One of the most common challenges HR leaders face is to make sure there is a systematic way to compare the value of work across their organizations. Human resources and compensation leaders need to evaluate the nature of work done and impact by each job, meaning analyzing the job responsibilities, the technical and behavioral skills needed to perform the tasks, and assessing the business outcomes.
Job evaluation can be a difficult task for any organization, but it is especially challenging for companies that operate on a global stage. Many other factors start to creep into the process for evaluating the work when needing to evaluate across geographic boundaries.
Most organizations indicate that they do have job architecture in place. In fact, as many as 90% of the companies surveyed in our Salary Increase Survey indicate having a formal structure. Just over half of those plans (54%) are defined as global plans. However, based on the amount of activity and interest we see from clients and prospects, there seems to be a hunger for wanting to know more about the rationale and benefits for having a global job leveling framework. Here are four of the top reasons we see.
Consistency across HR programs
Using a standard job evaluation methodology allows you to talk about job structure using consistent terminology. It is this consistency that allows managers and employees alike to more easily understand communications and decisions about job leveling.
At Aon, we use our proprietary job evaluation methodology, called JobLink™. This method for job evaluation uses a systematic approach to determining relative positioning of different jobs. We use the following set of compensable factors to evaluate jobs.
- Knowledge and Application
- Problem Solving
- Interaction
- Impact
- Accountability
Once we evaluate jobs using JobLink, we are able to assign jobs into our standardized job hierarchy.
Job analysis and evaluation serves as the core for other HR programs. When organizations are able to align their jobs into a global job-leveling framework, it facilitates standardization and consistency across other HR programs. Leaders are more easily able to look at their talent pool in a holistic and globally consistent way
Career pathing
One of the top concerns for keeping employees engaged is providing a meaningful career path. A consistent finding in our annual Global Employee Engagement study, career opportunities and the supporting infrastructure are two of the top 5 priorities for organizations to improve engagement. A global job-leveling framework can serve as the infrastructure for providing a way for employees to see the jobs they can aspire to as they navigate their careers.
Career pathing is not only helpful to employees, but also to leadership. Especially as organizations move to increase the amount of global mobility they have. By having a global job-leveling framework, HR leaders are able to do more effective workforce planning.
Ease of administration
Human resource organizations are continually finding more efficient ways to administer their HR programs. Having a global job leveling architecture can be the cornerstone for building in greater global efficiencies. By using a global leveling framework, organizations are able to streamline other decisions regarding employees and jobs. Here some examples
- Pay grades and salary structures
- Job titling standardization
- Short-term incentive eligibility and target setting
- Long-term incentive eligibility and award determinations
Flexibility for business transaction
One of the lesser-known advantages to having a global job-leveling framework in place is in getting your organization ready for some type of corporate transaction. We have seen several years now of high activity of mergers and acquisitions (M&A). More importantly, we anticipate that with continued run-up of the global stock markets and the U.S. tax reform, organizations will be more likely to pursue growth through M&A.
We more commonly see organizations address their job-leveling framework as part of their ‘post-transaction’ and they work to digest an acquisition.
Want more information on global job architectures?
Implementing a global job architecture can be a daunting task, but organizations lately have been pressing to complete implementations at a faster pace, i.e., typically within 6 months. The key to being able to complete such an undertaking in that timeframe is having the right data and expertise at your disposal.
We recently hosted a webinar on “Rewarding Globally Mobile Executives” in collaboration with AirINC where we go into more depth on the trends and impact of global job architectures. You can download the slides. Or, you can contact us to talk to one of our Account Executives to learn how our data or consulting services can help you.
