A specialist career should not require an invented team

## Notice the organisation the framework encourages

A promotion framework does more than describe the organisation. It encourages people to create the kind of organisation that the framework rewards. If progression above a certain level requires direct reports, managers who want to recognise a strong specialist will look for someone to put beneath that person. The new reporting line may then be explained as an operating improvement, even though the original problem was recognition. I learned to examine this effect after helping introduce a framework that made supervisory responsibility a prominent sign of seniority. Its consistency looked reassuring until colleagues began adapting their teams to satisfy it.

In the fictional Lorqavi review, 24 roles were submitted for progression. Several contributors wanted to deepen their specialist work, not become managers. Their managers nevertheless proposed small teams because our grade descriptions made that the available route. A specialist asked a direct question: why should excellent insurance work need an additional supervisory duty before it could be recognised? The question did not establish that every request should be approved. It exposed an assumption we had treated as neutral. We were using one form of responsibility as a proxy for several different forms of contribution.

People management is substantial work. It involves decisions about priorities, development, performance and the conditions in which others operate. A specialist route should not diminish those responsibilities or imply that technical colleagues have the more serious career. The problem is the forced exchange: a person who contributes through depth is asked to adopt a different occupation to progress. Some people will want that change and be good at it. Others will not. A framework should help the organisation make that distinction rather than treat management as the inevitable reward for competence in another field.

Insurance makes the distinction especially relevant because authority can depend on the nature of the decision, professional competence and internal delegation. A higher employment grade does not itself confer permission to make every underwriting or claims decision. HR can help define a role and its reward, but authorised technical leaders must retain the responsibilities assigned to them. I wanted the specialist route to make contribution visible without suggesting that a new title transferred professional authority. That boundary belonged in the design from the beginning, not in a later explanation after someone interpreted the appointment too broadly.

## Define a contribution before creating a parallel route

The easy response would have been to create a prestigious specialist title and map the waiting colleagues into it. That would have solved a short-term recognition problem while leaving the standard unclear. Finance reasonably asked whether we were opening a second route to higher pay without a way to distinguish readiness. Managers also wanted to know how the route would compare with supervisory responsibility. Those objections deserved an answer. A parallel career can be credible only if people understand the contribution expected and if the organisation is prepared to withhold progression where the evidence is insufficient.

We worked with technical leaders on the complexity of judgement, depth of expertise and contribution to the work of others expected in each role. Helping colleagues did not have to mean supervising them. A specialist might improve the quality of difficult decisions, explain a recurring problem or develop capability across teams while remaining accountable for specific work. The description needed examples that could be examined, rather than adjectives such as senior or strategic. It also needed to fit the actual business. Copying an elaborate framework from a much larger employer could create more levels than our work could support.

We considered each of the 24 roles rather than treating the request list as a group entitled to the same outcome. Fourteen became specialist appointments, six followed genuine management routes and four remained in development. Those four were important to the integrity of the exercise. If a new route always produces approval, colleagues will quickly understand it as an alternative pay mechanism rather than a demanding career. Development also needed an explanation: what contribution was missing, what experience could help and when another discussion would be appropriate. A refusal without a useful account would simply reproduce the frustration under a different title.

Comparison between routes required care. Identical salary at every nominal level was not the only possible definition of fairness, but unexplained differences could damage trust. We examined responsibility, market conditions and internal relationships while protecting personal assessment material. Managers needed enough explanation to discuss the framework without disclosing another colleague's private record. The organisation also had to resist using the specialist route to avoid the harder work of developing capable managers. Both forms of contribution remained necessary. The purpose was a more truthful structure, with neither route presented as the superior destination for every ambitious employee.

## Pay for the choice and retain the unfinished cases

The review required ₹16 lakh in role-design and assessment work, and the resulting appointments carried ₹68 lakh in annualised pay movement. I wanted those figures stated plainly. The change was not a costless correction achieved by renaming jobs. It was a recurring commitment to recognise specified contribution, accompanied by work to define and assess it. We did not claim an immediate productivity saving to make the decision easier to approve. Any later evidence about retention, quality or capability would need its own account, including the other factors affecting those outcomes. The first result was a more suitable employment structure for the reviewed roles.

Nor did the appointment establish permanent readiness. Expectations continue after progression, and technical permissions remain subject to their own arrangements. A person may grow into a broader specialist role, decide to pursue management later or discover that another kind of work suits them better. The framework should support those conversations without making every move a test of loyalty to one career identity. I would also review whether managers begin using the new route in an unintended way. Every framework creates incentives. Recognising the distortion in the previous version should make us more curious about the next version, not more certain that it cannot create problems.

For a board, the relevant question is not which individual receives which grade. Directors can ask what the organisation's progression rules encourage, whether critical expertise has a credible career and whether the reward account reflects the commitments being created. They can also ask how management knows the framework is working beyond a favourable employee reaction immediately after a pay decision. Evidence might include the quality of role definitions, the treatment of unsuccessful cases and the behaviour managers adopt when proposing future changes. A board should expect management to notice when a process designed for fairness begins producing an unnecessary hierarchy.

The experience changed how I discuss consistency. Applying the same rule everywhere can be valuable, but only after examining whether the rule measures a relevant difference. Our previous framework was consistently asking some specialists to become managers. The revised approach allowed fourteen people to progress through the work they actually contributed, preserved management routes for six and left four cases in development. That is a more qualified outcome than a universal career solution. It is also a more useful one. We recognised expertise without pretending that every request was ready or that an employment title could replace the professional authority required by the work.