Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

Know exactly what you

need to do to get started

Practical tips on how to

talk about levelling up
to your team and boss

How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

Overview of the
best tools on the
market to help

Cherry picked examples

of how leading
companies approach
career levelling
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

Introduction
Starting a company brings a long list of challenges with it. From coming up
with a great idea, to putting together a business plan, to getting funding - it’s
a lot to contend with! Once you’ve got lift off, finding the best team to make
your new venture fly is the next priority.

When you’re starting out, you gather the best people around you to help
you build the best product you can. For a while, this is likely to be the focus,
which usually means operating with a flat structure where everyone pitches
in on everything.

However, once you and the team have a great product to offer, thoughts
turn to scaling. As the company grows and processes become more
complex, some people will naturally take more senior roles. Often, the best
recruitment policy is to promote from within. This will require you to nurture
your employees and help them develop professionally, so that they can level
up their skills and take on more senior or expert roles.

Promoting from within and helping your employees grow can save you
money on recruiting expensive external candidates. It also has the potential
to keep your current team happy, which means they’ll be less likely to leave.
More recruitment savings!

There are several ways you can help your team expand their skill set and
level up their knowledge of their fields. We’ve gathered some information,
tips and examples to help you make the most of the talent you already have
in your company.
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

Did you know?

Over a third of
employees will leave
their jobs if they’re
not offered upskilling.
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

What you’ll learn

SECTION 1

When levelling up is not a priority

Advice for early stage start ups

How to recognise when it’s time to scale

How to approach rapid growth

SECTION 2

What does levelling up mean to you?

What career pathways are available

How to level up by company size

How to level up by team size

SECTION 3

Levelling up best practices

How to align hiring and internal promotion

Best practice tips

How to develop junior talent

How to turn senior staff members into leaders

How to motivate employees

Who needs to be involved and when

Includes an actionable checklist of steps to level up your team

SECTION 4

Putting a game plan together

How to level up your team according to your business needs

Which questions to ask your employees

The stages of building a personal development plan for your team

How other companies are doing this

The best tools on the market to help with your tasks

Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

SECTION 1

When levelling up is not a priority

When you’re starting out with a new company, a flat structure is the best
way to get everyone pulling together in the same direction. You all know
each other well and know how to best work together, so complicated
hierarchy structures aren’t needed.

At this stage, it’s usual for people to get involved in all sorts of projects
and elements of the business, and so job titles and seniority levels are
immaterial. The goal is to build a great product or service and, to do that,
empowering people to take ownership of the process is best.

The time to start introducing elements of hierarchy to the company usually

comes when there’s been a burst of growth, and the number of employees
increases to the point where the founders can’t effectively line manage each
member of staff. This is when you need to start introducing team lead roles,
to make the workload more manageable for everyone.

Founders and first employees are typically really bought into the core
vision and care more about that than their salary or job title. Once you add
more people, particularly a layer of management between the founders
and people executing, or you bring on a lot of junior staff members, that’s
when you have to become clearer about where people’s careers can go.
At this stage, people may start asking questions about their future in the
organisation and how they can advance to the next stage. If you don’t
offer opportunities for growth, you risk losing your best team members to
other companies.
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

Even if people aren’t directly asking for advancement opportunities, you

might notice the work stagnating and your team members losing focus and
direction. This is another sign it’s time to start building up team structures,
where some people have more responsibility for moving things forward.

Having the next level to aspire to will motivate people to put in their best
work so that they can prove themselves up to the challenge. This is where
recognising the top performers comes in, as well as offering development
opportunities and training to those who require it. It’s important to note
that not everyone will necessarily be after a promotion. Some people will
simply look to better their knowledge and expertise in their chosen field.
Recognising this, whether through additional training, project assignment or
recording successes, can give these employees a sense of accomplishment
at mastering their skills.

That said, the process of building a company from the ground up is in itself
a levelling up exercise. Even if you hire very knowledgeable and experienced
people, they’re still likely to learn a thing or two from helping you develop
your product or service idea. In the early stages, that is sufficient. When it’s
time to grow, you’ll hopefully have a grasp on which of your team is most
suited and ready for leadership roles, or to move up the seniority level.
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

SECTION 2

What does levelling up mean to you?

