Job evaluation via Time Span of Discretion – A Universal Level of Work MeasurePeopleFit Ltd.

By:Anupriya Sharma (40/09)

Danish Haidar (95/09)Kapil Ahuja (51/09)

Sania Zehra (141/09)Suman Patra (39/09)

Introduction

• The Time Span of Discretion is an interesting and unusual method of job evaluation developed by Elliot Jaques for the Glacier Metal Company.

• In this method the job pressure is assessed according to the length of time over which managers decisions commit the company.

• A machine operative, for example, is at any moment committing the company only for the period needed to make one product unit or component. The manager who buys the machine is committing the company for ten years.

• Time span of discretion is one piece of the meta-model, Requisite Organization.

• Within managerial hierarchies, managers get work done through others. Therefore, it stands to reason that if any given manager’s longest task or deliverable (a what by when)?has a time frame of, say, 2.5 years, any piece of his/her work that s/he delegates to a direct report will have a deliverable with a shorter time frame than 2.5 years.

• Length of the Longest TaskThus, time span of discretion is the targeted completion time of the longest task or task sequence in a role, and time span measures the level of work in a role. The time span of a role resides in the mind of the manager with the manager-once-removed’s approval.

• Ask the ManagerIn order to discover the time span of discretion, you must interview the manager to tease out the longest deliverable for which the manager is holding the role accountable.? This can take some practice because managers often have not thought through the roles reporting to them in this manner.

The Job evaluation process: 4 Steps Selecting the Occupational Family: The first step is to determine the

appropriate Occupational Family by reviewing the vocational characteristics (the nature and type of work performed) outlined in the Employee Work Profile.

Comparing and Selecting the Career Group: The second step is to compare the Concept of Work capsule that describes the array of work performed in the various Career Group Descriptions to the Employee Work Profile in order to determine the appropriate Career Group.

Comparing and Selecting a Role within a Career Group: The third step is to evaluate and compare the Work Description (position objective; purpose of position; knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies; education, experience, certification and licensure; core responsibilities and special assignments) outlined in the Employee Work Profile to the various Role Descriptions and the factor matrices to determine the appropriate Role.

Comparing to other positions within a Role to ensure consistency: The final step is to confirm the assignment of the position to the Role by checking to make sure that it is consistent with other positions assigned to the same Role Job

Example from the PeopleFit Case Files• Time span interviews with a Marketing Vice President- When

discussing the public relations role that reported to him, he was concentrating on the various PR events and press releases as potential longest tasks.

• These individual tasks all had completion times under three months which, if these were the longest tasks of the role, would point to the role being a level 1 role.

• The manager’s gut was telling him this was a higher level role.• The PR Manager was accountable for building a local network of media

contacts that would ensure frequent coverage of the organization’s “news” and events. This task was plotted at 9 months to 1 year which would make the role a high level 2 role. If the market were bigger or national, this could easily move the role into level 3 with a time span of 1 to 2 years.

• Caveat – Nearly Everyone Misses this Subtlety The First TimeNote that time span of discretion can be used as a measure of ROLE complexity. A role generally will contain multiple tasks. Time span of discretion cannot be used to measure the complexity level of an INDIVIDUAL TASK.

• For example, a CEO task might be to write a 5 year strategic plan. Writing the plan, which is a task, might only take a month.? A ROLE with a time span of discretion of one month is a level 1 role. However, you would not want someone currently operating with level 1 capability writing your 5 year strategic plan. So the writing of that plan would be one of the CEO’s tasks (and a very complex one) but this longest task would likely be the delivery of that plan which has a 5 year time span of discretion.

Crux

• Time span of discretion of the work in a role can be determined by identifying the longest task for which one is held accountable.

• If a role’s longest task is one-month task, the role has a one-month time span of discretion.

• All roles with a one-month time span of discretion are equally complex regardless of whether they are in the same department, organisation or business sector.

• Roles with shorter time spans are less complex, and roles with longer time spans are more complex.

The Benefits of Understanding this Concept:

• Generic, apple-to-apples measure of job complexity.

• Comparison of the relative weights of unrelated jobs - between an organisation’s departments, between competing firms, merging companies, or between jobs within completely different industries or countries.

• Time span provides a universal scale for measuring the complexity level of any given job.

• Objective basis for structuring compensation system

Benefits (contd…)

• Using time span measurements, complexity level of roles can be determined easily and consistently. This knowledge is invaluable to those charged with selection, organisational design, compensation, employee development or succession planning.

