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Summary: Job level classification helps define roles, responsibilities, and career paths within your team. Learn how it works, why it’s essential, and how to set it up for better structure and growth.
When it comes to hiring new people or even managing the ones you have, there are certain aspects that you need to consider. Things like pay range can be a major consideration and knowing how to classify a specific job will make determining the pay range a great deal easier. It can also help you determine the specific tasks for each job role. But in order to classify jobs, you need to know what the different classifications are.
Now, you could create your own classifications that are specific to your industry or to your business, but in general, you’ll find some combination of these six levels.
The specifics of each of these levels will vary based on your business, but we can take a closer look at the general aspects of each.
Entry-Level: Entry-level jobs are the ones that typically require the least amount of training or experience. These are jobs that likely just about anyone could do. You could hire someone with no prior experience or no specialized training and they would be able to execute this type of job with a reasonable level of success.
Intermediate/Mid-Level: These jobs are a step up from the entry-level jobs. Someone hired into this type of position should have at least a small amount of experience in the role or with the tasks that they will be assigned. They will generally have a modest amount of responsibility and may even have a small number of employees that they supervise or monitor.
Senior: Someone at this level is going to have a large amount of experience or training in their specific area. They are going to have a good amount of background knowledge and will likely be responsible for managing employees. They will have the ability to make decisions about their department or area and may be responsible for some of the hiring choices made.
Managerial: These people are in charge of entire departments. They not only need to know how to do their own tasks well but also have a good understanding of the job levels and roles beneath them as well so they can ensure that all of the tasks are being carried out properly. They will certainly be involved in hiring and firing decisions for their department.
Director: A director is going to have a large amount of expertise and training as well as experience in the field. They are also going to be responsible for large numbers of employees across multiple departments and will need to ensure that everyone is following the policies of the company and pushing it toward its overarching goals. These individuals may not be seen day-to-day but are monitoring the running of the company.
Executive: You will rarely see executives actually within the company. Rather, these are people who are managing things but from outside the building (in most cases). They will be involved with overall aspects of running the company but generally are not involved in the minutia of daily operations or even management of all employees. They will typically only interact with director or managerial level employees to oversee things.
How Classification Works
Now, once you know the different general categories of jobs it’s time to start looking at how the job level classification system works. We mentioned training, experience, and background, but there are actually a number of different criteria when it comes to determining the proper classification. Some of these are:
Industry: The specific industry will dictate some aspects of the job classification, no matter what the level of expertise or experience of a specific individual. That’s because some jobs require a basic amount of knowledge just to get started while others might be possible for anyone to ‘walk in.’ Medical positions, for example, require some level of education no matter what level you’re at, while a cashier could be anyone.
Job Role: What kind of tasks is the person going to be responsible for? This will help you understand what level of importance they have in the company and will therefore allow you to determine a better foundation for classifying their level. Some roles are, by nature, higher than others.
Competency: Just how good is that person at the tasks and skills they are required to perform for their job? Are they only capable of performing at a basic level? Or are they performing at a higher level? Are they doing the tasks assigned and nothing more or are they capable of going above and beyond what the base expectations are
Employment Type: What type of employee are they? Is this a seasonal employee who would generally be considered ‘entry-level’ no matter what they’re doing? Are they a freelance worker or a contract worker? Are they full-time or part-time? These characterizations could dictate the level of their job as well. Full-time employees will generally have a higher chance of achieving higher classification levels than a contract employee, for example.
Compensation: Different jobs and different job classification levels are going to have different compensation. Those at the lower end, in entry-level positions, are going to be paid less than those at intermediate positions and certainly far less than those at senior or managerial levels. Looking at their competency and their function will help determine their compensation as well.
Formality: Just how specific of a role is this? Is this something that has a very rigid set of instructions or something that could be a little more broad?
What You Need to Do
If you’re looking to create a job classification system it’s essential that you start off on the right foot. We’re going to take a look at the steps that you need to follow to ensure you have all of the jobs accounted for and to rank them into different levels, which will help you with everything else you need to know.
1. Evaluate the Organization
The first thing you’re going to have to do is figure out what jobs you actually have in your business. Depending on the size of your business there may be a large number of them or there may be only a few. The idea is to make a list of each and every job in the business and then write out a full accounting of what that job entails.
You’ll want to write out things like the different skills that are required to do the job well or the tasks that the person doing that job would undertake. All of these things are going to help you determine how to classify that job as you’re moving forward. But having a full accounting of every job within your organization is going to be the first step.
2. Determine the Level
Next up, you need to figure out what level that job falls into. If the job doesn’t have a lot of requirements or responsibilities or if it’s something that just about anyone could do then it probably counts as entry-level. The more specialized the job or the more difficult the tasks required to do it properly the higher up the ladder it’s likely going to be.