Levelling up can mean different things to different people, and look very
different from one organisation to another. Depending on the size of the
business and the individual ambitions of each team member, levelling up
can mean taking on a leadership role, gaining a diploma in their chosen
field, learning new skills or even moving to a different department within the
company.

Below is a breakdown of some of the most significant impactors.

Career path tracks

Often, the assumption is that in order to advance in your career, you must
become a manager. But that is not the case. Many people are not suited to
leadership roles, or are simply not interested in taking on the responsibility
of managing another person’s development.

For these people, developing their current skills and climbing up the career
ladder in terms of expertise as an Individual Contributor (IC) seems a much
more promising route.

How you approach levelling up a particular team member depends on his or

her personal goals. The best way to find this out is to ask. If the employee
isn’t sure themselves what they want to achieve, there are a few ways you
can help them find their way:
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

This may seem obvious, but having regular chats with them can help get
them talking about their ambitions. Sometimes, just discussing things out
loud with another person can help make sense of them in our own heads.

You can set them tasks, like making presentations, helping out with
interviewing candidates for roles within the company, or working in a
team with others on certain projects. All of these things can highlight their
strengths and weaknesses, as well as help them figure out what kind of
activities they enjoy.

If the budget is available, you can send them on external training courses.
Things like developing leadership skills, and the next level of expertise in
their chosen field can help open their eyes to the possibilities available and
guide them in the right direction.

A great way to inspire people is to match them with people within the
company that have already achieved what your team members aspire to.
Whether a senior leader in the organisation, or someone who is at the
top of their game as an individual contributor, being able to see what daily
life looks like in these roles can be really valuable for more junior members
of staff, and help them decide if what they think they want is really right
for them.
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

Company size
The obvious implication here is that, in a larger organisation, there will be
more roles available, including senior ones. This means managers will have
more options when it comes to levelling up their team members in terms of
seniority.

However, gaining more seniority is not the only way to level up. Extra
training, mentorship programmes, skills development and a move to a
different department can all be valid options too. Larger organisations still
have the advantage here, as they have bigger budgets and more people
available to share their skills with more junior members of staff. But smaller
companies can offer opportunities big corporations can’t.

In a small, early-stage start-up, employees usually wear lots of different

hats and take on projects across different aspects of the business. This can
often mean people move laterally as the company grows - from engineering
to product management, for example. Founding team members also get the
opportunity to create their own job roles as the team grows.

It’s very tempting to look at complex progression frameworks like Medium’s

Snowflake ↗ as a small team and look to set that up, when you only have
a handful of folks using it. Equally, you may be running a large team, but
craving simplicity, and so go for a linear framework (like Buzzfeed’s design
framework ↗), when you should be offering your team more optionality and
opportunities to grow in a variety of ways.

As a general rule, if you’re small enough to require every person on your

team to be good at a very specific set of skills (e.g Javacript, or UI design),
it makes most sense to set up a simple, linear career path plan for each
employee.
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

Team size
Much like the size of the company, the size of the team will also determine
the opportunities available to staff members.

It’s important to mention here that not everyone responds the same way to
feedback, people learn differently and manager-employee interactions are
not a ‘one size fits all’ kind of thing.

The best thing you can do as a manager is to get to know your team
members. The better you know them, and the more you build a relationship
based on open communication and trust, the easier it will be for you to tailor
your approach to the individual.

Of course, this is much easier to do with a smaller team than it is with a

large one. Take your time, talk to your employees and, most importantly,
remember that you are only human too. You cannot be expected to develop
an in-depth knowledge of every team member’s entire life story. That said,
recognising certain sensitivities early can save you from awkward or difficult
situations later on.

Whatever the size of your team, scheduling regular check-ins is a great way
to keep on top of things. These are not supposed to be a ‘tell me how you’re
meeting your KPIs’ meeting. Check ins are more about seeing how the team
member is doing on a more personal level. You can ask questions like:

What have they enjoyed about the work since you last spoke?

What has been less exciting?

Are they happy with their current workload?

