Designing, redesigning and grading jobs
The Workforce Capability Framework provides a foundation for well-designed jobs and consistent decision making about jobs across the organisation and the sector.
- Designing a job involves creating a new role by assigning a practical collection of work responsibilities.
- Re-designing a job involves revising a role by altering the existing collection of work responsibilities.
- Grading a job involves making a sound decision about the relevant job level based on an analysis of the work responsibilities.
Tips
Focus on the functions required from the job by the organisation, customers and key stakeholders.
Consult with the individual with disability to learn about how the job needs to operate on a day-to-day basis.
Obtain input from other relevant key stakeholders about the expectations of the job.
Use existing position descriptions as a resource only. Ensure new or revised position descriptions are properly constructed to reflect the job’s responsibilities.
Grade the job and not the person in the role or their performance.
Do not analyse a job or determine a job level based on a rate of pay or a job title. Make sure you are analysing the role’s actual responsibilities and the capability level required in the job.
Compare the proposed or revised responsibilities and capabilities with the levels in the relevant job family of the Workforce Capability Framework. The most appropriate job level will be the description of capabilities that align closely with the responsibilities of the overall role.
It is possible to quickly narrow a job down to the most appropriate job family and a range of no more than three continuous job levels in the framework.
For example, you might decide a job fits clearly in the Direct Service Delivery job family and appears to be in the range of level 3 to level 5. The next step is to determine the best job level that fits with the job role. bsp;
Focus on the highest level function/s (i.e. the job responsibilities) regularly performed by the role. This means the most complex work done in a job provided it is done reasonably often. A good rule of thumb is 40% of the time. bsp;
Note: if jobs were just graded on the highest function ever performed, that would overstate the significance for a function that might only be performed once or twice a year.ear.
Once a job has been graded, you can compare the proposed job level with other roles in the team or organisation. Objectively consider and test this comparison using what you know about the roles and continually refer back to the framework as the main point of reference. If necessary, go back over the information compiled in designing and analysing the job and check any assumptions you have made.
Some jobs may not perfectly match with the job levels in the framework. If a job seems to fit over 3 or more levels in the framework, it is likely to have been poorly designed. This will make it difficult to attract, recruit and retain candidates, manage their performance and expectations, and managing the expectations of customers and stakeholders.
If this occurs, consider re-designing the proposed job or reallocating the responsibilities across different roles.
If there is no alternative other than to persist with the job in its current form, make sure all stakeholders are aware of the uniqueness of the job responsibilities and an agreement on how the job will operate on a day-to- day basis.
Different jobs either within the same or different job families will have similar capabilities expected of them however the day-to-day work and tasks may be very different. For example a disability support worker and an administrator/receptionist are different roles, aligned to different job families, but can be graded at the same job level.
Not every level in the framework (there are 14 standard job levels) need to be represented in every organisation’s structure.
Additional resources:
- The Workforce Capability Framework
- The disability career planner and capability framework implementation guide
- Technique and tool – designing, analysing and grading jobs
- Tool, tips and template – using the ‘donut’ to clarify roles and responsibilities
- Tool, tips and template – using the ‘what’s working / not working tool’ within recruitment
- Technique, tips and template – writing position descriptions
Definitions:
The term individual(s) refers to an individual with a disability and their family and/or circle of support.
The terms staff/employee(s) refer to paid or unpaid members of the workforce regardless of their employment relationship with their employer i.e. permanent, casual, full-time, volunteer, etc.
Intellectual property rights are jointly owned by National Disability Services Ltd, PeopleAdvantage Pty Ltd and Helen Sanderson Associates respectively. © This publication is copyright. All rights reserved.
