What is Job Leveling and How Does it Work?

What is Job Leveling and How Does it Work?

Job leveling is an essential process to take an organization to the next level. It increases efficiency, employee-engagement and reduces turnover. When employees see a clear path to progress and know what they need to do to further their career, they perform to the best of their abilities. This article is a guide to job leveling and explains the job leveling matrix. 

What is Job Leveling?

Job leveling is the core of incentive and talent management systems. A thorough approach drives career trajectories, remuneration, training, and planning. 

Managers can match job descriptions to the actual responsibilities of their staff, thereby increasing morale and productivity. One of the most common reasons for leaving a job is when employees feel there is not enough scope for growth.

Promotion criteria and well-defined career paths lead to happier and more loyal employees. Managers become fully equipped to communicate objectives to their staff when providing performance feedback. Employees do not need to guess their future in the company.

Job Leveling Examples

Job leveling within an HR team might look like:

1st Level: Assistant

2nd Level: Generalist

3rd Level: Manager

4th Level: Senior Manager

5th Level: Director

Job Leveling Matrix

For managers and their subordinates, the combination of levels in a matrix is an excellent way to get the most out of employees. To create a matrix, you need to add competencies as rows. Add job levels in the column section.

Keep things simple, and you will get the best out of a matrix like these.  Each cell should describe what a person in that position must perform to meet that competency requirement. Here’s an example of a job leveling matrix

Why is Job Leveling Important? 

Here are the benefits to job leveling: 

  • When it comes to developing teams and organizations, it provides a starting point. When it comes to sharing information with staff, having a structure is helpful. 
  • After you are done, you will have a document that clearly shows the strengths and weaknesses of your employees and the paths they need to take to achieve their goals.  This is a huge benefit since it explains exactly what they need to focus on.
  • You will be able to create and foster an environment that encourages the success of your staff. 
  • It is more effective when based on market comparisons, recruiting managers, and employee input.

How Does Job Leveling Work?

Employers use it to address many corporate goals, including recruiting, retaining, and motivating essential employees and managing costs and risks. Benefits to your company include; 

  • A reward and career structure aligned with the company’s needs, strategy, culture, and the value of its workforce. 
  • Career paths, job requirements, and performance objectives can be described in a common language.
  • As a base for establishing connections between organizational and job-family skills
  • Assessing external data and creating a mapping of jobs
  • Cost-effective design and delivery of talent management and compensation programs
  • This mechanism aids internal equity.

Steps to Perform Job Leveling: A Job Leveling Guide

The time it will take to do job leveling depends on the company’s size. However, the process is worth it as it will make the company efficient in the long run. There are no hard and fast job leveling guidelines. But here are some steps to create the perfect job leveling framework for your company: 

1. Focus on building the right team 

The first step in the job leveling process is building the right team for it. The input of numerous stakeholders is necessary. Work with senior firm executives,  managers, and HR personnel to produce detailed job descriptions and a plan for how employees can climb up the corporate ladder.

2. Look at the big picture

Look at your firm as a whole before you begin the process. Consider the number of “levels” in the organization and decide the number of levels you want to have.  For example, if you have employees at all levels, you may want to build a level between managers and leaders to handle big decisions effectively and plan big projects. 

3. Approach each role individually

Focus on a single project at a time. Starting with the facts you already know, such as the position’s present title, rank, and work responsibilities is an excellent place to begin. Update the position’s title and level as necessary to reflect your goals.

Moreover, ensure that job duties are written in the same language as those for all other positions and appropriately explain its task and obligation, as well as its responsibilities.

4. Establish relationships

After you’ve leveled each job in the company, take a fresh look at the organization as a whole. Think about how positions are related to one another. Do they form a synergy, and are they straightforward?  As many roles as feasible should have a clear pathway to advancement. Each job description should include these pathways.

5. Inquire for feedback

You are doing this for your employees. Therefore, after you are done, you must seek feedback from them. You can accommodate their suggestions by changing job titles or levels. Once the task leveling structure has been completed, distribute it to everyone in the organization and answer any queries.

Conclusion

Even though job leveling isn’t the most fun chore, it’s an essential part of many HR programs. Organizations with positions that aren’t clearly defined or categorized generally have inadequate organizational structures, making them ineffective and expensive. A well-executed procedure can make an organization efficient and effective while cutting costs.

Springworks Team

Building products and tools to simplify the life of an org's HR function in terms of recruiting, onboarding & retention!

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