Where do they see themselves advancing next?

Is there anything in particular they would like to learn?

Is there anyone in the company they would love to collaborate with?

Having these meetings regularly (at least once every quarter) will help
you recognise unease in your employees early and stop grievances from
developing into notice letters. It will also mean you can answer your
employees’ questions and grant them their wishes (within reason) to keep
them happy. Like a line manager, genie and fairy godmother all rolled into
one delightful package!

Another valuable resource for teams both large and small is collaboration.
Even boring projects can be made more fun by sharing the load and
brainstorming ideas on how to make everything work better. Ideas can come
from the most unexpected places and your team members will be levelling
up their skills by learning from their colleagues.

One thing to keep in mind is that office politics can sometimes be tricky little
beasts, so make sure your employees know to come to you with any issues,
but also that they’re able to iron out issues within themselves in a way
befitting a professional setting.
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

SECTION 3

Levelling up best practices

Aligning hiring and internal promotion
Employees are increasingly looking – and leaving – for career progression.
Finding, recruiting and onboarding good team members is expensive
and time consuming, so you’d be wise to keep your employees’ career
progression top of mind.

Aligning hiring and internal career growth makes sense for employers who
want to help their team members level up and stay within the company.

Why is this important?

You satisfy employees’ future aspirations

You are better equipped to help employees progress

You can improve organisational structure

You are in a better position to attract top talent

You increase job satisfaction and retention

You increase engagement

You become a reputable employer

Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

Best practice tips

As a manager, an important part of your role is to help your team grow and
develop in their career. But this isn’t always easy to do. Every person has
different goals and needs and you end up having to juggle a lot of priorities
at the same time.

There are things you can do to make the load a little easier to carry. Here are
some best practice tips:

Be honest and transparent

Having a solid foundation of honesty and transparency is essential to
building levelling-up plans. Being straightforward with team members builds
trust, even if that sometimes involves sharing uncomfortable truths. You
can then build on that trust and come up with ideas to aid growth together.
Instead of hinting at a promotion that doesn’t exist, you could help your team
member gain experience in other ways, even if that means a lateral career
move to another department.

Foster a collaborative environment

One of the most important aspects of helping your employees level up is
maintaining contact with the team members concerned. You want the plan
to be a result of a back-and-forth discussion between management and
employee, so that everyone’s plan can be tailored to their own ambitions and
strengths.

Provide resources and support:

Planning out a team member’s development on paper is useless unless
you offer opportunities and resources along the way. Some examples of
effective tools you can provide are:

Pairing team members with mentors

Offering training courses

Getting team members involved in certain projects

Help identifying skills gap

Providing a budget for seminars, conferences or courses

Remember, different people will require different resources. Any resources

provided should be suitable for each person’s role and goals, helping them
bring their career growth plans to fruition.

Measure growth as you go

Levelling up your team members is a process, and this takes time. It’s
important to record your employee’s progress so that you can monitor when
it’s time for them to hit the next level of their career progression journey. You
should also encourage your employees to keep note of their achievements
and their skills as they progress. They can use this information when
presenting their case for a promotion or raise.

Stay engaged
Helping your team members to level up their skills and their career
progression can’t be achieved in a single meeting. You can prove to your
team members you are continually engaged in their career growth plan
by pointing out opportunities throughout the year, congratulating team
members when they accomplish a task, and correcting them if they make a
mistake. Not only will this maintain growth momentum, but it’ll contribute to
a healthy employee-management relationship.
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

Developing junior talent

Everyone has to start somewhere, and we were all junior members of staff
once. The key here is to set high expectations and challenge your junior
employees, but at the same time, nurture them and help them learn and
grow.

You might think that giving junior team members easy, low-pressure tasks
is the best tactic, but ultimately they’re likely to get bored and frustrated if
they have no real work to do.

Tell them that the work will likely be challenging, but that you believe they
can do it. If you don’t actually believe that, then you’re hiring the wrong
people.

Alongside that, offer them support - whether that’s extra training in areas
they are less confident in, levelling up their existing skills, or mentornships
from more experienced members of the team. With the right guidance and
support, your juniors will soon become seniors, to the benefit of everyone
involved.

