Job Families at the University of Manchester
Job families are groups of roles, from across the university, with similar characteristics that have knowledge, skills and experience requirements in common. They may be found within existing structures e.g. directorates or schools, or span functional areas i.e. roles from one family may appear in a range of different teams.
Job families describe the requirements of roles at different levels/grades and allow individuals to see what is expected of them (at the next level in their job family or in another job family) and line managers to relate to person specifications.
They create a matrix which offers:
- Vertical integration in terms of leadership and delivery of function-specific activities.
- Horizontal integration: allows identification of relationships between skill sets, qualifications and experience and therefore the identification of similar roles in a range of settings.
They provide a foundation for workforce planning by highlighting structural anomalies and skills gaps.
Benefits of Job Families
|
Bring together apparently disparate groups and allow identification and alignment of similar roles in a range of settings |
Enable career progression conversations by highlighting developmental pathways both vertically and diagonally |
|
Set out the development path of an occupational group in a transparent manner |
Facilitate career development by identifying transparent career pathways |
|
Allow greater workforce agility through identifying linked or related roles across directorates and faculties |
Enable more detailed gap analysis of skills and knowledge within the existing workforce |
|
Support retention, reduce regrettable turnover and enable benchmarking against commercial market sectors |
Support decision making around attraction strategies, professional development expenditure and career progression |
|
Create efficiency gains by reducing the need for full job evaluation of every role |