By Dr Rabindra Karna

It is common for any business to have clarity about customer expectations in the beginning as it goes through continuous modification process with the development into the market. It is equally vital to have right people in the organisation to ensure genuine and all accepted services to the customer who literally is the guarantor of success or cause of failure for any business. Simultaneously, it would be critically difficult for people resources to deliver customer satisfaction without clarity about their jobs or expectations from them. Similarly, it would not be possible for HR practitioners or leaders to describe individual jobs without knowing the nature of a job, job family, size of a job and position tagging etc. To meet business objectives, people resources are the key. For an effective and efficient organisation, well developed people bearing clarity about services (individual and organisational) are required to deliver in terms of their contribution to the business.

To begin the process of building effective people organisation, a business needs to step ahead with a “job map”. A job map is considered as a bifurcation of jobs into its process steps. Job mapping is also defined as a process of classification systems where positions are classified based on job profiles under occupational group and sub groups. A job map does not describe all expectations; it rather defines broader expectations used in the process of detailing individual job description. Thus, job mapping is a process to compile information and generate database of available and possible jobs in an organisation, for its efficient functioning. As a result of the process, position titles, job profiles and descriptions along with performance matrix becomes consistent. Job mapping also supports grouping of jobs into logical order inside job families and tied to the external market. In gist, a job map does not describe what an organisation is doing; it instead details the opportunities for enhancements in terms of building an effective and progressive institution.

The job mapping process necessitates engagement of people resources at various levels. There are enough researches showing compulsion of resources engagement that supports communication process and contributes to success in implementing change. Management scientists too have suggested that all jobs require 7Ds i.e. design, define, determine, display, diagnose, develop and deliver. It has also been confirmed by researches that people in general waste about 20 per cent of their time in obtaining clarifications on incomplete instruction and correction works by redoing tasks that went wrong. Job mapping enables the clarity at a desired level through defining and identifying problem areas. Once a problem is diagnosed, a solution to the problem automatically gets acknowledged and helps plan and introduce improved processes. Job mapping enables us to clarify, examine and develop improvements through role clarity, reduced duplication, agreement on common processes and achieving optimum efficiency by effective distribution and utilisation of resources. While analysing a job map in a structured way, one can easily identify the process improvements. The need becomes that of defining current task and schedules of the business before deeper identification. Hence, it is widely suggested to adopt the critical examination method and examine a whole lot of tasks and assignments to conclude the total outline of a job. A job map remains incomplete till the competency map is derived for any organisation. It essentially requires incorporation with job evaluation, recruitment and placement, skills enhancement needs and process etc.

The point to remember is: competency must be considered as behaviour rather than ability or skills and ensure that the competency mapping results into job evaluation. Therefore, defining critical business needs is one of the tools to have error free job map. It would be imperative to define and describe current process and issues, customer needs, business boundaries/limitations, business objectives etc and then determine the overall job map. The team assigned with mapping tasks also needs to identify multiple inefficiencies and obstacles in the process.

This necessitates evaluation of advantages and disadvantages of change intended into an organisation. Job mapping, though, has many advantages such as improved people performance contributing to improved business results, promotion of team spirit by defining interlink between different functions, departments and work groups. It also works as an effective educational as well as communication tool that have a huge impact in improving interpersonal relations within an organisation. Simultaneously, it also has the limitation of getting dependent on a small group of people on projects that restricts the representation in a wider perspective.

However, this disadvantage can be eliminated by inviting views and comments from larger work groups through circulation of the draft to ensure error free mapping. It is further recommended by many management scientists to distribute preliminary job map to each individual in the taskforce to review and then expand distribution to each functional team for their review and comment. These teams can meet at various levels to confirm that each job has been captured accurately and obtain recommended changes felt by the reviewer/reviewing team. This should be considered as an opportunity to seek input from many people at different stages and inviting their ideas as well as participation in the process.

All the feedback that is received, taken in positive light, can help in revising the map and support preparation of the final documents that is now ready for use in the desired and chosen application. However, to ensure a successful mapping, it is suggested to have a duly defined project plan detailing critical business need, analysis of current status and processes, new designs and implementation etc. To conclude, a job map gives companies a framework to discover opportunities that differentiate their offerings and get jobs accomplished perfectly by its employees to satisfy the customer need.

It also helps businesses to create breakthrough products and services through practicing innovations that makes the destinies of businesses within comfortable reach. Job mapping is ultimately a versatile and valuable tool for improving people (individual) and organisational performances. It offers a straight forward work requirement that enables good performances by elimination of obstacles, for employees to perform.