• Time span measurements are not only objective, but relatively simple and straightforward. It’s so uncomplicated that many doubt its validity. However, the concept is backed by decades of research including extensive validation studies conducted by the US Army Behavioral Research Center.

Time span of discretion = Length of the longest task = Complexity of work within a role

• Consider this: When a manager is given tasks by his manager, he, in turn, doles out tasks to his subordinates. The tasks a manager delegates cannot span a longer time period than those for which he, himself, is responsible.

• If a manager’s longest task takes one year, he will not be assigning 18-month tasks to his subordinates.

• One usually does not question that any given manager’s job is more complex than the job(s) of any of his subordinates.

• Given this example, it stands to reason that the longest task for which one is accountable gives a measure of the complexity of his job.

Types of Work

• Although time exists along a continuum, research has uncovered specific breakpoints along that continuum which separate varying kinds of work into layers or strata. To use another temperature analogy, take, for example, water or H2O, its 2 components are always the same, but it changes state from ice to water to steam consistently at 0 degrees and 100 degrees.

• Work has also been found to exist in distinguishable states which stratify consistently at time spans of 3 months, one year and so on.

• Different types of increasingly complex works are called for by the jobs that fall into each stratum.

Applications:

Human Capability• Not just anyone can work at any stratum level. Again, we all know

intuitively that some people can handle more complex work than others, but we usually lack a vocabulary and measurement system to describe just how work varies and just who is capable of which kind of work.

• Some people can reliably carry out procedures but do not yet have the ability to anticipate problems. Using the chart above, we could describe this person as having potential capability at a stratum 1 level.

• Someone who could write a sequential plan for creating and implementing a new software package company-wide would have potential capability at least at the stratum 3 level.

Talent Management• As it turns out, one’s ability to handle complexity is not static. It matures

with age in a predictable manner. A way to accelerate the maturation has not yet been found.

• Meaning, if one does not currently have the ability to handle complexity at the level required of a certain position, no amount of training, coaching, or personal mentoring will can change it.

• The person will simply be unable to do the work required by the job until he matures to that level over time. For reasons not yet understood, some people mature to a higher level of capability by the end of their careers.

• This is why Matching People to Jobs some people desire to move up the corporate ladder (high potential mode), and others are content to stay within one job throughout their career (expert mode).

Requisite Organization

• What Behaviors Do Your Management Systems Drive? What Values Do They Telegraph?

• Systems drive behavior and telegraph values. Most management systems within organizations lack coherent integration and create stressful conflicts of interests.

• Because of this, most organizational dysfunction can be traced to deficient systems and not individual employee shortcomings.

• However, most mainstream management models focus on fixing individual employees through training or coaching, rather than addressing systemic issues that drive dysfunctional behavior.

Requisite Organization – A Total System Approach for Integrated Talent Management, Organization Design and

Managerial Leadership

• Requisite Organization is a scientific, total-systems model for organization design, talent management, and managerial leadership backed by decades of research led by the late Dr. Elliott Jaques.

• The model provides a theoretical base and common language for measuring work complexity and human capability that allows for sane-making, systems-level design solutions for organizational effectiveness.

• Use of the model allows organizations to systematically: Match employees to roles that allow for the fullest expression of their

gifts. Match employees to managers who can provide them satiating

leadership. Structure the organization to catalyze free flow of communication and

leadership both vertically and horizontally. Clarify accountabilities and authorities to enable productive work.

Codify effective managerial leadership practices.

• Helping Executives Design Systems and Managers Lead Effectively

PeopleFit uses the Requisite Organization model as a blueprint to help executives design sane-making people systems. Additionally, PeopleFit has translated the model into practical managerial tools and processes to help managers be successful leaders.

• Building Leadership Capability PeopleFit’s requisite consulting and training is carried out in

partnership with your organization’s executive and managerial leadership with an eye toward building your organization’s leadership capability.

• Introduction to Requisite Organization Training– PeopleFit’s interactive course, Performance Diagnostics for Managers, is

also known as Introduction to Requisite Organization. This one-day course introduces participants to the the foundation concepts and principles and provides participants with the opportunity to immediately apply their knowledge to diagnose common organizational performance issues.

• Do Your Systems Help or Hinder Productive Work?– Work is a psychological imperative for humans, and as such it, has the

potential to be a noble, highly-gratifying expression of a unique human soul.Unfortunately, ignorance surrounding work levels and human capability cause organizations to unwittingly thwart and frustrate workers more often than they create conditions for the full expression of their gifts.Call us to begin an integrated approach to organization design, talent management, and managerial leadership today.