Job architecture | Effective Career Path Mapping with Job Families

When defining career paths, a critical first step is to establish a comprehensive job family framework. But how are organisations able to achieve this when dealing with complex structures? We take a closer look.

Many organisations are making fundamental shifts in the way they hire and retain employees, namely a more focused approach to becoming a skills-based organisation. Mercer’s 2024 Global Talent Trends Report states that 51% of organisations are focusing on employee up/re-skilling, which is driven by a need to increase productivity, retention and employee wellbeing.

As part of this drive, 37% of organisations in Mercer’s survey felt that a simplified organisational structure was also a priority, which is where the challenge ultimately lies. By their very nature, large organisations have complex frameworks that are proving a real challenge in the shift to skills or to simplify job structures, architecture or job families.

The Burning Glass Institute’s report on skills-based hiring highlighted that focusing on skills was a positive step in theory but in practice something quite different. For those organisations that dropped requirements from jobs, 18% fell back to hiring patterns after an initial burst of progress.