Career progression frameworks: how to create and use them

It’s so easy to carry on in a role, focusing on a particular project or ensuring all your day-to-day responsibilities are completed in a timely fashion. But what about the future? Where do your employees see themselves in five years time? This might be a classic interview question, but it’s also worth considering in real terms.

If you want your workforce to progress, a clear career roadmap should be a vital part of your company’s structure. This roadmap needs to be embedded into the organisation, so it is possible to track employees to where they ultimately want to be without losing key talent.

This is where a career framework comes into play.

Put simply, career progression frameworks are structured pathways that employees can follow to support their professional development in an organised and transparent way. They are like occupational roadmaps, with defined job levels, objectives, targets, and supporting criteria, so employees can see with clarity each new promotion, taking them an inch closer to their ideal position within the company.

These career frameworks matter even more in the UK now due to:

• A rising dissatisfaction in careers
• Concerns about social mobility
• Expectactions from different generations, including Gen Z
• Digital disruption

In fact, according to a 2022 survey by the IRIS Software Group, 47% of UK employees don’t see a clear path to progression in their jobs, with 68% feeling that career progression is blocked or delayed because of HR or managerial support. You don’t want to be that manager or that HR department.

1. Staff will feel appreciated – investing in your workforce can bring benefits to staff, as well as to the company as a whole. When people feel valued, they are more likely to perform better. A Hays survey of nearly 11,000 UK employees in 2024 found that 48% of workers reported a lack of career progression, a rise of 16% from 2023, in what was termed the “Great Dissatisfaction”. It went on to reveal that 57% of staff were intending to look for a new role within a year. Having career frameworks shows your workers that you are keen to invest in their future and growth over a period of years, leading to a more stable work environment and the avoidance of layoffs.
2. It will improve employee motivation – if employees aren’t progressing in their careers, they will lack motivation. Over half (53%) lack confidence in employers investing in their skill development, according to a 2024 survey. By helping workers to establish realistic and time-managed career goals through a career framework, they will be more motivated as they have something to work towards.
3. Productivity will be boosted – it’s clear that staff perform better when they are privy to training and development opportunities. This, in turn, boosts productivity within a company. Building a career framework for them to follow shows that not only are you taking the time to consider staff progression and wellbeing, you are also investing in the growth of the business as well.
4. It will strengthen those manager-employee relations – mapping out a career framework requires transparency and honest discussions between staff and managers, including performance, strengths, challenges, and ultimate goals. This channel of communication over a period of time will help to build better relations with employees, while strengthening the workplace culture.
   
   

Crafting a career framework will help in the long-term with resources, staff retention, and productivity, leading to success in the future. Read on for a step-by-step guide on how to build a comprehensive career progression framework for your staff.

Create a chart that nails the overall structure of employees within your business, including each individual position and the hierarchies within each department. Once done, take into account how introducing new roles or combining teams could streamline costs.

Ask employees to self-evaluate their role, while sharing their goals or objectives, through an employee-based survey, sent to every single person within your organisation. These can include questions such as:

• How do you feel you are performing in your role?
• Where have you struggled and where have you excelled?
• What are your career goals?
• Would you like to learn the skills needed to take you to the next level of management or towards a leadership role?

Once completed, it will be worth meeting with each member of staff to discuss their answers and findings.

Whatever level a member of staff is at currently, it needs to be clear to them where their career can take them within the organisation – i.e. what roles they can aim for, what the responsibilities would be, and what they need to do in order to get there.

All positions need to be clearly spelt out by defining:

• The title
• Tasks involved
• Responsibilities
• Expectations

Then, break this down into what an employee needs to do to be able to achieve the next level, such as:

• Education level
• List of the hard and soft skills required
• Short-term goals
• Long-term goals
• Number of years needed either within the role or the sector
  

Ensure that training and development opportunities are available to all for upskilling purposes. This can be achieved with a training system that means it’s easy to enrol staff on relevant courses and track attendance and participation, while ensuring compliance across the business.

Keep in mind that some employees will require mentoring, guidance, and coaching to access these learning and development courses, and reviews of the resources and budget available will need to be undertaken on a regular basis.

It’s very likely that some employees won’t be interested in moving up. That’s totally understandable, but this needs to be considered within the career framework. Instead, workers might want to move across in a horizontal move rather than a vertical one. That’s not technically career progression, so how can this be incorporated within the career framework?

Employees are all different, with different needs and wants, so each career framework should offer up two routes that either:

1. Lead to a management role
2. Lead to a more senior title of a current, or similar, role

With these options available, an employee can decide which is the best route for them when it comes to the crunch.

Once the career framework has been set out, it’s no good just letting it fend for itself. First off, each employee should have a meeting with their line manager to iron out any complexities, answer any queries, and revise the structured plan if needs be, in order to help them stay on track. Making it a collaborative process should increase the employee’s acceptance of the process, leading to a more successful outcome.

When the framework is approved, it’s down to the HR department to review it regularly to make sure that resources and budgets align with best practice and the company’s capabilities.

Publish the career frameworks within the company’s communication systems – whether that’s via the intranet, internal comms, or the corporate website – ensuring that line managers fully understand it. It’s also a good idea to train managers on how to refer to the framework during talent reviews and professional development conversations.

During times of organisational change, career progression frameworks can offer a solid foundation for increasingly effective outplacement services. Integrating frameworks into outplacement planning means that employees being offboarded will receive career support that is customised to future goals. Not only that, but those staff remaining will be assured that the company is committed to staff development and fairness, supporting people even after they’ve departed the company, which demonstrates a value-led culture and protects the company’s brand.

Career frameworks are fundamental when it comes to improving performance, retaining talent, and strengthening working relationships.

If it feels overwhelming, try it with one department, then collect any feedback, do any adjustments, and scale it up across the rest of the business.

If your organisation is considering outplacement services, contact us at the earliest opportunity to find out more.