By looking at your job descriptions and considering what specific skills or training are required for each job you’ll be able to determine the levels more easily. This could be an area where you realize you have more jobs than you actually need, or that you need to specify the levels of certain employees who may have blurred the lines a little one their level.
3. Discuss it With Relevant Members of the Team
When you’ve created the overall levels for the jobs within your company it’s time to talk to others who might be impacted by the system. This might be the management team or executives or it might be HR (or any combination of these people).
You’ll also want to talk with your employees about how it works and what the different levels are going to mean for them as well. Chances are these levels are going to be reflected in other ways such as the compensation and even their eligibility for bonuses or promotions.
Talking with relevant members of the team will ensure that these levels are set properly so that the rest of your employees understand where they fall in the hierarchy and what it means for them going forward. It can also help them see what they might need in order to get from where they are to the role that they’d like to have.
4. Keep in Mind the Potential Difficulties
Implementing this type of system will be new so make sure you’re keeping everyone fully informed. Also, make sure that you’re writing out question and answer sheets, guides, descriptions, definitions, and anything else that your employees might need or want to know. And make sure that they can easily access this information or know who to ask in case they need help.
The more information you give to everyone throughout the process of implementing job classification levels the easier it’s going to be for everyone to get on board and make the most of the process.
Setting it Up
Okay, so now you’re ready to set up your job classification levels. The first thing to do is decide how you’re going to classify the jobs.
- Is it going to be based on quantitative data, like how many years of experience someone has?
- Or is it going to be based on qualitative data, like how important the job is to the overall organization?
By looking at it this way, you can see how different jobs might be ranked differently based on which you choose to use. You might have employees that have been with the company for a long time or in the role for a long time but their job is not as important to the organization overall. Or you might have people who haven’t been around long but their job is extremely important to the overall company.
Next, make sure that you’re being consistent about the way that you rank your employees and the levels you assign them. You don’t want to be showing favoritism or giving different benefits to one person within a classification level but not another. You want all of your employees to know that they are being ranked with the same scale and that they are going to get the same benefits (or not) as anyone else with their same rating (and therefore similar background).
Objectivity is another crucial element of the process. You need to look at the criteria itself and make sure that you’re putting everyone into a category or level based on the specified criteria. Don’t let personal feelings or experiences get in the way. This will lead to even more favoritism and that’s not going to help your business or anyone in it.
Be willing to change if something changes. If the job descriptions within your business change or you need to add new job descriptions you can absolutely do that. But keep in mind that you may need to shuffle around the level that corresponds to that job if you do so. You want to make sure that you have everyone fairly categorized at all times.
Why it Matters
Just why is it important to have these types of classifications? There are a number of different reasons.
1. Understand Career Progression
When you have set job classification levels your employees can easily see what it’s going to take for them to get from where they are to where they want to be. It can showcase the different tasks and responsibilities of higher levels and also the requirements to reach that level. That way, employees can see what they need to do to get where they want and can start making steps in that direction.
2. Understand Advancement
What about moving the other way around? Instead of just the employee looking to move up, you, as the employer, maybe want them to. You’ll be able to look at your employees and compare what they’re doing to what they would need to do in order to reach that next level. You may see someone you want to promote, but they aren’t hitting the right targets and milestones yet.
If that’s the case you can help them to move forward and start doing the things they need to get the promotion.
3. Draw New People
When it comes to drawing in new people you might be surprised to know that having job classification levels actually helps. That’s because people who are coming in can see that you have opportunities for them, including opportunities for them to advance. It shows that you care about your employees and you want them to stay with your company for a long time.
For someone who is just coming in, this shows them what they need to do to advance as well. Because they can see how you can go from one step to the next and the next, they will feel more confident in how they can develop within their role with the company.
4. Set Expectations
When you have clearly defined roles and job classification levels you also have clearly defined job expectations. This lets all of your employees see just what they should be doing within their job role. That way, you don’t have to worry about anyone being confused or misunderstanding what they should be doing. If they have any questions about the classification they’ve been assigned they can ask, but otherwise it should all be clear.
Making their job description clear means they’re more likely to do the job they’re supposed to do and also means that they (and you) are able to see what kind of skills they’re missing and need help with for their job or for anything they want to do moving forward.
Make it Work For You
When it comes down to it, it’s important to set job level classifications for your business because it helps everyone involved. It’s going to help your employees who already work for the company by defining their job tasks and making sure they meet the job requirements and responsibilities for their current job as well as knowing what to do to advance.
It’s going to help incoming employees or potential employees to know what the job will entail and also to see a clear path for their own advancement within the company.
And it’s going to help you to make sure that everyone who works for you is doing what they’re supposed to in order to hit the targets set by the company. This makes things like promotions, hiring, firing, and coaching a whole lot easier.
When you set job classification levels it may seem like a simple thing, but you’ll be surprised just how much better it can make the entire process for your company and everyone in it.