[makeitdouble]

The alternative is to have a set of managers write prose about how good or not their people are, make vague proposal for raises, to have them approved or not depending on how liked they are by their own managers.

It more or less works, but getting a raise/bonus or not just feels like playing blind bingo most of the time. I once had a manager explain that regardless of the actual project results, because the product people felt stressed and unsure of delivery he wouldn’t give good ratings to the team members. Fighting it back we were just told that he was the one in charge of the criteria.

Career frameworks are vague and there’s still tons of politics in applying it, but at least you have a fighting chance to argue about what you were expected to do, what you did, and about how much you should receive accordingly (these levels are usually associated with salary/bonus scales)

PS: to address the obvious point, if one is constantly fighting, leaving for a better place is the best option, but in a large enough company you could instead change manager. Having a grid setting where you stand in the org also help these horizontal moves.