Dear Lost at Sea:
Your situation is a common one. I would approach this situation by conducting a job analysis to clearly identify two things: 1) what are the critical competencies for the rep job? 2) What are the key differences between the different job levels?
This will help you gain a complete understanding of performance for all the jobs, as well as help you determine the key factors that someone must possess to move to a higher level job. With this information in hand, you can base all performance management and promotional activities on a solid foundation that provides a clear map of job performance at each level.
Traditionally, job analysis involves the following steps:
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Reviewing job descriptions and training documents.
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Interviewing employees and their immediate supervisors and observing them doing the jobs.
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Creating a first draft of competencies based on the information gathered in the above two steps.
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Verifying your model via a survey administered to incumbents and supervisors.
In many cases a full job analysis study is not feasible due to time and expense constraints. In such cases, you could use theOccupational Information Network, known as O*NET, to learn more about the competencies needed for the job. It would be advisable to then do some of the interviews and observations to verify the model presented by O*NET, and to clearly identify differences between each job level.
Another option is to hire a consultant to help you develop the model. A good consultant can identify critical competencies and help build a performance/evaluation/promotional system to identify reps ready to move to the next level–and help others develop the required skills for advancement.
SOURCE: Charles A. Handler Ph.D., PHR, Rocket-Hire, New Orleans, Louisiana, Jan. 10, 2003.
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The information contained in this article is intended to provide useful information on the topic covered, but should not be construed as legal advice or a legal opinion. Also remember that state laws may differ from the federal law.