs), leveraging my strengths to help find resolution.”
• “I raise concerns when I am suspicious that there has been a regression in service, and I advocate for declaring a SEV if a problem is found.”

Common challenges and how to overcome them

Few people leaders will mock up and launch a working career progression framework without a few hitches. Here’s how to overcome some common hurdles:

Balancing diverse career aspirations with organizational needs

Some employees will want to develop new skills that are irrelevant to your company. To balance their needs and wants with your business’s long-term goals, it’s important to have open communication with your employees about their career aspirations.

Encouraging them to explore different opportunities within the company can help align their interests with the organization’s goals. It’s also beneficial to offer professional development and training resources so employees can expand their skill sets while contributing to the company.

Ensuring fairness and transparency in career progression

Depending on your framework’s design, some employees may have more opportunities to progress within the company than others. To address this challenge, provide clear criteria for advancement and communicate these to your employees.

It’s also worth implementing a performance review system with regular feedback sessions and opportunities for employee growth discussions. These crucial conversations allow employees to understand what they need to do to progress in their careers and give them the space to ask questions about their development.

Keeping the framework flexible to adapt to changes

Your framework must accommodate different teams, roles, and even skills as your business grows and evolves. This is especially true for startups, who will constantly shapeshift throughout their first few years in business. Kevin Goldsmith, a former product development senior leader for Spotify, warned

Companies of any maturity should closely monitor how frequently roles change or merge to ensure their framework remains up-to-date.

Intercom is an example of an organization that redesigned its product designers’ job levels after discovering competency redundancy, incomplete role descriptions, and a lack of clarity about how the company made decisions about new job titles and ratings.

Follow their example by surveying your employees and reviewing your framework will keep it relevant.

Define consistent career path frameworks in a few clicks with Deel Engage

An effective career progression framework should be easy for employees to interpret and act on. To achieve this, you’ll need the right tools to define clear, transparent career paths that motivate and inspire your employees.

For technology startup reev, Deel Engage allowed them to cut back on four separate tools and save four months of work developing career frameworks.

Deel Engage includes the following essential tools:

• Career management: Use our comprehensive career path development solution to create a framework for continuous development. Then, connect the dots between skills, development plans, and training requirements to keep your people progressing toward their individual career goals
• Training management: Train your people with internal and external courses, including drafting your own learning content library with AI
• Performance management: Collect insights on employee performance and determine readiness for new challenges and roles
• HRIS: Deel HR, our truly global HRIS solution, is always included for free.

Implement a comprehensive career progression framework with Deel. Book a free demo today.