Turning senior staff members into leaders

A capable, accomplished team leader is unlikely to just show up at your
company’s door. Trying to find one of these gems during a hiring process
can be time-consuming and frustrating. A better way can be to help your
existing team grow into leadership roles within the company. Levelling up
employees who you see as ideal candidates for a leadership role is a great
way of fully assessing their ability - you already know how they interact with
their team, their ethos and their strengths.

Of course, transitioning an employee into a leadership role has its obstacles.

After all, there is a difference between an employee being good at their
current job, and an employee having leadership potential. But there are a
few ways you can assess their compatibility:
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

Determine if the employee is a good fit for leadership. Ideally, the

employee you are working with should not only fit the responsibilities of the
position, but their approach should align with your company’s core values
and ethos. They should also have a clear understanding of the company’s
expectations for the leadership role.

Start small and slowly make changes. Once your employee has blossomed
into a successful leader, they should be capable of influencing positive
change. However, whilst you are helping them to transition into a leadership
role, it may be wise to keep prior systems in place until they become more
experienced. Regular feedback and close mentornships are great tools here.
Starting small also means that senior level employees can learn and try new
things without the risk of damaging company performance or making any
permanent changes.

Allow room for creativity and growth. You don’t want your employee to feel
boxed in too quickly, or feel as if they’re already committed to something
they haven’t decided is the right fit. When the transitioning employees have
gotten to know their new positions and have had time to get comfortable,
they should be left to exercise their own creativity within the standard
responsibilities. Seeing real changes getting made, thanks to their own
input, can be a huge boost to a transitioning employee’s confidence.
Provide guidance. Providing meaningful guidance doesn’t just mean
the occasional pat on the back or one-off email. You may want to look
into providing on-the-job training, personalised coaching sessions and
networking opportunities. This doesn’t mean solving all their challenges
for them, but nudging them in the right direction, while letting them figure
things out for themselves. Also, it’ll be useful to check in on the team
members the new leader is supervising. The employees they are responsible
for will be a great source of information on how your employee interacts with
their team.

Build leaders. When transitioning an employee into a leadership role, you

are doing a lot more than merely filling a job vacancy. You are changing the
way they interact with their team and how they view themselves as a figure
of authority. For example, you can help develop transitioning employees as
people by focusing on things such as self-awareness, ownership mentality,
how to motivate and support team members, and showing empathy.

Foster community and partnerships. Encouraging a positive culture

of inclusion and a sense of community will help everyone involved (like
the transitioning employees, their peers, and existing leadership) get
accustomed to the transition. Building partnerships with people already
in leadership roles will also help to deepen a transitioning employee’s
understanding of your organisation. Developing relationships with other
team leaders means your transitioning employee will understand the
company’s mission, important goals, and how their role impacts the success
of the organisation.
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

Motivating employees
Helping your employees reach the next level in their career is great, but it
doesn’t replace looking after them in the here and now. What you don’t want
is for everyone to get so focused on future goals, that both you and your
team get overwhelmed with pressure.

It’s not always easy to keep team members motivated and engaged. Of
course, as grown adults, it is up to your employees to make sure they turn
up to work, both physically and mentally, and do their best to succeed.

That said, there are things you can do as a manager, and that the company
can offer in general, that are likely to help keep your employees happy in
their role. Happy employees are more productive, which benefits everyone in
the workplace.

Flexibility
Offering flexibility, both in terms of working hours and location has become
increasingly important in recent years. Since the start of the Coronavirus
pandemic in 2020, this has become even more crucial if you want to attract
the most talented people to your company.
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

Did you know?

80% of U.S. workers

would turn down a
job that didn’t offer
flexible hours.
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

Wellbeing
This is another aspect that’s been gaining more attention in recent years,
and especially since the start of Covid. Burning the midnight oil is not
something most employees are willing to do anymore, with money and big
job titles no longer providing the incentive they used to. Most people now
place their physical and mental health, as well as time with their loved ones,
at the top of their priority list. Offering flexible working is a great way to
address some of these concerns. You will also do well to remember that
your team members’ health - physical and otherwise - should also be at the
top of your priority list. Working your employees into ill health will benefit no
one in the long run.

