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Job Architecture: Building structure into an evolving world

Unleash the true potential of your organization by modernizing your job architecture. By defining work of equal value and providing clarity on responsibilities and skills, it becomes the blueprint that fosters fairness and transparency. Embrace a future where every employee is empowered to thrive and reach their full potential.
Companies who have a job architecture that meets their business needs average 5%+ shareholder return. 
Source: Mercer’s 2024 Job Architecture Pulse Survey, (n=625)

Unlocking the power of talent:
A modern approach to job architecture

A job architecture serves as a consistent foundation and framework for career progression within an organization. It addresses the issue of fairness, whether it is real or perceived in rewards, which can significantly impact employee engagement. By implementing a job architecture underpinned with job evaluation and skills, organizations can effectively mitigate the risk of unfairness and promote transparency.

A well-designed job architecture provides a transparent and consistent framework for employee development and career advancement. It ensures that all employees have equal opportunities for growth and progression within the organization. In today's dynamic and evolving work environment, where work is structured based on accountabilities and required skills rather than traditional job titles, it is crucial to adopt new approaches in connecting talent to work.

Managing work through a different lens is essential, and job architecture can offer valuable insights and solutions for effectively navigating these changes and optimizing talent utilization. By understanding the evolving nature of work and aligning talent accordingly, organizations can enhance their ability to meet customer demands and drive success. Additionally, job architecture helps organizations establish fair practices, fostering a positive work environment and promoting employee satisfaction and engagement.

Modern job architectures are underpinned by skills to provide agility and fuel performance as organizations transform, a shift that benefits both employers and employees.

Employers

  • Enhances talent outcomes via a seamless and engaging employee experience that boosts engagement and retention
  • Streamlines human resources (HR) processes to improve efficiencies and effectiveness in using HR tech
  • Manages workforce costs by identifying potential areas of ineffective function, job and work design
  • Enables more precise talent investments through identification of business-critical skills and differentiated reward strategies
  • Accelerates workforce planning and analytics by enabling measurement and evaluation of both quantitative and qualitative aspects of jobs and skills
  • Drives compliance strategies for pay transparency, allowing for risk mitigation and streamlined compliance reporting

Employees

  • Clarifies expectations and accountabilities for success in current roles
  • Provides transparency on skills needed for career progression, and ultimately, increased pay
  • Empowers employees to actively manage their career choices by providing visibility into opportunities that align with individual needs and goals
  • Supports individual learning pathways for skill development, goal achievement and job security
  • Fosters trust through transparent and fair criteria for performance, progression and pay
  • Enables recognition and reward for skill attainment aligned to the organization’s needs
When viewed in such a light, a skills-enabled job architecture should sit at the core of every HR strategy, touching on all workforce initiatives. Yet, our research shows that while 76% of organizations have a job architecture, only about 20% of organization include skills in their framework. With fewer than half of organizations, saying their job architecture meets the needs of the business, it’s clear that something needs to change. 

Value unleashed: The new rules of job architecture

The Mercer QuickPulse™ Survey: Job Architecture Edition found that organizations whose job architectures fully met their business needs reaped a return on their investment — on average, these companies provided an additional 5% return per year to shareholders.
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Case Studies

  • Food service organization: Driving retention
    A separate career track was developed for the company’s hourly employees which enabled meaningful differentiation in rewards and recognition and resulted in turnover reductions from 24% to 7% in the first year after implementation.
  • Consumer goods organization: Boosting engagement
    A skills-based approach to talent management drove increased clarity in expectations, targeted development opportunities and greater career perspective, resulting in +60% employee net promoter score (eNPS) score recorded by employees.
  • Professional services organization: Cost management
    A new job architecture was developed and deployed at a financial services organization, which found that 15% of employees were misaligned by one level, with an estimated cost impact representing over 2% of salary.
  • Manufacturing organization: Improved efficiency
    Our work with a manufacturing company discovered that the client’s use of a part-time workforce resulted in $5M compensation savings but losing an estimated $30M in productivity. Marsh partnered with them to redesign the roles to prioritize full-time work.

Related insights

    Modernize your job architecture with Marsh today.

    Speak to our workforce consultants today on designing a fair, equitable and transparent job architecture, powered by skills, so you can motivate your people to grow with you.