Titular Realities
Imagine you saw a job offer that tickled your fancy. It was “right up your street”. Nice package, ideal location, matches your work experience perfectly.
But what is the job title? Does is matter if everything else is OK? Would it seriously affect your applying? Consider the following baker,s dozen job titles in alphabetical order: Administrator; Advisor; Business Partner; Coach; Counsellor; Consultant; Director; Facilitator; Head; Lead; Manager; Officer; Team Leader. Of course, if you are an American the whole puzzle has been happily solved. All are Executive Vice Presidents. All chiefs; no Indians. But this, fortunately, England.
Does it really matter what you are called? What determines an organisation’s choice of title terminology? Does it have PR or HR or IR consequences?
Administrator sounds dull, bureaucratic, passive. It’s hard to think of administrators as sexy, or dynamic, or proactive. Adviser is more disinterested, more consultant-like. You go to advisers only in need: they are not central to the exercise. And don’t only ditherers need advice? Hardly a core-sounding job.
Business Partner sounds OK, but a trifle ambiguous. Why are you partnering rather than running? Is your job to inject business reality to those less concerned about it? Clearly a term useful only in specific circumstances.
And Coach? Some organisations have internal coaches not expensively paid managerial fashion accessories who try a couple of hours of therapy once a month. The aim perhaps is to suggest it is the (primary) job of the manager to teach, enthuse, inspire and motivate their staff.
Counsellor is quite posh. Senior diplomats are called Counsellors. But this is far too easily confused with the non-directive, tea-and-sympathy person who listens to your woes. Hardly the image for a thrusting, successful, dynamic business.
Consultant? Enough said: a simple organism designed to translate bullshit into air miles. Failed middle managers put out to grass and trying to redevelop themselves. Too many of them. Too loaded a term.
Director is the business: on the board; amongst the grown-ups; the top table. Directors tell others what to do. Grander than manager and, therefore, surely the most attractive of the job titles available.
Facilitator sounds too non-job, temporary. Focus groups and training courses are facilitated by extraverted, disinhibited types whose sole purpose seems to be to get you “going” on some issue. Hardly the job for a serious grown up.
Head is OK. It says you are the boss. The buck stops with you. Lead is slightly different – not as common, but clearly the one in charge. But at what level?
Manager is the most common term. So common, in fact, that most organisations distinguish between junior, middle and senior managers. Some organisations have as many as 80% of the staff with the term manager in their title. From ‘Assistant Manager’ to ‘Manager’s Assistant’ and from the perplexing ‘Manager’ of Special Projects’ to ‘Executive Manager’. Boring and ever more confusing. Surely one could do better.
Surprisingly many non-military organisations use the term Officer. It is not clear if they are commissioned or uncommissioned; field-rank or not. There are officers and men. Above and below the salt. Those who command and those who obey. Bit stuffy; bit old-fashioned; bit public-sector for some. Team Leader is very unmilitary. First among equals; egalitarian, democratic, consultative.
So whence the choice? The history of the organisation perhaps. Thus just as ‘staff department’ became ‘personnel’, became ‘human relations’, became ‘people department’ – so an ‘officer’ became an ‘administrator’, became a ‘manager’ became a ‘coach’. History, restructuring, the use of consultants, maverick CEOs, and even the PR machine may have an input into how jobs are titled.
But they do make a difference. They affect how people see themselves. They influence others’ expectations of what people do and how they do it. In many ways they reflect values just as much as mission statements and “vision thingies”.
So next time the organisation restructures and ‘rattles your cage’ think of the messages that are sent and received when new job titles arise and old ones are quietly forgotten. It is much more important than you may think.
