Harish Navuluru

We all agree that career progression in a well defined hierarchy is the one single motivating factor for an employee to assess his personal growth, directly contributing to his staying back in the job. A well defined hierarchy which allows for a growth path not just in terms of job role but also in terms of all round development of his career, would ensure minimal attrition.

If we follow the hierarchy followed in most of the organizations which have the lowest attrition rate, we would notice a very robust & well defined hierarchy. The important point is to map a well defined, unambiguous competency framework to a robust hierarchy which will give rise to a continuous growth path for people at ALL levels in the organization.

Before defining hierarchy of an organization, we need to take the following measures and ensure they are in place :

Defining hierarchy is one thing, implementing it in such a way that it is tied to all other facets of the organization as well as other HR functions is a must. Otherwise, hierarchy would remain just some titles which would be conferred on employees based on the whims and fancies of the HR professionals/hiring managers operating at THAT point in time in the organization. This is typical to growing organizations which do not have a well defined hierarchy. The entire process has to have objectivity and clarity which would make it process driven rather than a person-driven exercise. Any organization which believes in processes rather than people-driven policies, prospers in the long term because it discounts the people who run it, but is robust enough to run irrespective of who in the organization runs it. Debatable, but true.

Let us ask ourselves first “Why do we need a hierarchy ?” The simple answer to this complex answer is to show a career progression to each employee in the organization irrespective of his current level. In other words, from a fresher who joins the first organization of his career to a Sr. Vice President, should have something to look forward to in terms of achieving. It is necessary to create a succession plan through the hierarchy to make the system strong and resistant to individual bias. Before we get down to discussing and debating what hierarchy would suit our organization, it is very important to know the business we are in and the stake holders. Based on this only we would be able to come up with a tangible solution to the hierarchy. What works for an X firm may not work for us. So copy paste, though it looks so lucrative, doesn’t always help. Actually, hierarchy of any organization should be as individual as a fingerprint. This I say because the needs of each organization differ from each other.

Here we come to a very interesting concept called skill-based jobs. We all know that we are paid for the skills we bring to the table. Many times I find people are at a particular designation, for example, Asst. Manager in their current company and want to be titled the same or more in their next assignment. How far is it acceptable ? From Assistant  Manager to Manager may be the natural career progression in his/her current company, but the organization he applies to, would obviously have their own hierarchy. I am not talking about relatively fresh professionals, but there are quite a few experienced professionals who fail to recognize this difference in the hierarchy.

I would like to give an example to illustrate this. For example, there is this X company which has a very flat hierarchy and makes someone with 2 years relevant experience as an Assistant Manager. The next promotion for this person would be as an AVP, that too, all with 4-6 years of experience. Some other organizations, which follow a longer and more stable career progression, would probably title someone an Asst. Vice President only with relevant experience of 15-20 years of experience. My question is, are the two candidates in question the same? Do they bring the same level of skills to the table ? Obviously NO. In terms of HR careers, we see a lot of people with 2-3 years of experience being titled HR Managers. Whereas in much larger organizations, they would probably be mapped to maybe a Sr. Executive/Sr. Analyst title.

While defining the hierarchy of an organization, it is important to take the lessons of the past into account, the present scenario and the future too. A trend analysis chart of the attrition pattern helps. The important point is to avoid impulses and avoid people specific and department specific designations. It helps to have common designations across departments.

Once the hierarchy has been defined, it is only the first step. It is important to bring objectivity to the entire process by defining the skills that a particular person should possess, both soft skills and technical skills and the responsibilities he/she should be able to shoulder to be in that position. Responsibilities and skills should be defined in the format of a competency framework which is an integral part of the skill definition process in the first place.

Even when the competency framework and hierarchy are integrated, it becomes a futile exercise unless it is tied to the Learning and Development team. When an employee sets his goals for the year, the responsibilities of the next designation should be part of his goal setting process. The progress on the same should be evaluated at regular intervals, typically mid-year. This simple process avoids a typical scenario where an employee is aghast at the year-end when he/she doesn’t get promoted. Since he/she knows the progress throughout the year which is documented and shared with not just his/her seniors but also with the local HR Generalists, more or less he/she knows what’s in store for him/her at the year end. This avoids a lot of heart-burn and also ensures that superiors do not have bias against any particular employee.

This article has been taken from my own responses to a query on www.hrlink.in

Here is the link to the original article : http://hrlink.in/topics/how-do-we-plan-hierarchy