The points raised in your feature on ‘uptitling’ are all too familiar (‘What’s in a name?’, Personnel Today, 1 November).
When talking to organisations about defining occupational roles, the problems such flashy job titles cause become apparent. However, Richard Wilson’s suggestion of giving interviewees a diagram of where they will sit within an organisation frankly won’t help them at all in deciding whether or not they should apply for a job or are right for the role. It will simply show them the existing hierarchy.
Both recruiters and potential staff need a clear view of the skills a role requires, and a common language to discuss them. What self-respecting finance professional would manage their department without facts and figures to audit? Yet organisations expect to plan and motivate based on an ever-changing vocabulary of job titles and gut feelings.
Detailed frameworks and skills analysis can reveal far more than a job title. The focus should fall on measuring employee success through goals and deliverables, not how impressive the title sounds, or where they sit on the tree.
Ashley Wheaton
Director and CEO
InfoBasis
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