[Template] Career framework for 50-500 employees

We looked at hundreds of SaaS companies and came up with a career framework template very well suited to SaaS companies with around 51-500 employees. Of course, there is no such thing as a career framework that fits every company. Beyond company size and type also industry is a crucial factor that needs to be considered.

However, this template is a great starting point for your company if you’re a 51-500 employee SaaS company.

What is this framework for?

This career progression framework (also called career path framework or career pathing framework) is a roadmap that defines how an employee can grow and achieve specific professional milestones within your organization.

You can use it for any of the following purposes:

• Increasing employee engagement
• Succession planning
• Hiring and retaining top talent
• Improving transparency about promotions

The typical Org Chart this framework is for

This career framework works ideal for a company of 51-500 employees within SaaS, that has the following department and org chart. Under each department, you can see the most common job families.

Career paths per department

For each department, there will be multiple career paths, depending on whether you’re an Individual Contributor (IC) or a People Manager (PM). So that not everyone has to reinvent the wheel these career paths follow a set of rules, which we call a “leveling framework”.

The Levelling framework

In the 51-500 employee SaaS framework, every department has two leveling frameworks: The Individual Contributor (IC) track and the People Manager (PM) framework.

The IC framework has three levels and the PM framework has two levels. People will advance in these frameworks level by level.

Let’s have a look at an example. Here you can see, the Sales team has two Individual Contributor (IC) frameworks, “Sales Development” and “Account Executives”, and one People Manager (PM) framework, “Sales Team Manager”.

Let’s look at one of the ICs and the PM track.

Sales Development IC track: You can see the three levels specialist, senior specialist, and manager.

Sales Team Manager track: You can see the two levels Head of and VP:

Note, within a department, People Managers (PMs) can manage multiple Individual contributor tacks (ICs).

In the example below, the Head of Product manages Individual contributors from the Design and Product teams within the Product Department. (This is also the case for the career framework for 51-500 employees)

Competencies

Every role in this career framework has between 5-9 core competencies that evolve with the level of the role. Limiting the competencies to the most relevant ones makes the framework easier to follow for employees and easier to asses for managers.

Below you see an example of the Sales Development role.

Competency category

The five competency categories

Looking at all competencies in a company we found that they all fall into one or more of five competency categories. You don’t necessarily need competency categories, but assigning competencies a competency category makes it easier for you later to compare different roles 💡

Here are Zavvy’s five competency categories:

🤝 Working together: This competency category refers to the set of skills and behaviors that enable individuals to effectively interact and collaborate with others in the workplace, including communication, teamwork, networking, and support. This competency is critical for achieving organizational goals, building strong relationships, and promoting a positive work culture.

📈 Driving results: This competency category encompasses competencies such as being result-oriented, organized, possessing time management skills, and taking ownership of projects or tasks, with the ultimate goal of achieving measurable and impactful outcomes. This competency is essential for individuals and teams to effectively execute plans and strategies, overcome obstacles and challenges, and deliver high-quality outcomes that align with the organization's goals and objectives.

🌱 Adapting and growing: This competency category encompasses skills and traits such as continuous learning, adaptation, innovation, and resilience, which enable individuals to effectively respond to changing circumstances, learn from experiences, and continuously improve their skills and abilities. This competency is crucial in today's rapidly changing business environment, where individuals and organizations must be able to adapt and evolve to remain competitive and succeed in the long term.

👩‍🏫 Leading and inspiring: This competency category refers to the ability to manage teams effectively or use strategic vision and purpose to inspire and guide others in achieving organizational goals. It encompasses skills such as effective communication, strategic thinking, visioning, mentoring, and creating a positive work culture that fosters creativity and innovation.

⚙️ Functional competencies: This competency category refers to the knowledge, skills, and abilities required to perform specific tasks or functions within a particular field or industry. This competency encompasses technical skills, specialized knowledge, and expertise. The competencies are essential to the role and to effectively and efficiently contribute to the overall success of an organization.

On Zavvy you'll find competencies and the categories on the left side:

The role levels

Within the Individual Contributor (IC) and People Manager (PM) tracks you’ll again find a leveling. For example, for the IC in the role Sales Development, there is a Sales Development Specialist, then the Senior Sales Development Specialist, and finally the Sales Development Manager. They all share mostly the same competencies, but depending on the level, you’ll have different expectations.

And how it looks like on Zavvy:

Customization of the framework

You can entirely customize any career path, role, or competency to your needs. For example:

• You only need to use the roles and departments you actually have. Also you can start with just a subset of roles and launch your career framework step by step.
• You can increase or decrease the number of levels per track.

💡 However, we recommend including possible future levels open for your tracks. Because if your company strategy is to grow and if you know that there will be new levels opening up in the next year, you can include these levels in your framework as well. You do not have to define the competencies for those levels. You can state that they will be available in the near future. However, to encourage growth, we recommend you write possible requirements and expectations for these future levels, so people know what’s expected of them.
If you are not sure how to define the competencies across levels, try Zavvy AI.

You can change competencies and their categorization.

Implement it

➡️ Step-by-Step Guide

Connect with feedback for a competency-based performance rev➡️iew

Competency-based Performance Reviews

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