Units get ready for new job classification system

Updated 11:45 PM January 7, 2005

Units get ready for new job classification system

By Dave Reid
HR Communications

The University will flip the switch on its new job classification system in July 2005. In the meantime, campus units are partnering with Human Resources and Affirmative Action (HRAA) to prepare for the transition to the new system, which will categorize some 18,000 staff positions now found in the professional/administrative, office, technical and allied health job families, as well as in some department-specific hybrid systems.

Like all classification systems, the new one simply will be a framework of categories—it won't change an employee's job duties, benefits or current pay—but the right system can help current and prospective employees better navigate career opportunities throughout the University, according to those at HRAA who have worked on the changes.

What to expect in July
What will change?
• The broad job families of professional/administrative, office, technical and allied health are replaced by 20 descriptive career families such as Academic & Student Services, Finance, Healthcare Administration, Research, and more
• Classification descriptions are replaced by career family descriptions, including market job titles and description summaries
• Broad salary ranges are replaced by more specific ranges for each market job title
• Jobs Web site gets reorganized by career family
• Official job titles change to market titles

What stays the same?
• Job duties
• Benefits packages
• Working titles remain available, within guidelines
• Salaries

For more information
• Visit http://www.umich.edu/~hraa/class/

The new Career Family Classification System replaces the University's current system of categorizing jobs, which was developed in 1973. Some elements of the current system have been modified over time to meet changing needs, but the framework has remained largely unaltered since its inception, although much has changed in the work world to affect the way organizations conduct business and the types of positions they need.

Categorizing jobs into families of related careers helps the system better reflect today's work world and can help U-M yield better, more contemporary information about job trends at the University and in the external job market, say those involved with the changes. To track such trends over time, official job titles will change to match closely those more commonly used in the market.

"The University stands to gain some important information over the long run with a system that more readily ties to the external job market," says Timothy Wood, senior director at HRAA.

"When our job titles match those in the market, we can compare information now and over time on any particular job, a set of jobs or an entire career family. Much more meaningful information can be gained after an administrative change like this. It allows units to gather more competitive intelligence to help in recruiting and long-range salary planning, and it helps the University achieve those same goals on a larger scale."

To conduct the process of mapping current job titles to the new system, HRAA has formed a partnership with a group of unit readiness coordinators.

"This group has just begun convening on a monthly basis," says Phil Smith, HRAA senior director of strategy and planning and change management lead for the project.

"These unit staff members represent every major academic and administrative area of the University and will be vital partners in helping to complete the process of mapping jobs to the new system over the coming months, as well as keeping staff and leadership aware of the project activity taking place in their unit."

For a list of coordinators, visit http://www.umich.edu/~hraa/class/urc.html.

The U-M Health System (UMHS) employs a large portion of the staff within the scope of the project, says Deborah Childs, UMHS interim administrator of human resources.

"We are pleased with the direction the new system takes, as market alignment continues to be an important strategic advantage in recruiting and retaining the best talent for the Health System," Childs says.

"In some cases, mapping jobs to the new system will reveal that the market title already matches the official title we use at the University," says Mary Maher, HRAA director of compensation and classification and a principal architect of the new system.

"But in some other cases it will not, and the unit readiness coordinators will work with their unit leaders and with HRAA to match the position to the market title that best describes that job's primary duties. The continuity of titles [between U-M and the market] will make new links to market information possible."

Field-testing efforts, in which 2,500 University jobs were matched to their market title counterparts, showed that about 80 percent of U-M's job titles could be matched directly. This is a very positive result, Maher says.

There is a common but more time-consuming process called slotting that uses primary duties to categorize jobs where direct matches to market titles are not found. In addition to the market job title, units also will have the option of recording working titles on the system and using them operationally to further define jobs with more specific titles. HRAA presumes that working titles will be used widely, and guidelines are under development.

From the employment perspective, the tie to more intuitive career families and market job titles is a significant stride toward making the system easier to navigate for both current employees and external applicants, says Diane Benson, manager of Recruiting and Employment Services.

"Categories like professional/administrative or technical are just too broad to provide enough meaning in a large organization with as many employment opportunities as ours," Benson says.

When the new system takes effect, the University's Jobs Web site also will be redesigned with navigation that matches the new career family framework. "The Jobs site is one of the most visible ways staff will see the change in July," Benson says.

The four broad job families of professional/administrative, office, technical and allied health will be eliminated and replaced by 20 descriptive career families such as Academic & Student Services, Finance, Healthcare Administration, and Research. Career bands within each family provide further definition of the type of work being performed. It more closely mimics the way someone might naturally describe his or her work.

"The process of developing the new system has been long and challenging because our organization is more complicated and diverse than most," Maher says. "We have incorporated into the system new methodologies so the system keeps meeting our needs well into the future, yet we understand the importance of making the employee and job-seeker experience as intuitive as possible, and that's been a high priority."

For more information about the project, visit http://www.umich.edu/~hraa/class/.

Units get ready for new job classification system

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