Why we don’t believe in traditional career development discussions

Senior consultant – would you rather spar with a colleague about developing your own skills, or have your manager tell you where you stand?

Companies have different ways of handling career development discussions. At Identio, we’ve wanted to keep a flat hierarchy and build a model that scales as well as possible without managers and their active role in running it.

If the idea of sparring with colleagues sounds appealing, I’d recommend reading on.

Traditional reviews vs. the Identio model

The more traditional performance review model works top-down. You know how it goes: someone evaluates you, sets your goals, and decides whether you’ve developed enough. After the discussion, you wait a year for the next one, wondering whether your manager sees your growth the same way you do — and whether it might be enough for a raise.

There’s one fundamental problem with this traditional model: it assumes that whoever sits higher in the hierarchy knows best what you need in order to develop. In an expert organization, that’s rarely the case. Yet many companies lean on this model without ever considering alternative ways to organize these discussions.

We’ve approached the matter from a different angle. Our starting point is that your colleagues — the ones who do similar work, understand the field’s challenges, and see your daily reality up close — are often far better sparring partners than anyone above you. That’s why we hold career development discussions with colleagues, in Identio’s internal teams, which we call pods. Pods meet weekly, which means their members know each other well. As a result, they can offer strong, well-grounded perspectives on the learning goals tied to career development.

You might now be wondering how the model accounts for the company’s strategic direction and competence management, so that the skills actually needed are developed in a planned way. The company strategy guides the pods and every Identio employee toward developing certain necessary areas. Here, open communication takes on a central role.

If you’d like to read more about our pods, you can take a look at this separate blog post on the topic. I’d recommend finishing this article first, though.

What “among peers” means in practice

Each pod organizes a monthly career development discussion independently, on its own schedule. Pods go through three phases in six-month cycles: first they look to the future and set goals, then they track how those are progressing, and finally they pause to reflect on what they’ve learned. After that, the cycle starts over. Goals can stay the same or change. The point is not for the length of the cycle to dictate the pace of learning.

Each pod has its own facilitator. This isn’t an outside expert but one of the pod’s own members, who keeps the cycle and the discussions moving and ensures that everyone is heard. The role rotates, so responsibility is shared evenly among all pod members.

In practice, the facilitator isn’t responsible for anyone’s career development. Instead, the facilitator is responsible for sending calendar invites, reminding others about upcoming meetings and tasks, and leading the discussion so that every pod member is heard in the monthly conversations.

When the whole pod knows what each person is aiming for, helping becomes more concrete. The right mentor or a new learning direction is often found close by. That way no one has to think through their career and next development steps alone — support from others is readily available.

Personal 1:1 discussions support career development

In addition to the conversations we have within our own pods, we encourage people to talk with one another as well — with leadership and with other colleagues alike.

Our CEO, who works in sales, and our COO, who also wears the hat of a software consultant, together have a particularly strong view of both the commercial and the technical environment. They actively hold one-on-one discussions to help our employees keep up with the changing market situation, technological developments, and the possible career paths these changes open up.

We encourage all our employees to spar with each other when needed — for instance, if topics come up in pod discussions that would be worth digging into more deeply together with a colleague. This way we make sure no one is left wandering alone in a forest where the right path is hard to find. When needed, the Engineering Taskforce also supports learning and career paths.

Collecting feedback is part of the career development cycle

Every Identio employee has their own feedback form, which they send themselves to the relevant people: clients, colleagues, and coworkers within the company. We encourage everyone to gather feedback toward the end of each cycle, but each person owns their own feedback form and can also use it at other times — for example, when a client project wraps up. The primary purpose of the feedback is to offer insight into possible areas for development, as well as validation of strengths and existing skills.

Our career development model is never ready

We’ve developed this process over the years, and it has changed many times.

One thing, however, has stayed the same from the start: we believe that development happens best together. Development is always guided by the company strategy, but the practical work is done in the pods, among teammates. In an expert organization, the best expertise lies with the people themselves. On top of that, they also have the best understanding of which direction each of them wants to grow.

The question of how raises are handled always comes up alongside career development discussions, too. In our model, salary discussions are separated into their own process. We review salaries at the end of each six-month career development cycle.

You can read about raises and the related practices in this separate blog post.

Interested in joining the team? Check out our open positions.