Creating a worldwide referential project Contribution Matrix

Interview with Olivia Zappala, Corporate Human Resources Development Specialist

We are moving towards a global job reference system, with common job titles and descriptions, and a harmonized job evaluation process.

Initiated by the France Human Resources (HR) department, and then rapidly adopted by Italy HR, the Contribution Matrix Project is now being rolled out worldwide. The project consists of developing generic job descriptions by job family. The main contributions of a job function are listed and described by level of responsibility, making a matrix. The various roles are then evaluated, following the Hay methodology, which we already use across all our sites.

The project aims to:

• Simplify and harmonize our job description / evaluation process by replacing individual job descriptions with generic, pre-evaluated ones which will become the HR reference. This will help local evaluation committees become more efficient
• Guarantee homogeneous job grading and job evaluation between sites and countries. For managers of multicultural teams, this is crucial to ensure a fair job grading system
• Avoid confusion between job evaluation and recognition. Job grade is too often perceived as a means of recognition
• Develop a more accurate job function database that will give us a benchmark, both within ST and with the external market
• Obtain a thorough knowledge and analysis of all the jobs and an overview of how they are spread within the organization, to highlight potential discrepancies and use this information for managerial
  decision making.

The current status

We have put together a list of all job families and descriptions of them, and we have evaluated the associated levels. We are now integrating this information into our HR Information Systems to reflect the changes. We are involving all our HR offices and giving them training so they can relay the tool effectively to managers and employees, who are, of course, the real beneficiaries of the new system.

What we will end up with:

• A worldwide job reference system (by family and level)
• A career ladder with three paths: technical, project management and managerial, highlighting the career steps
• A structured and harmonized worldwide headcount reporting system.

And the next steps for 2007?

We will be linking the technical and functional competency information to the updated job reference system.