Transparency
Honesty is an important part of any relationship, and professional
relationships are no different. Whether that’s open and honest feedback
about an employee’s work, or transparency when it comes to the type
of opportunities you can offer them. Making false promises is the worst
thing you can do in terms of building trust with your employees. Of course,
honesty goes both ways. Knowing how to accept feedback from your team
is just as important as knowing how to dish it out. If your employees know
they can come to you with issues, they are more likely to feel safe in their
working environment.

Learning
Even the most experienced and expert amongst us don’t know everything.
Offering your employees opportunities to learn and level up their skills
is crucial to keeping them feeling fulfilled in their role. This doesn’t
necessarily mean expensive external courses - offering internal skill share
and mentorship, as well as recommending useful resources, can be just as
effective.
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

Did you know?

59% millennial
respondants said
opportunities to
learn and grow are
important when
applying for a job.
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

Who needs to be involved and when

The obvious answer is you, as a manager, and your team. The important
thing here is communication.

Beyond the initial chat, where you develop and set up a plan of action, you
should be checking in often. The conversations should be used to see where
your employees are and whether where they want to go is still the same as it
was the last time you spoke.

Talking about new opportunities, whether a new role, a new training course
or a mentorship programme, should also be included in these regular catch
ups.

If you are not the main decision maker in the company, you will also need
to involve the senior leadership in conversations around hiring and growth
plans. Budgets for any training and development courses will also need to
be agreed. Make sure you are realistic when discussing opportunities for
levelling up with your team. Promising something you can’t deliver is almost
guaranteed to lose you your employees’ trust.

If you have an HR department, they might be the best people to go to with

these questions. They will also be able to help with arranging mentornships,
as they’ll have a good overview of everyone’s exact job role.
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

Levelling up prep checklist

Schedule talks with all employees

Questions to ask in the initial meeting:

What do you enjoy most about your role?

What aspects of the job are less interesting to you?

Are there any specific areas you would like to improve or train in?

Is this job what you expected it to be when you started? If not, how so?

Is there anyone in the company you would be interested in learning from?

Are there any different parts of the organisation you would like to know

more about?

What projects would you like to work on or be more involved in?

What has been your professional and personal highlight this month?

What do you most enjoy doing outside of work?

What would you like to have learned or mastered by this time next year?

Do you have any suggestions for how I can best support your career

progression?

Schedule a meeting with senior leadership

Questions to ask senior leadership:

What roles will be opening up in the business?

What are the hiring plans for this?

What progression do you need to see from team members?

How do we balance this against other priorities?

What resources are available?

What would success look like?

Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

Schedule a meeting with HR

Questions to ask HR:

How are we doing this right now?

Is it done in the same way across the whole business?

When it was last done, what worked well?

What could have been done better?

What resources are available for this?

What would they like to see from this process?

What would success look like for them?

Look up learning opportunities for the team. You can find some tools to help
with this here.

Schedule regular 1-2-1s with employees (we recommend meeting at least

once every quarter).
Questions to ask in the check-in:

What have they enjoyed about the work since you last spoke?

What has been less exciting?

Are they happy with their current workload?

Where do they see themselves advancing next?

Is there anything in particular they would like to learn?

Is there anyone in the company they would love to collaborate with?

Employee survey.
If you have the capacity and want to get company-wide feedback on how
you’re currently handling employee growth, there are tools that can make
this a pain-free process. You can find a few suggestions here.

Look up more best practice tips for managers.

You can find guides and information about helping your team climb the
career ladder in our blog and library.
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

SECTION 4

Putting a game plan together

As a manager, building a personal development plan with your employees
is a great idea. A personal development plan, or PDP, is a document or file
laying out a person’s career goals. It defines where they would like to get
to in their career and lists all the skills and experience they will need to get
there.

Look at your business first

Supporting your employees is great, but ultimately it all needs to benefit
the business. If you run a fintech startup, helping your Product Lead train
as a psychologist, because that’s what he really dreams of doing, makes no
business or financial sense.

