DEVELOPING JOB FAMILIES AND ORGANIZATION CHARTS

Once all jobs in the organization have been identified, it is often helpful for communicating with employees to group the jobs into job families and display them on an organization chart. There are various ways of identifying and grouping job families.

JOB FAMILIES

A job family is a grouping of jobs having similar characteristics. In identifying job families, significant emphasis is placed on measuring the similarity of jobs. For instance, at one insurance company the HR director decided that jobs requiring specialized technical knowledge, skills, and abilities related to information systems (IS) should be viewed as a separate job family, regardless of the geographic locations of those jobs. Due to the nature of information systems jobs, attracting and retaining IS professionals was difficult, and special compensation programs were needed to match the compensation packages given by competing employers.

ORGANIZATION CHARTS

In many organizations, organization charts are developed. An organization chart depicts the relationships among jobs in an organization. Organization charts have traditionally been hierarchical, showing the reporting relationships for authority and responsibilities. In most organizations, the charts can help clarify who reports to whom. In developing typical organization charts, there are some general considerations:

1. Focus of chart: Label the chart to identify the scope of the chart, whether for a department, division, region, or the company as a whole.

2. Simplicity: Keep the chart as simple as possible, emphasizing primary lines of authority.

3. Titles: Use job titles, describing the job level and function, in each box on the chart. For example, the title of Director may not be sufficient. Where possible, indicate the area of responsibility, such as Director of Administration. Broader titles, such as General Manager or Secretary, need no further clarification.

4. Incumbents: Do not develop organization charts around existing people in

the organization. First identify the functions, and then add names of incumbents to the charts.

5. Jobs: Depict the jobs in organizational units as rectangular boxes.

6. Levels: Use vertical placement to depict the relative position of jobs at different levels in the organization. Use horizontal placement to show jobs having similar levels of authority in the organization.

7. Authority: Show direct lines of authority with solid lines, drawn vertically and horizontally as appropriate. For indirect or functional authority, use dotted lines.

In dynamic organizations the charts can become very complicated because dual reporting relationships may exist. For instance, a design engineer may report

to a project manager on a project while also reporting to the chief design engineer for technical review and supervision. This type of organization, often called a matrix organization, has grown in usage in recent years, particularly in professional practice and high-technology industries.