What is Job Leveling?

Job leveling is a vital foundation for reward and talent management programs. Career paths, compensation, learning and development, performance management, and workforce planning all stem from a comprehensive job leveling process.

Today, companies and startups struggle with job leveling due to a lack of resources (i.e., time). With endless online examples of job levels and conflicting methods companies use to level their jobs, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Google, for example, has so many levels they accommodate half career steps, while Zappos has a holacracy, where it’s a flat org, and no one has a title.

Job leveling aims to establish a common framework that uniquely works for your organization.

Job leveling helps HR identify gaps (e.g., examine the span of control), manage rewards and talent, and establish title standards across the combined organization.

The goal of job leveling is to ensure titles align with employees’ roles and levels of responsibilities, which can help drive employee engagement. One of the top reasons employees leave a company is due to a perceived lack of growth and development opportunities.

Established requirements for promotion and clear career paths improve employee engagement and retention and equip managers to set expectations as part of performance feedback successfully. Employees won’t need a crystal ball to see their future potential in the company.

Kamsa has helped over 500 global tech companies with their full compensation processes. Job leveling is typically the first step in assessing companies' market competitiveness of compensation. We've streamlined the job leveling process to the essentials - no fluff needed.

5 Steps to Job Leveling:

1. Involve the right people. Job leveling cannot happen without collaboration - you’ll need to connect with leaders who understand each functional area's current state and future strategy
2. Stay focused on the role. Job leveling starts with defining role expectations and aligning its level based on those expectations. Keep discussions about roles, performance, and pay separately from individuals.
3. Keep it simple. When creating job levels, make it clear yet comprehensive to everyone in the company, from the top down.
4. Take a step back. Look at all the positions in the company and evaluate the business needs and career progression paths available. No clear progression? Make one.
5. Communicate. Establish a framework for leaders and managers to have ongoing conversations that effectively communicate the opportunities that are or will become available as the company grows.

When you’re done, you’ll provide guidance and confidence for managers to have tough conversations...like when employees ask, "Why am I not a Senior Engineer yet?”

We know firsthand how daunting a job leveling exercise can be. Contact us if you need help working magic with the foundation of your company structure.