So, in order to have a better understanding of what it is your company needs

from its team members, take a look at your own levelling up needs first.
Where is your business currently and where is it heading? What skills do you
need within the company for it to thrive and grow?

Do a gap analysis of these two points, and tailor your hiring plans to the
findings. This will include internal mobility and the kind of up-skilling and
training you should be offering your existing employees.

Once you know the requirements of your business, you can talk to your team
members and see whether these align with their goals and ambitions.

Before you start those conversation, taking these actions can help focus the
process:

Looking at Job Descriptions for people in their current role

Looking at team wide success criteria and identifying skills that would help
you get there

For new roles, look at key skills needed for them to be impactful

Think clearly about the different expectations of skill accomplishment at

different levels
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

Start by asking the right questions

As you prepare to discuss a team member’s personal development plan,
have some questions ready that would be useful for you in offering support.
These can be different things, like:

What do you enjoy most about your role?

What aspects of the job are less interesting to you?

Are there any specific areas you would like to improve or train in?

Is this job what you expected it to be when you started? If not, how so?

Is there anyone in the company you would be interested in learning from?

Are there any different parts of the organisation you would like to know
more about?

What projects would you like to work on or be more involved in?

What has been your professional and personal highlight this month?

What do you most enjoy doing outside of work?

What would you like to have learned or mastered by this time next year?

Do you have any suggestions for how I can best support your career
progression?
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

The stages of building a PDP

A good professional development plan can’t be created in a hurry. Take the
time to complete the different stages with your team:

Self reflection. Every journey needs a starting point. By assessing where

your employee currently is in their career, you can help them plan the next
step. Make a list of their current duties and responsibilities, and the skills
these require to excel. They will need to do some inward-gazing and be
honest about what skills they are confident they already have a good grasp
on, and which they need help mastering. Additionally, they should list the
things they’re passionate about, what they most enjoy about their current
role, what they least enjoy and what transferable skills they have (this is
especially important if they want to move to a different department or role).

Goal setting. Now that you know where your team member is, it’s time to
talk about where they want to go. Everyone dreads the -’where do you see
yourself in 5 years?’ question at job interviews, but this is the time to think
about it and answer it honestly. It’s important to remember that climbing
the career ladder doesn’t necessarily mean taking on a managerial position.
Growing as an expert in a certain field can be just as fulfilling. Make sure to
present all possible career paths to your team.

Strategising. When you have a start and end point, you can see what
you and your team members need to do to get from A to B. Do they need
specific training? If they want to become a manager, you could maybe send
them on a course to develop leadership skills. Remember that it’s not just
external training that can help here - networking events, mentorship from
within the organisation and time spent working with people from other
departments can all be valuable resources.

Resource list. When you’ve set out the exact steps your employee needs to
take to advance, you’ll need to have a think on your own and decide how you
can best support them. What courses do you have access to? Can you get
a discount by sending several members of your team on the same course?
What budget are you working with? You may need to seek advice from
upper management or other parts of the organisation for this. You can also
set them questions regarding supporting your team members from within
your organisation with mentorship and secondments.

Final timeline. We love it when a plan comes together! When you’ve

collected all the information above, you can put it all together and create a
personal development plan for your team members, including details of their
current role, their future goals and the training and support needed to get
from one of the other. Assigning deadlines for achieving certain goals can
also be helpful, as it will provide some focus and an actionable course of
action.

Naturally, this plan needn’t be set in stone. Plans and circumstances change,
so it’s perfectly possible for your employees’ life plans to change as well. A
professional development plan is a dynamic thing that can grow with the
person it’s attributed to.
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

How do other companies do this?

Progression.fyi ↗
If you want to see how other companies are structuring the progression
frameworks for their employees, this is the place to look. There are dozens
of examples available, including from household names like Monzo and
Spotify. If you find a framework you particularly like, you can repurpose it to
your own needs by inputting the levelling up plans for your own team into
the template.

Levels.fyi ↗
This focuses more on salaries by location, company and job title. You can
see what kind of remuneration you can expect in different roles and different
levels of seniority, and see which companies pay the best. There’s also
the option of applying for paid internships, but this seems to be for North
America based companies only.
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

What are the best tools to help with this?

