Most business organization structures have complex mechanisms. The founders of the company are busy, but they also care about governing the organization and leading it towards success. The responsibilities should be shared among various employees considering various factors. But, the common motive should be the growth of the company. For that, the organizations need to have well-organized Levels of Employees.
Need For Employee Levels
Under employee levels, different employees get provided with different positions and benefits according to their skills, passion, and experience. Work and responsibilities are distributed among those levels to ensure the smooth functioning of the organization.
Here are some reasons to have different employee levels:
- To Distribute The Roles And Impacts
It acts as a way to show the external people and other stakeholders how the employees contribute to the organization. They have to look after the daily operations as well as the long-term goals of the company. Employers should clearly explain the expectations, responsibilities, and impacts to the employees before hiring them. Employers should look for employees with complementary skills.
- To Determine The Salary And Experience For A Position
Making separate employee levels helps the HR managers to understand what experience should an employee have to work with certain responsibilities at a certain level and the rewards (salary) to be given for the same.
- For The Growth Of The Employees
The levels assigned to the employees help the managers to decide when to boost them to move to a higher level, provide more responsibilities, trust them, and pay accordingly.
- Attracting The Eligible Candidates
Though employers cannot hunt for skillful candidates personally, they can declare the employee levels so that the candidates who find a match between the job requirements and their interests, and can come forward for an interview. This saves the recruiter’s time and allows them to choose the best candidates.
- To Handle The Issues Smoothly
Someone has to be responsible to handle a problem in case if it occurs. Separating the employees according to the levels allows the fellow employees to report to a senior if they cannot handle the problem. The senior has to consider the reports and arrive at a decision.
- To Create A Medium Of Communication
The top-level employees like the executives won’t directly communicate regarding the company’s matters with the managers or entry-level employees regularly. Thus, the employees at one level are in charge of the employees directly under them, and this goes on. Employees at one level are answerable to the employees at the next higher level. The orders go down the employee level hierarchy whereas, the requests and reports go up the hierarchy.
Employee Levels
Level 1: Top-Level Employees
Their positions include:
- Chief marketing officer.
- Chief Operating Officer (COO).
- President.
- Vice President (VP).
- Chief financial officer (CFO).
- Chief Information Officer (CIO).
- Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
- Senior Executives.
- Chief technology officer.
Background required:
- They should have experience of more than 10 years in the related field.
- A Master’s degree in Business Administration.
Their responsibilities include:
- To provide interaction between the Board of Directors and the stakeholders such as investors.
- Setting a vision and growth strategy for the company.
- Supervising the financial growth of the company.
- Attracting eligible candidates to fill the mid-level positions.
- Creation and maintenance of short-term and long-term goals for their teams.
- To set the advertising and sales techniques, training, and pricing the products.
- Controlling the mid-level management.
- Setting main milestones and a direction for the organization.
Level 2: Middle-Level Employees
Their positions are:
- Regional Manager.
- Plant Manager.
- Program Director.
- General Manager.
- High-Level Adviser.
- High-Level Analyst.
- Director, Senior Director, and Creative Director.
- Business System Analyst.
Background required:
- An employee or a candidate should have experience of 8 to 10 years of working in the same or related field.
- These employees might get promoted from level 1, or the organization may hire new eligible candidates.
- Employees at this level should have an in-depth understanding of the theoretical and practical applications of related concepts.
Their responsibilities include:
- Report to the level 1 employees.
- Motivate and support the level 3 employees.
- To supervise the business locations, divisions, or teams under them.
- To listen to the employees at level 3 and advise the employees at level 1 and vice versa.
- To ensure that the overall style and quality of the product are according to the organization’s needs by synchronizing with the professional design team.
- To look after the budget and operations of the programs assigned to them.
- They have the authority to hire and fire the team members.
Level 3: First-Level Employees
Their positions are:
- Team leader.
- Hotel manager
- Office Manager.
- Supervisor.
- Project manager.
- Marketing manager.
- Construction superintendent.
- Senior professional.
- Superintendent.
Background required:
- A four-year degree or related certification, and experience of 5 to 7 years in the related field.
- These employees may come from Level 4 through promotion or maybe hired externally.
- They must have a thorough understanding of the procedures used.
Their responsibilities include:
- They are a common point of contact to most of the employees of the company belonging to various levels.
- Meeting various stakeholders to discuss the project progress, and create cost estimates for the same, and arrange necessary materials.
- To supervise the hiring of new team members for every project under him/her.
- To evaluate the campaigns, make plans to reach the audience, and improve related strategies continuously.
- Collecting data from the team and collaborating with the members to make related plans.
- To actively take part in the hiring and development process.
- They are responsible for maintaining the budget.
- They have to keep a record of daily activities, create cost estimates for the projects.
Level 4: Intermediate-level Employees
Their positions are:
- Human resources (HR) assistant.
- Sales manager.
- Analyst.
- Crew leader.
- Coordinator.
- Logistics coordinator.
- Shift supervisor.
- Department manager.
Background required:
- They should have specialized training and work experience of 3 to 5 years in a related field.
- Industrial work experience is a must for this position. They can be promoted from level 5 or can be hired externally.
- They should have experience of working with the systems and procedures.
Their responsibilities include:
- They don’t have to supervise anything but, they should have the knowledge and industrial work experience.
