What's in a Title?

Needtoknow · May 2003

We are in the midst of restructuring and want to clearly define staff roles by assigning appropriate titles. My CEO has suggested that we add Department Head to the Director title .... for example, we have a Director of Biology who has assumed additional responsibilities but because of our company policy to remain a rather flat organization, we will not promote to Sr. Director. The CEO has suggested that we give the title of Director of Biology and Department Head of Microbiology.

Personally, I find this rather lengthy and perhaps redundant. I said that the title of Director usually suggests that the individual is a Department Head and then he pointed out that we have a couple of Directors of Business Development who are not heads of the Department.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

MS HR · May 2003

I did "time" as HR Director for a large medical practice and we used both titles depending on the purpose. For example, in our org. charts we had Department Director (of Nuclear Medicine, for example) in the org.charts and showed who reported to the Department Director, but on correspondence we used the more prestigious title of Director of Nuclear Medicine, because people outside the organization don't care if the position is a department director or not. Minor differences,sure, but helpful in conveying the information each title is meant to convey.

sonny · May 2003

Our Directors = Department head

What's in a Title?

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