Good architecture you hardly notice at all. It is feng shui for your organization.
Your job architecture is the structure that guides and supports the workings of your company. Good architecture you hardly notice at all. It is feng shui for your organization. Calm, orderly processes, a sense of fairness, wheels spinning as they should.
When looking at bad architecture, remember that bad is still better than none. The worst possible architecture is no architecture at all. Bad architecture, however, shows up in unexpected ways. It is a structural problem, manifesting as lack of consistency and fairness. Be on the lookout for these symptoms. They indicate you have weak areas in your architecture. Like all symptoms they are best cured by addressing the underlying problem.
1: Title inflation
Is there a battle for titles in your company? Your company needs a consistent language and methodology for levelling and manage titles. If titles are negotiable with the line manager, you end up with title inflation. Employees cross their fingers, hoping to win the lottery of titles. This will directly undermine role clarity. With titles follows expectations, also expectations of pay.
2: Salary inflation
Lack of clear structure leads to deterioration of consistent salary policies. Instead of salary levels determined by performance and aligned with the market, they become dependent on negotiation skills in a free-for-all fragmented process. This leads to rising salaries and, ironically, also decreasing motivation.
3: Low engagement.
Lack of fairness, consistency and clarity leads to increased dissatisfaction and reduced trust in company policies. Clarity and fairness are one of the key values employees look for when choosing their employer – whether it is to stay or to go somewhere else.
4: Gender pay gaps
Lack of consistency in pay policies often leads to systemic inequality in pay levels, even in companies where no perceptible gender bias exists. Introduce clear architecture with good governance and the problem soon goes away.
5: Lack of consistency, agility, and foresight in People processes.
Most company-wide operations become more sluggish and less effective without a well-designed architecture. Lack of ordered company-wide overview makes identifying future staffing needs difficult and inaccurate.