Job Architecture and a Career Framework Empower Employees at Piedmont Healthcare

Transcription

1 Job Architecture and a Career Framework Empower Employees at Piedmont Healthcare A Case Study Piedmont Healthcare enhances efficiency by focusing on job alignment and job mapping, bringing them one step closer to their goal of becoming a truly integrated health care system. Piedmont Healthcare, a Georgia-based health system with 11,000 employees, faced a problem common to many organizations that have grown through acquisition: inconsistent job titles and levels. For instance, a given job didn t always have the same title across different entities and often titles for similar jobs differed even within the same entity. Consequently, Piedmont quickly realized that it needed a better infrastructure for organizing jobs, otherwise known as a job architecture. The need for a coherent job architecture was particularly noticeable at the director and vice president levels. At the time of the project, Piedmont had at least seven levels of directors, without clear guidelines to help differentiate one director level from another. Moreover, Piedmont also wanted to be able to differentiate system titles from hospital titles. For example, would an executive director title be used in a hospital or only at the system level? Piedmont recognized that the development of an effective job architecture might offer opportunities to address issues in related areas. For instance, the current approach to organizing jobs resulted in an unclear job-grading system that confused hiring managers and added to the challenges of attracting and hiring critical talent. This led to instances of inconsistent pay practices, raising issues of fairness related to compensation and rewards. Finally, this situation made it challenging for employees to manage and identify appropriate career paths. After all, without an underlying job architecture, it s difficult to develop a career framework that enables employees to better understand their unique career paths and advancement opportunities. But where do you begin to align jobs within an organization? And how do you map jobs based on progressive levels of contributions and provide potential career paths? Piedmont discovered that with the right approach and tools, it was able to develop a consistent job architecture as well as an overarching career framework that contributed to more effective career and talent management programs. Aligning Job Levels Piedmont partnered with Towers Watson to develop a unifying framework for its jobs and a consistent approach to job architecture, job leveling and career mapping as shown in Figure 1. The initial work involved the development of: An overarching job architecture. Piedmont needed a job architecture an organizing construct for aligning jobs within an organization based on the types of work performed. To develop such a construct, organizations define job groupings (i.e., job functions), which represent a major area of expertise (e.g., human resources), and job disciplines, which define a specialized area of expertise within a function (e.g., compensation). This is especially important for organizations looking to clean up job codes or job titles. Towers Watson s Career Map methodology offered Piedmont a baseline career framework that was used to map jobs into established career bands or ladders describing how jobs contribute to the organization, as shown in Figure 2. Piedmont organized all its jobs into nine career ladders: executive leadership, people leadership, business specialist/leadership, physicians and providers, clinical, registered nursing, technical and specialty, administrative and service support. A job-leveling system. With the job architecture in place, Piedmont was prepared to move on to job leveling, which is an analytical process for determining the relative contribution of a role within the career band/ladder. After all, without an underlying job architecture, it s difficult to develop a career framework that enables employees to better understand their unique career paths and advancement opportunities.

2 Figure 1. Towers Watson s reward and career framework To resolve the issues associated with title and level misalignment at Piedmont, the team created an overarching job architecture and job-leveling system, which formed the basis of a systemwide career framework. In turn, the career framework facilitates the development of career paths throughout the organization and serves as the foundation for critical talent and reward programs. Reward and Career Framework Workforce Analytics and Recruiting and Selection Performance Pay Delivery Learning and Development Career Succession Competencies Reward and Career Architecture Job Leveling A systematic process of determining the relative ranking of jobs in an organization Job Architecture The infrastructure for job organization (job codes, job titles, functions, families, etc.) Inputs Business Context Reward and Talent Strategy Job Content Employee Data Market Data Figure 2. Towers Watson s Career Map methodology The Career Map approach starts with defining job functions and disciplines, and progresses through the mapping of career bands/ladders, levels and job titles. Function Discipline Career Band/ Ladder Job Level Job Title Represents a major area of expertise Defines a specialized area of expertise within a function Defines the nature of the role being performed Differentiated by increasing expectations Standardized internal titles Career Map s job-leveling approach enabled Piedmont to map 42 career levels, including different levels of director jobs, onto its bands/ladders. For example, it mapped three levels of directors and corresponding titles within the people leadership band: director, senior director and executive director. With a consistent job architecture and leveling in place, Piedmont could align director titles to job groupings and levels, thereby resolving critical job-titling issues. Job Architecture and a Career Framework Empower Employees at Piedmont Healthcare 2