Most professionals would immediately think of spreadsheets when it comes
to creating complex plans, like what is required here. And that could be an
answer for very small companies or teams.

However, larger organisations might end up swimming in an excel ocean,

with no land in sight. Fortunately, there are several tools on the market that
can make helping your team level up easier and more manageable.

Skills assessment tools

The SFIA Foundation (Skills Framework for the Information Age) has a lot
of resources available, including their collection of standard SFIA skill
profiles ↗ and self-assessment guidelines. ↗

General career strength and aptitude tools

123 Career Test ↗ This is a short (5-10 minutes) assessment of your
career personality, that can help determine the direction you (or your team
members) should take. It works by getting you to choose your preferences
out of images showing specific work activities.

Princeton Review Career Quiz ↗ Very similar to the 123 test, this quiz also
requires you to choose your preferences. However, this one uses sentences
like ‘I would rather be a newspaper editor’ vs ‘I would rather be a tax lawyer’,
and later asks personality related questions, like whether you agree with
arguing a point when right and whether you like to bargain on a price. Note
you’ll have to create an account to be emailed your results.

MAPP career test ↗ The Motivational Appraisal Personal Potential helps you
to figure out your career motivations, then matches you to both industries
and specific careers from a database of over 1,000 roles. It’s been taken by
over 8 million people since 1995, is offered in six different languages, and
has undergone reliability testing by psychologists.

CliftonStrengths ↗ (formally StrengthsFinder). If you’re looking for a more

heavy-duty tool and have the budget to play with, you might want to splash
out on this tool. Starting at $49.99, it uncovers your unique rank order of 34
CliftonStrengths themes, which explain the ways you most naturally think,
feel and behave. Aimed at both team members and leaders, it can lead to
enhanced engagements and increased productivity at work.
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

Organisation mapping tools

Lucidchart ↗ An easy to use diagramming application that teams can work
on together.

TLDRaw ↗ This is a very cute tool, but you’ll need actual drawing skills.
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

PowerPoint An oldy but trusty tool from Microsoft for all your flowchart and
presentation needs.

Progression ↗ The Progression app focuses more on team level views of

your organisation, and shows each team member what they need to do to
level up.
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

Employee engagement survey tools

Tinypulse ↗ This tool helps you set up employee surveys, then presents the
results in an easy-to-digest format. If you like your analytics super detailed
and presented in a very visual way, then this one’s for you.

Officevibe ↗ An engagement and performance management tool, that

allows you to understand what your employees need. This is built more for
individual managers than HR teams and is very cute looking and fun for
employees to use.

Cultureamp ↗ This is based more around general company culture, rather

than specific work tasks. The survey results aim to help you to create a
culture built around increasing employee happiness and engagement.

Learning management tools

If you want to track your employee’s learning progress, these tools can offer
this option:

LearnAmp ↗ New on the market, this LMS start-up lets you onboard new
employees, upskill your team members and share knowledge within the
team. They’re used by big-name companies like Metro Bank and SpecSavers
and consistently get 4+ stars (out of 5) reviews on consumer comparison
sites like GetApp and Capterra.

Tovuti LMS ↗ There is a long list of features on offer here, including

eLearning, administration tools, branding capabilities, event management
and content creation (plus more). You can also conduct group lessons in
a virtual classroom. The tool has a 4.6 stars rating on G2, and 4.8 stars
on Gartner.

360Learning ↗ This tool focuses on collaborative learning. Features

include course templates, video recording and answer correction You can
create a course in just 17 minutes, and have multiple editors working on it.
The dashboard lets you keep track of employees’ progress. Gartner gave
360Learning 4.7 stars out of 5.

TalentLMS ↗ This tool allows you to personalise your experience by

matching your branding, and even localise your users’ language. There’s
training available in various categories, including onboarding, sales,
compliance and customer service. The reviews here are strong as well, with
4.4 stars on Gartner, and 4.6 on G2.
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

HR tools
Charlie HR ↗ This tool has evolved a lot since its launch, and includes
functionality for logging days off, controlling access to other apps and tools,
benefit management, performance reviews and engagement surveys.

