Employee Value proposition

Jeffrey Joerres and Dominique Turcq think that classifying employees by their role in the success of business rather than by their function can improve the effectiveness of recruiting, staff development, and deployment.

Strategic approach to managing the value of employees first requires a definition of the roles that must be performed on the corporate “stage.” This means creating taxonomy of jobs within the corporation that is consistent across business units, countries, and functions and is totally divorced from any of the individuals working at these jobs. As far as the organization is concerned, an employee is first and foremost expected to fulfill a function, with a number of tasks for which a number of skills are required. Some of these tasks are technical and some are related to the employee’s relationships with coworkers and outside agencies.

Certain jobs have a greater value impact on an organization (see Exhibit); there is a substantial risk to financial performance or reputation if these tasks are not performed well. In some cases, but not all, these jobs merit higher compensation. Other roles carry a significant cost impact, because they require a good bit of training, development, and skill complexity to be performed adequately. These roles almost always command the highest salaries in the organization.