Everyone wants a new title!

HR inWA

I know this is an age-old HR problem - but we seem to have gotten into the the thick of it here...

We agreed to a title change for a group of salespeople from Sales Development Representatives to Sales Development Account Executives - and this has opened the floodgates so that now everyone wants a new title.

Some of our titles are a little bit behind the times. We have lots of "assistants" who are really much more than assistants. They are supervising part-time staff and interns and running large projects on their own.

Does anyone have a good system for reviewing title change requests? Where do you draw the line? Do you give in or hold out?

marc

We compare the actual jobs to the descriptions of each ee every year during annual evaluations. If changes are warranted, we make them then. We did not used to do this, but one year we were faced with the situation you have described. We bit the bullet and did them all during mid-year and instituted the annual review. It helps that we are a small company, but I think the principal still holds - take the medicine in small doses, that way you do not have the major surgery you describe.

ray a

I'm dealing with a similar problem right now. I have 2 directors with clerical people that they want to give them "Senior" titles. They have given more and more responsibility to these people so the tasks they actually perform are on a higher level than what was originally intended. To complicate matters, our job titles are shared, and obviously controlled, by our corporate facility. So, I can't just change a title or job description at the whim of a director. Both ee's involved are threatening to quit if they are not given a bigger title and substantially more pay. So far, my approach has been to tell the directors they need to realign the positions to bring them back into compliance with our SOP's and job descriptions. Also, to reallocate tasks to the areas where they belong. Not sure how all this will shake out though.

System

That's perpetual motion - ee gains responsibility & credability with tenure; ee requests another title and more pay.

If the responsibilities and demands of a job increase then the job needs to be reviewed. You may need to change the title and pay scale. If the job hasn't changed much and the employee has merely gotten very proficient with time, that doesn't warrant a title and pay change. The ee probably got regular raises over time.

I find that the most competitent workers get the most dumped on them because it's known that they can handle it. The supervisor should shelter them from being the dumping ground or approach HR to conduct a job evaluation. HR can recommend that the job description and pay rate be changed.

blw

One thing that might help is to look at your organizational chart. We changed some titles due to a reorganization. When we looked at the org chart we compared jobs with similar responsibilities and similar reporting levels and gave them the same "style" title. For example, our Recruiter became a Staffing Specialist, the Financial Customer Service Manager (position has less responsibility than this sounds like) became Fin Cust Svc Specialist, and Accnts Receivable became Billing Specialist.

Our top level is all directors, except for the Controller, whose title is specific to her field. The next level is managers, the next level is supervisors, and the next level is Specialists and Assistants. It has worked fairly well.