Job Architecture: A Gateway to the Skills Economy

There is little debate that the global workforce is experiencing seismic shifts, echoing the upheaval of the First Industrial Revolution. “The boundaries that were once assumed to be the natural order of things — that work can be organized into clearly defined processes; jobs can be categorized and contained wholly within the organization; work occurs within the four walls of the workplace … are falling away,” Deloitte asserts. How work is done today is significantly different from even 10 years ago.

While some companies are calling people back to the office, many others are embracing a remote or hybrid work model — for the long haul. Based on Forbes’ Remote Work Statistics And Trends In 2024 report, 12.7% of full-time employees work remotely and 28.2% work within hybrid models that are even reaching the front lines. And this trend is only growing. According to Upwork, by 2025, 32.6 million Americans will be working remotely, equating to about 22% of the workforce.

With 36% of employed Americans identifying as independent workers, we live in a “freelance, side-hustle, and gig economy,” says McKinsey & Company. In addition to lowering overall labor costs, a healthy mix of contingent workers helps organizations flex and contract the workforce to respond to economic disruptions and meet changing workflow demands. According to Harvard Business Review, there has been a shift to external talent where companies can more easily access a globally distributed workforce using on-demand digital platforms to fill short-term skills gaps.

The growing gig economy indicates that organizations are acquiring new skills and capabilities without adding new full-time employees. According to Gartner’s Future Work Trends report, organizations are accomplishing this through three key areas:

• A focus on internal talent mobility to ensure employees address the priorities that matter most without changes in headcount.
• Stretching and upskilling opportunities for existing employees while meeting evolving organizational needs.
• Alternate approaches, such as leveraging gig workers, flexibly bring in talent only as needed.

Within the same employee mix, organizations are “hiring” current workers for new roles. A great example is Delta Airlines, which has set a long-term goal of filling 25% of corporate and management roles with current customer-facing employees based in its “skills-first” approach. According to Gartner, this “quiet hiring” trend is an antidote to the “quiet quitting” trend that has drawn so much attention.

To do this well, organizations must rethink how to structure teams, delineate career paths, and manage their greatest asset — their people. '“As global forces are coming together to create disruptive change in how work gets done, business and HR leaders are rethinking how they recruit, structure, develop, engage, reward, and retain top talent in the modern workplace,” states Gregory Stoskopf, Deloitte’s Managing Director of Human Capital.

Outdated norms — hierarchical, rigid career frameworks — are at odds with this changing business landscape. According to Josh Bersin's 2024 HR Predictions, ‘“CEOs and CFOs are operating in what we call the ‘Industrial Age’ – hire to grow, then lay people off when things slow down. Well today, as we enter 2024, all that is different. We have to ‘hoard our talent,’ invest in productivity, and redevelop and redeploy people for growth.”’  This sparks the crucial question many organizations are asking today: How can we rebuild career pathing to suit the future of work?

In part two of this two-post series on job architecture, we pose solutions and opportunities for leaders revamping their companies’ career frameworks.

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Job Architecture Design in the Future of Work

In a 2023 World at Work job architecture survey, 41% of participating organizations said they were “currently updating or redesigning ”their job architecture programs — with most companies reporting an estimated six to 12 months for project completion. Unlike the simplistic view of job architecture, which focuses on “retitling” employees and recategorizing workers and teams, today’s job architecture process is far more dynamic.

When Zayo Group, a global telecommunications organization, launched its job architecture project, they knew it would be an epic undertaking. “Making changes to titles and pay is probably the most sensitive thing you can do in any organization, as it impacts your people and is deeply personal. Deliberate change management and full executive alignment and support are critical to success,” said Julie Tschida Brown, Zayo’s Chief People and Culture Officer. “I was fortunate enough to have that, and we ripped the band-aid off and made sure we did it right.”

Here's how Tschida Brown describes the breadth of this project:

“We were like a chaotic interstate. Essentially, we had 12 lanes of traffic: cars and motorbikes and scooters and animals crossing and the whole nine yards. But to scale and integrate new employees and acquisitions, we needed to have common titles and a global pay structure across our 46 acquisitions (at the time).There is no way to get it all perfect, so the disparate pay and titling system is fixed in one fell swoop. But we were able to achieve a huge first step. Let’s call it a ‘superhighway’ — with only four lanes of traffic instead of 12. And we did it in what was an extremely ridiculous timeframe. What should have taken us 18 months we did in about nine.”

To ensure this heavy lift was successful, Zayo focused on two key elements often missing in job architecture initiatives:

1. The close integration of compensation strategies.
2. The use of effective change management and communication strategies.