3 Designing Career Pathways Across Functions and Entities What began as a project to align director titles in 2011 soon evolved into a systemwide initiative between 2011 and 2013 to categorize all Piedmont positions into nine career ladders and 42 career levels within those ladders. This initiative aimed for systemwide consistency (using the same title for a given job across functions and entities), transparency (providing a clear rationale for different job titles or levels) and understanding (ensuring everyone knows the rationale behind decisions). Key to this undertaking was Piedmont s design process, which started at the top with the leadership ladders and cascaded down to other levels of the organization. Piedmont believed it was essential to map the leadership ladder first so leaders could understand the impact and value of Career Map and champion the process. A strong partnership was formed between HR and business leaders or subject matter experts to complete the mapping of all jobs, with HR facilitating the process and managing the framework while business leaders owned the job specifications. Throughout the mapping process, Piedmont reinforced its collaborative culture by forming cross-functional and cross-entity teams to assist in making consistent and logical career ladder, level and title assignments. For example, Piedmont involved employees in the same function from different entities to map IT jobs to the ladders, aligning jobs in the process and consolidating job codes and defining job titles. This level of involvement across functions and entities enabled Piedmont to encourage holistic thinking. Piedmont reinforced its collaborative culture by forming cross-functional and cross-entity teams to assist in making consistent and logical career ladder, level and title assignments. With a high level of collaboration required, and the ongoing integration of new acquisitions and focus on making sustainable decisions, it took three to six months to map each function and approximately two years to complete the mapping process. The resulting framework was titled Piedmont Career Pathways (Figure 3). Internal communication tools such as FAQs and manager toolkits educated employees about Piedmont Career Pathways and prepared them for the rollout. Employees were able to view their job levels and titles through PeopleSoft Employee Self Service starting in July Figure 3. Piedmont Career Pathways LEVEL 16 LEVEL 15 LEVEL 14 LEVEL 13 LEVEL 12 LEVEL 11 LEVEL 10 LEVEL 9 LEVEL 8 LEVEL 7 LEVEL 6 LEVEL 5 LEVEL 4 S6 S5 S4 Lead Support; Shift Sr. Support Support Coordinator Support III A6 A5 A4 Lead Admin.; Shift Sr. Admin.; Admin. Coordinator Executive Assistant Admin. II T7 T6 T5 T4 Lead Tech.; Shift Sr. Tech.; Tech. III Tech. II Tech. I N8 N7 N6 Nursing Administrative Charge Nurse Registered Nurse C9 C8 C7 Lead Clinical Sr. Clinical Clinical P14 P13 P12 P11 P10 P9 P8 Practicing Physician Executives Practicing Physician Executives Physician Practice Leader; Chief of Service Staff Physician; Sr. Extenders Lead Extender; Critical Care Extender; Surgical Extender Sr. Extender; Inpatient Extender Extender B12 B11 B10 B9 B8 B7 B6 Executive Senior Manager; Lead Analyst Sr. Analyst; Sr. Bus. Coordinator Sr. Specialist Analyst; Bus. Coordinator Specialist Associate Analyst; Bus. Associate L12 L11 L10 L9 L8 Executive Senior Manager E16 E15 E14 E13 LEVEL 3 S3 Support II A3 Admin. I LEVEL 2 S2 Support I LEVEL 1 SERVICE SUPPORT NON ADMINISTRATIVE NON TECHNICAL AND SPECIALTY NON NURSING CLINICAL PHYSICIANS AND PROVIDERS BUSINESS SPECIALIST/ PEOPLE EXECUTIVE Job Architecture and a Career Framework Empower Employees at Piedmont Healthcare 3

4 A Winning Approach Overall, the new career framework implementation was a success. And, as shown in Figure 4, the framework provided many benefits to the organization. The overarching job architecture served as a unifying framework for all jobs within the Piedmont organization. By mapping potential career paths for management, clinical and nonclinical roles, and clarifying the responsibilities and skills required to move from one level to another, the framework empowered employees to take charge of their career development and more easily achieve their career aspirations. Furthermore, because the career framework organized work opportunities into meaningful steps and provided for both upward progression and lateral movement, it enabled managers to more effectively determine career development and talent management planning for their teams. Through the job-alignment process, Piedmont was able to reduce the number of job codes by roughly half and is still working on harmonizing all job titles. By making it easier to see where jobs fit within the organization, the framework has also allowed HR to more efficiently and seamlessly integrate acquisition-related jobs. Figure 4. The benefits of Piedmont s Career Pathways framework Aligns staffing models with business models Right skills for right job Targets recruiting opportunities and identifies key roles Competencies and better screening Creates fair platform for uniform grading Promotes system equity Clarifies role and performance expectations Managers able to better communicate job level and career opportunities Identifies future talent needs and develops a strong people pipeline Recognizes/Identifies high potentials Leadership development Succession planning Talent Employee Selection Performance CAREER PATHWAYS FRAMEWORK People Development Career Total Rewards Provides a consistent basis of determining job value, job family progressions and corresponding titles Facilitates consistent compensation administration and guidelines Promotes alignment in determining level of pay, incentives, benefits, recognition and other rewards Clarifies responsibilities from one job level to another Provides the ability to tailor learning and professional development needs Provides visibility to potential career paths Employees have tools to better manager their careers Internal platform to view jobs across the system Job Architecture and a Career Framework Empower Employees at Piedmont Healthcare 4

5 One of the more exceptional successes stemming from this project was Piedmont s ability to use this work to reinforce its goal of becoming a truly integrated health care system. In addition, Piedmont has linked the framework to a range of other talent and reward applications, including incentive pay, exemption status, shift differentials and paid time off. In the future, it plans to use the framework as a basis for initiatives related to performance management, competencies, and learning and development. One of the more exceptional successes stemming from this project was Piedmont s ability to use this work to reinforce its goal of becoming a truly integrated health care system. Because the jobmapping work occurred in parallel with Piedmont s journey toward this goal, the cross-functional and cross-entity approach served as a model for other projects across the enterprise. Authors Vicki Cansler, Chief Human Resources Officer Piedmont Healthcare Megan E. McKinnon,, Compensation Piedmont Healthcare Andrea Deeb, Consulting, Rewards Towers Watson Molly Glantz, Senior Analyst, Rewards Towers Watson About Towers Watson Towers Watson is a leading global professional services company that helps organizations improve performance through effective people, risk and financial management. With 15,000 associates around the world, we offer consulting, technology and solutions in the areas of benefits, talent management, rewards, and risk and capital management. Learn more at. Copyright 2015 Towers Watson. All rights reserved. TW-NA /towerswatson