Erin McCann
Head of People
Genomenon
Episode 364
Career clarity: Simple job architecture is the blueprint for fair growth
Current chapter: Covering monthly expenses is the number one concern for employees in 2024
Built By PeopleDecember 30, 2024 · 9:48
Thesis
“Effective job architecture, even if simply built, is critical for defining clear roles, enabling equitable performance management, and fostering transparent career progression to achieve organizational goals.”
Show notes
In this episode of the Built by People podcast, host Erin interviews an HR executive who shares their unique career journey from sales and marketing to people operations. The discussion delves into the creation of job architecture and performance management frameworks tailored to various organizations, emphasizing the importance of clear role definitions and competency evaluations. Topics include leveraging Google Sheets for initial frameworks, ensuring fair performance expectations, integrating structured job architecture with performance management, and the significance of transparent career progression and compensation alignment. The episode concludes with actionable advice for HR leaders on getting started with job architecture without relying on fancy tools.
00:44 Guest Introduction: Erin's Career Journey 01:53 Building Job Architecture and Performance Management 04:34 Implementing Job Architecture in Performance Management 07:53 Best Practices and Tying Compensation to Performance 09:21 Final Thoughts and Advice
What you'll take away
- 1Start building job architecture with simple tools like Google Sheets, focusing on content and clarity over complex HR technology.
- 2Structure job architecture around consistent competencies, core values, and department-specific crafts/skills to ensure equitable evaluation across all levels.
- 3Make job architecture transparent so employees can understand current roles, see future progression, and identify skill gaps for development.
- 4Integrate performance management directly with job architecture to create data-driven, consistent evaluations based on predefined criteria.
- 5Tie compensation to job levels established by the architecture to ensure fair salary bands and reinforce that performance (output + values) leads to promotion.
What most organizations get wrong
- •You don't need fancy HR tools to implement robust job architecture or performance management; content and structure are more important, and simple spreadsheets can suffice.
- •Challenge the startup tendency for title inflation by using job architecture to have informed conversations about why a title might not align with responsibilities and expectations.
In Erin's words
“The thing I realized was that it was really hard to assess someone's performance if there wasn't clarity on what their roles or responsibilities were.”
This highlights the foundational problem that job architecture solves for performance assessment.
“At Genomenon, I took it a step further and consistently used the same, what we called competencies. So, things like accountability, results, the manager track, that would be like performance management and team structure. And then we built out core values.”
This provides a concrete example of the framework components used for job architecture.
“This puts everybody on the same page and allows managers to, rather than focus on rewriting a job description every 6 months or every year, remembering all of the work that's happened over 12 months if you're doing an annual cycle, it really focuses on the right behaviors that we know will help achieve the outcomes that we need as an organization.”
This emphasizes the efficiency and clarity benefits for managers by using structured job architecture.
“I know that there's this desire to reward folks with a big title. When it comes to the people team and trying to roll out something like this, it can be a real challenge. However, this does give a pathway to having a solid conversation about why someone might not be a C-suite employee, but they have a C-suite title...”
This addresses the common issue of title inflation in startups and how job architecture can facilitate honest career conversations.
“Don't wait for a fancy tool to come around and fix this for you. You can get started really easily, pen to paper with ChatGPT.”
This is a key piece of advice, advocating for immediate action and focusing on content over sophisticated tools.
The problems this episode addresses
- •HR teams struggle to assess employee performance fairly and consistently without clear role definitions and expectations.
- •Managers lack clear guidance and alignment on what 'great' performance looks like, leading to subjective and time-consuming evaluations.
- •Employees often lack transparent career pathways, making it difficult to understand how to advance and what skills they need to develop.
- •Organizations face challenges with title inflation, where high titles don't always align with responsibilities, creating internal inequity.
- •Ensuring performance management captures both output and alignment with core values to avoid 'brilliant jerks' or 'underperforming superstars.'
In this episode
Covering monthly expenses is the number one concern for employees in 2024
Built by People
How do you design job architecture that supports clear career pathways and performance goals
How to Build a Career Pathway
Job architecture helps set fair and achievable performance expectations for employees across levels
Do Job Architectures Affect Performance Management?
Job architecture and performance management can be challenging in small companies
Post-Acquisition Job Architecture and Performance Management
Erin, any other parting advice you'd like to share with our audience
In the Elevator With Erin Flannery
Topics covered
Organizations and entities mentioned
Full transcript
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