HiBob ↗ A similar, but newer tool that lets you automate your paperwork,
track working hours, manage performance and build an inclusive and
engaging culture.

Workday ↗ This is an Enterprise Management Cloud lets you integrate your

finance, HR and planning functionality into one place.

Progression ↗ Aimed at both HR teams and individual managers, it

contains an extensive skills library to help you put together individual job
specs for each role and show your team what they need to achieve to
excel in their job.

OKR setting and tracking tools

Koan ↗ This tool lets you and your team set goals collaboratively. It
encourages regular reflection on success and areas for improvement.

Clickup ↗ Presented as a productivity and project management tool, this

features tasks, chats and docs, as well as goal setting functionality.

Profit.co ↗ A tool offering OKRs tracking, as well as employee engagement

and performance and task management.

15Five ↗ Positioned as an HR tool, but useful for non-HR managers as well.

This tool allows you to track OKRs, as well as manage training and coaching.
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

Employee recognition tools

Slack ↗ Many teams are already using this to recognise achievements, with
things like weekly high-5s and shout-outs. Slack is a great communication
tool, but things tend to get buried in the ether almost immediately. That
makes it difficult to use these accomplishments as evidence in 1-2-1s and
check-ins.

HeyTaco ↗ This takes the Hi-5 practice away from Slack and into its own
space. Employees can send recognition to their team in the form of digital
tacos, and add special gifts like sauces for people who’ve really gone the
extra mile. These don’t translate into edible regards, but team members can
trade their tacos for things like an extra day off or a team party.

Kudos ↗ An employee engagement, culture, and analytics platform. It allows

both management and peer recognition, which can be turned into points and
rewards. Additionally, it provides analytics on culture, performance, equity,
and inclusion, and lets you monitor how closely your employees align with
your company’s core values.

Bonusly ↗ This works by providing team members with a monthly allowance

to give small bonuses to their colleagues in recognition of their help, a job
well done or a special event (like a birthday). It’s integrated with a long list of
other apps, and employees can choose rewards from some of the most well-
known brands around, or cash out with PayPal.

Nectar ↗ This allows both managers and peers to send special mentions
to others within the company. You can send recognitions through Slack
and Teams, as well as internally in the app. Recognised employees can
choose rewards from companies like Amazon and gift cards, and you
can also highlight special milestones, like employees’ birthdays and work
anniversaries.

Guusto ↗ Possibly the most comprehensive tool out of these examples,

Gusto includes a recognition and rewards programme, as well as an
onboarding programme, a wellness programme, goal setting and quarterly
and annually awards. It also has the added bonus of providing one day of
clean drinking water to a community who needs it for every gift sent through
the app.

Progression ↗ This works differently to the examples above, as it doesn’t

offer peer-to-peer recognition or rewards in the shape of Starbucks drinks
or gift cards. Progression allows managers to record Wins for their team
members, which they can choose to recognise in any way they choose. It
also gathers all of these achievements to make it easier for both manager
and employee to use in 1-2-1s and performance reviews. The reward
here can be a promotion or raise, which is really the ultimate goal of most
employees.
Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

Managing a team brings with it a lot of pressure - there are people who
are literally relying on you to help them better themselves and their life.
However, if you take on the advice you’ve read in this guide, and adapt it
to suit your own personal style and your team’s individual needs, there is
nothing stopping you or your team from achieving all your goals.

Remember that however you choose to level up your team - through

training, mentorship, promotion or lateral move within the organisation -
these things take time. Stay engaged and keep channels of communication
open throughout the year - both your team and your bottom line will thank
you for it.

Here are a few more guides to help you be the best manager you can be:

How to be a good manager and leader: The ultimate guide ↗

A manager’s guide to personal development planning ↗

Creating a career growth plan: 6 best practices for managers ↗

6 tips for creating a more human workplace where employees thrive ↗

Leadership development: transitioning senior-level employees into

leadership roles ↗

Aligning hiring and internal career growth - why it’s essential ↗

Progression How to level up your team: The Ultimate guide

progressionapp.com ↗