In the following two sections, we dive into each of these critical elements in more detail.

Scaling Job Architecture & Integrating Compensation

LinkedIn reports that the top reason employees left their jobs in 2023 was to acquire higher-paying employment. Even if employees are paid competitively, they are 50% more likely to leave their jobs if they believe they are underpaid. But when employees can clearly see a path for their career and pay progression, they are much more likely to stay and grow with the organization. This is why, according to Payscale research, pay transparency decreases the intent to leave.

In pursuit of competitive, equitable pay practices and future sustainability, progressive enterprises like Zayo Group are taking these insights to heart. They know that developing clear, transparent frameworks that link compensation, rewards, and promotions can dispel employee confusion and resentment around pay.

“When we jumped into our job architecture project, we wanted first and foremost to be able to look our employees in the eye and say they were paid competitively, ”said Tschida Brown. “We had to establish base pay that was competitive by job and job family and geography, and incentive opportunities that were also competitive. A pay-for-performance environment is fundamental to Zayo. Secondarily and almost equally important, we needed a structure that was scalable for future business needs…And the third piece is that we wanted to have a career framework where we could allow people to grow and seek out both vertical and horizontal opportunities — and help them see what they need to do to grow.”

To design scalability into the framework, Zayo needed first to understand where the business was today. “You have to listen to people. So, as much as we were teaching and training and trying to push this process on a fast timeline, I also had to listen and hear the business so we didn’t make missteps. We had to hear and adapt to make it work for the organization.”

From this framework, Julie and the team approached the project with talent management and compensation expertise at the table, working in parallel. This ensured the job architecture and compensation strategy were informed by both perspectives and fully integrated.

Communication & Change Management Strategies: Critical in Job Architecture

Consultants and internal teams often focus heavily on the technical aspects of a job architecture project while overlooking the emotional impact on employees. But changes in job titles, leveling, and compensation can evoke uncertainty, fear and resistance.

“Titles are sometimes as sensitive, if not more sensitive than pay changes,” Tschida Brown said. Many leaders gain a sense of identity from their titles at work. To be a Senior Vice President one day and told the next day that you have been recategorized as a Director, based on your job responsibilities, is a hard message to receive. Leaders need to process the change for themselves before they can get their teams engaged and on board with the changes.

For a job architecture and compensation strategy project to succeed, managers should be prepared for the “emotional fallout” of job retitling and compensation changes. To balance change and stability, enterprise leaders and managers must integrate empathy with strategy — and foster open dialogue throughout the process.  

From project kickoff to completion, successful job architecture initiatives hinge on clear, transparent communication. “Our jobs are both art and science; it’s important to take the time to talk to people and explain the context of what you’re trying to do. You’ll have a higher rate of success,” said Tschida Brown. “Employees do not need to agree to every aspect of the design, but they need to fundamentally understand it, believe in the end goal, and believe it is equitable.  These components are foundational to employee buy-in and success.”

Potential Pitfalls in Job Architecture Transformation

When organizations are conscious of the key elements of compensation integration and scalability, with a careful surround of change management and strategic communications, they can promote the successful design and implementation of an adaptive career framework.

Organizations also need to be mindful of other areas many project teams miss when implementing a large job architecture project, including:

• Starting with an honest assessment of organizational culture to build an effective change management plan. This includes company values, history with change initiatives, employee and stakeholder engagement levels, and readiness for change.
• Fostering the crucial role of middle managers. A catalyst for connection between senior leaders and the workforce, middle managers speak to a large portion of the workforce about upcoming changes. It’s critical that managers understand and can effectively communicate the drivers for the change while helping employees understand the impact on their roles.
• Building clear, comprehensive, tailored communication plans. Targeting communication by groups and inviting input by positional and stakeholder groups helps ensure those impacted and involved are not only informed about project objectives, timelines, and anticipated outcomes but have the opportunity to provide perspectives and feedback along the way.
• Managing stakeholders and resistance. Active listening allows leadership to understand and address change resistance and open, productive dialogue opportunities. Through strategic stakeholder involvement, the organization can gather input that can be reflected in the design while building buy-in throughout the process.
• Celebrating successes. Recognizing milestones and project successes helps reinforce the positive aspects of job architecture change and can increase adoption.
• Creating turnkey tools for managers.  Once designed, managers will deliver individual messages to employees. Providing them with tools that simplify key messaging and offer clear explanations of change benefits is critical. Tools should also include easy ways for employees to access individual information.
•  Providing training and post-implementation support. Leaders and employees need training throughout the process with ongoing guidance and training after implementation for using the job architecture in career-building conversations and in Individual Development Plans or performance appraisals.
• Continually monitoring and adjusting plans with ongoing feedback mechanisms. Job architecture initiatives are not “one and done. ”Successful career pathing requires continual reevaluation of results, solicitation of stakeholder feedback, and ongoing adjustments. According to World at Work, “You should be able to evolve your career framework, as needed, to meet changes to internal business strategy and the external talent marketplace.
•  Partnering with legal. In a time where job regulations are evolving faster than ever, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the complexities of employment laws and standards. By developing a solid partnership with your organization’s internal or external legal counsel, you’ll ensure you are following all employment laws and regulations in the states and countries that you have employees.