- To monitor and complete statistical analysis of the data.
- To compress the analyzed data into readable reports. They have to maintain the necessary documentation for the projects under them.
- Understanding the main factors that affect business decisions.
- They can actively participate in the hiring process and may also train the employees.
- They may also need to communicate with customers and other mid-level stakeholders directly.
Level 5: Entry-Level Employees
Their positions are:
- Staff member.
- Associate.
- Representative.
- A computer programmer or a developer.
- Accountant.
Background required:
- These candidates can have experience of fewer than 3 years in the relevant field or even no experience.
- A graduation certificate is needed as the entry-level employees can be the recently graduated candidates too.
- Many organizations provide them with on-the-job training.
Their responsibilities include:
- They may have to listen to the customers, answer them, and provide related information.
- To call or meet the clients personally and sell the company’s products.
- They also have to maintain the client information and related documents.
- They may get an additional advantage of commissions according to their performances.
- They cannot spend on anything without the approval of their seniors. They are also not responsible for maintaining the budget.
- They hardly have any power for making decisions and are closely supervised.
Basis For Separating The Employee Levels
In small-scale organizations, an employee may have to perform various duties that could be performed by multiple employees but this cannot happen in large-scale organizations.
The HR team and the executives (to a certain extent) are responsible for separating the employee levels. Before approving the employee levels, few factors should be considered.
- Easy communication:
Top-level employees may make changes in various business plans. Related employees must get informed about the same. Thus, the employee levels help the top-level executives to send specific instructions only to particular teams. Even the low-level employees may feel comfortable getting instructed by their direct seniors instead of directly getting instructed by the executives.
- Employee growth:
Separating the employee levels makes everyone notice the contribution and responsibilities of an employee towards the company. Better performing employees should get promotions, more responsibilities, more salary, and other benefits. But the employees with no good performance will get stuck at the same level or may get terminated. Thus, the employees will give and take according to their capabilities.
- Reflection of growth:
Small companies generally don’t have many employee levels whereas, the employee levels increase with an increase in the organization’s growth. The responsibilities and positions provided to the employees reflect the work done by the organization, the contribution of the employees, and the growth of the organization.
- Job requirements:
Many jobs need to be handled only by certain professionals. Creating various employee levels means choosing the right ones to handle certain responsibilities and perform specific tasks. The right employee can be chosen according to his/her contribution to the company over the past years, experience, interests, and skills. As the employees get paid for their duties, the recruiters should ensure that the employees are worth it.
Challenges in defining the employee levels
- Employee levels apply only to the organization that created them. If the organization wants to establish new employee levels, it has to compare with the pre-existing employee levels minutely. Providing the same set of responsibilities and rights to more than one employee level may create a mess.
- Many employees might not feel satisfied with the employee level allocated to them. They might not find a match between their qualities and their employee level. This can lead to conflicts or resignations.
- The employees may also think of getting rewards according to their work. But, if they are being rewarded according to their employee level, they may feel that the organization does not value them. It may result in a turnover.
- The organization may have to increase the salaries of the employees to encourage them to work more. It brings additional expenditures for the company. If they decide to compete with their competitors, it may cost more.
- It may also create differences among the employees if one level constantly keeps on dominating the other. This can be handled by knowing the authorities and duties of the related employee levels.
Conclusion
A typical organization has various activities to be done for its smooth running. All of those activities cannot be done by only one person. Thus, the activities are distributed among the members who can give their best in doing them. Generally, a top-down hierarchical approach is used to run the organization smoothly. Everyone will get a chance to speak according to the employee level. It helps the organization to listen to every perspective without creating a mess.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What Are The Steps To Setup The Employee Levels?
Answer:
- Collaborating with the right people:
To create the employee levels, the individual should collaborate with the respective leaders who know the strategic goals related to their work.
- Stating the expectations:
Expectations should be stated clearly for every employee level according to various factors such as responsibilities, skills, experience, and much more.
- Everything should be made clear:
From top to bottom, every employee in the organization should be informed about the planned employee levels.
- Being on track:
It is natural to go off track with the passing time. The planners should ensure that their procedure goes as per the expectations. Changes must be done if they are needed anytime.
- Effective communication:
An effective communication method should be established across various employee levels. For example, the executives cannot directly communicate with the entry-level employees regularly in a large organization. The orders should go through multiple employee levels down the hierarchy.
- What Salaries Can The Employees At Different Levels Expect?
Answer:
- Entry-Level employees: $35,000 to $50,000 per annum.
- Intermediate-Level employees: $35,000 to $80,000 per annum.
- First-Level employees: $50,000 to $90,000 per annum.
- Mid-Level employees: $60,000 to $120,000 per annum.
- Top-Level employees: $120,000 to $170,000 per annum.
- How to apply for a specific employee level or position?
Answer:
The applicant can be from the same organization, from another organization, or a fresher. The candidate has to first go through the job requirements officially mentioned by the organization. Then, the candidate has to ensure that his/her skills match the requirements of the position he/she is applying for. The candidate should also look at various aspects such as the salary, benefits, perks, promotions, contract, physical location, branches of the company, and much more. After finding a match, the candidate should ensure that the required position is still vacant and then apply as instructed on their official website. The candidate may also contact the organization to clear the doubts.
