Job Architecture: Framework for Roles and Compensation

Job architecture provides organizations with a structured framework to align roles, define responsibilities, and ensure fair compensation. It supports talent sourcing, career development, and internal mobility by outlining job levels, competencies, and professional pathways.

By Brad Nakase, Attorney

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Table of Contents

1. What is job architecture?

2. What makes job architecture essential?

3. How to Design Job Architecture

What is job architecture?

Job architecture gives a company a framework for understanding roles and aligning jobs based on the kind of work done. It provides a consistent means of defining responsibilities within an organization and then functions as a foundation for strategic choices.

What makes job architecture essential?

Talent sourcing

The company’s value chain is outlined in a job architecture framework that is well-defined. This includes professional paths, credentials, proficiencies, and abilities. These outlines are available to recruiters, enabling them to post jobs with ease and precision and find the right individuals based on the necessary competencies. Additionally, it provides prospective employees with a clear idea of what is expected of them and at what level, which promotes long-term retention and job satisfaction.

Development of talent

The skills, credentials, and abilities needed to advance to a certain level are outlined in the job architecture. Consequently, both horizontally and vertically structured professional routes are possible. Employees may now easily grasp how to advance in their careers or take on the roles they want thanks to this. Employee mobility across departments is also facilitated by the mapping of competencies throughout the entire organization rather than just in a department. It is the key to enabling internal mobility.

Just compensation

An organization’s ability to pay employees fairly and consistently is greatly influenced by its job architecture. Job levels are assigned to functions through job architecture. Thus, the compensation for an engineer working in the IT department is equal to that of an engineer working in the legal department.

How to Design Job Architecture

Describe the roles inside the organization

Classifying and defining each function in the organization—which consists of a range of tasks and responsibilities—is the first stage. It is possible to divide up the duties and go beyond the job description.

Write descriptions of positions

An employee’s duties and responsibilities are listed in their job description. A position in an HR Information System (HRIS) is typically associated with an individual job code.

Establish family groups and work clusters

A job family is a group of related positions that share fundamental duties and responsibilities. It is simpler to group work families into sub-families the more similar their traits are.

Perform a job assessment

This is where job leveling comes into play, which is the systematic and correct assignment of value to particular roles. The skills, credentials, and knowledge needed to perform the job determine its value. It considers both the role’s impact and its result as well. Accurate job title alignment is possible after the job evaluation stage is completed.

Comply with standards

It is easier to match specific positions to their corresponding pay benchmarks once all job titles and levels within a company have been verified. This makes it possible to establish fair and acceptable compensation systems as well as the proper salary levels.

Complete alignment of the job title

It’s important to review the job titles at your company after accounting for external comparisons. An internal role’s title may differ from what external benchmarks often use to refer to it. A title needs to be relevant to the market and adhere to internal standards and customs.

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