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Looking Forward

Rather than existing as a static framework, job architecture must continually evolve. While it should capture the organization’s needs for today, just as importantly, job architecture builds the organization’s future through interconnected, agile career pathways. As a visual map, a future-focused job architecture framework equips employees to “see” possible paths for their career progression.

Speaking about how Zayo plans to evolve its job architecture and compensation framework, Julie Tschida Brown says:

“We built the large container, the framework, that will allow us to take it to the next level. But we have not yet built out a full career infrastructure, by role and capability, that allows me to look at someone and say: You’re a finance manager, level two, and you want to become a director. Here are the exact three capabilities you need to build and/or things you need to do. We don’t have that in place yet. That’s step two. But we have broad criteria for the kinds of things you need to achieve to move to the next level.

I love Acera Partners’ use of the term ‘agile.’ In the future, I see our job architecture becoming more agile and flexible. In a perfect world, it would be so cool to have sophisticated tooling that allows employees to model their next role based on skills and capabilities. To see — this is where I am and where I want to go and here are the steps to get there. That’s a dream in my head.

We are definitely moving away from how many years of service and degrees people have. Skills and capabilities are broader and more flexible, but that model still needs to be proven. How do people show skills and capabilities? How do we measure — and how do we pay?

From a compensation perspective, I see incentivizing in this area as well. We want to think about skills-based compensation. The main problem I see is that we can’t get good market data on skills today. Compensation data takes us back to that traditional space.”

The future Tschida Brown envisions for Zayo is bright. By moving people around the organization based on skills and capabilities, not just tenure and degrees, Zayo will join the “skills economy.” This will turn the conventional career ladder on its side, opening doors for employees to move across teams and functions based on aptitude and skills.

Tschida Brown’s vision to tie compensation to skill development will also help Zayo accelerate the reskilling and upskilling needed to address market disruptions. This will incentivize employees to continually enhance their capabilities and align career progression with the organization's evolving needs. In addition to the added agility this provides for employees and the organization, it reduces the fear of new, disruptive skills like AI and builds a culture where growth is promoted and celebrated.

While compensation data and skills data are slow to catch up with this vision, this data is at our fingertips today — thanks to the advent of AI. This data just needs to be harnessed and packaged for organizations to integrate into job architecture and career pathing conversations for employees and the organization to reach their full potential.

Job Architecture: A Gateway to the Skills Economy

With the ability to “see” the skills of your workforce, which only two in five of today’s HR leaders recognize, organizations can deploy the right combination of skills against market disruption, creating significant competitive advantages.

Skills maps tied to individuals will also help organizations make better decisions about what roles and skills can be accomplished remotely — and what would be best served within an in-office team setting. Instead of having a “one-size-fits-all” in-office work policy, organizations can create hybrid work policies focused on what skills or project pieces are best served in-office versus remotely. For example, some skills like coding, which require uninterrupted, head-down time for accuracy and speed, may be better served outside an open-concept office of extroverts. However, storyboarding the workflow supported by the code could be valuable for the team to be together to accomplish.

Using a skills lens to tap into the gig economy, organizations can more confidently integrate contract workers based on skills, not roles. In an uncertain economic landscape, where organizations are looking for ways to acquire new skills and capabilities without adding new full-time employees, focusing on skills enables this in a more prescriptive way.  Organizations can also focus a contractor’s contributions on a particular skill set, employing less of their time and avoiding the inevitable overlap of duplicative skills on the team.

According to Harvard Business Review, most born-digital enterprises have already developed global talent ecosystems, giving them substantial strategic advantages. A well-designed, future-focused job architecture based on skills is an organization’s gateway to this talent ecosystem.

Creating Future-Ready Career Frameworks with Acera Partners

Acera Partners is a thought leader and partner in building compensation strategies and agile job architecture that fosters measurable growth for our clients. Learn more about our approach to career framework transformation in part 1 of our job architecture post series — and connect with our team today.