The Difference a Role Profile Makes

The blog is a follow-up to the one I wrote the other day on Role Profiling – Does it have any value? In this blog I asked myself the question:

• Does a role profile really make a difference to an organisation?

This blog ought to be one of those with loads of links to other people’s thoughts and ideas, but actually I didn’t find much on blogs to link to, and it was difficult to know which of the web sites could be regarded as authoritative. I do, however, have access to Books 24×7 which is great for getting access to information when you need to read published literature which comes with a certain level of authority. I used to dislike the online reading experience, but I am becoming more comfortable with it. All I need know is a tablet and then I can read in a format which is more like the book format.

Anyway, here are the results of my research.

Role profiles are a tool, and people use tools for many things, sometimes correctly, sometimes incorrectly – to the man with a hammer every problem is a nail. Where this particular tool works well is in a situation where there is a clear definition of the business objectives. The role profile being linked to those business objectives. In making this clear link the contents of the role profile doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone because the objectives are already known, understood and owned by everyone in the enterprise.

The role profile’s job is to communicate what the company regards as important for a particular role, with a clear link to the objectives. And that is where it gets really interesting as far as I am concerned, because many companies then connect a role profile with a salary and seniority. But actually that shouldn’t be it’s job, that is using the hammer to fix a screw. Especially when related to the type of organisation that I work for.

I work for a knowledge organisation, the knowledge is the organisation. As such, one of our key objectives should be to be a learning organisation. We need to keep renewing the knowledge assets, in the same way as a car company or a mobile phone company needs to keep refreshing the product. In refreshing the assets though, we need to know what the attributes of the assets are that are important to our customers (existing and potential) so that we have something to sell. That is where the role profile could come in as a tool to help us to understand the knowledge assets that the company wants to build in us, and then to sell to our customers.

But this isn’t just for the companies benefit. As an employee I gain value in two ways. Firstly I gain the knowledge assets. The assets are built in me. You can have a whole debate about IPR if you like, but I can’t take this knowledge out of my head. Secondly, I gain, because I have a clear understanding of my value to the company. And this is where salary and seniority should come in, but not as a direct result of the Role Profile, but as an assessment of my value to the organisation.

Where organisations have managed to define clear objective and to communicate them through a role profile or similar mechanism they have managed to build a learning culture which is focussed on delivering the assets that others want to buy.

I’m not going to comment here on how my own employer is doing on this.