Can you justify your job title? (BBC news online)

February 26th, 2010

Instead of “what do you do?” today this question may be phrased in a subtly different form: “what’s your job title?” The answer may be as clear as mud, for 21st Century job titles can be a verbal minefield.

Job title inflation is everywhere. Last week the Plain English Campaign received a local authority job advert from a member of the public for a “person-centred transition facilitator”. “We debated for hours what this means. It might be a social worker dealing with disabled children?” says a spokesman. Other examples from its files include ambient replenishment controller and regional head of services, infrastructure and procurement. Also known as shelf stacker and caretaker. And in her review of 2009, the Financial Times columnist Lucy Kellaway awarded job title of the year to a journalism student whose business card read “Life explorer, multimedia storyteller, experience architect”.
While some achieve absurd job titles all by themselves, others have absurdity thrust upon them. Newspapers’ job adverts reveal a muster station of longwinded titles from the jargonistic – transformation project manager (reablement) – to the comically contradictory – head of offending services – or the downright weird – generic DIP practitioner.

One might argue that at a time of economic crisis, job titles are irrelevant – all that matters is having a job. And a new title – particularly if it signals extra responsibility – can make an employee feel more valued in the absence of a salary rise. Natalie Evans, deputy director of the thinktank Policy Exchange, believes complicated job titles are bad for society. “I’m somewhat sceptical that giving someone a ridiculous job title will make a difference to the value we see in our job. It can mean people aren’t clear on what they’re supposed to be doing. And it undermines public trust because we can’t find out whom to talk to at an organisation.”
Because of the pressure on public finances, the more bizarre job titles may disappear. “There’ll be a sharper focus on what people do and their titles. Both the private and public sector will have to focus on core business. So it may be these jobs will simply cease to exist.”

But Stephen Overell, associate director of the Work Foundation, says the days of the self-evident career – the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker – are all but gone. “The reason these titles are changing is because work is becoming more cognitively complex and developing its own structure and jargon. And common experience is becoming rarer as companies try to find niches and grow increasingly specialised.”
Yet there is another crucial factor at play. Status, and the desire to flatter. “It’s often things like ‘partnership relationship manager’, a job that might once have been done by a secretary, so there’s title inflation at work.”
The Plain English Campaign notes the increasing number of jobs carrying the suffix “officer” in the past 20 years, particularly among public sector workers.

But does it matter? “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that at an individual level,” says Mr Overell. “But at a general level it tends to confuse, to make things opaque that ought to be made simple.” He holds one group responsible. “Human resources are the worst miscreants. They’re often responsible for escalating the jargon on their own jobs. I remember one HR manager whose title was ‘talent and transformation country manager’ and another ‘vice president HR (employment relations, outsourcing and change)’.”

But Angela Baron, of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, says long titles seek to explain what a worker actually does. “People can get very emotional about their job titles if it doesn’t reflect their level of seniority or responsibility. All sorts of menial jobs have quite sophisticated titles to make them feel their jobs are important. So on the Newcastle Metro, ticket inspectors are now called revenue protection officers. It has made their jobs sound more important – and why not?”

However, such an approach leaves employees open to ridicule. It takes one back to the Victoria Wood sketch in which Hugh Laurie’s pompous character – demoted to working in the canteen – exclaims: “I’ve a challenging new role… I’m very much looking forward to delivering popular yet high quality toast.”

Indeed, job titles seem to be in danger of slipping into parody, says Mr Overell. Take David Brent, the poster boy for management jargon. Ricky Gervais’s creation understood the importance of one’s job title. Whenever his subordinate Gareth Keenan introduced himself as “assistant regional manager”, Brent would interject “assistant to the regional manager”.

But Ian Jack, the former editor of literary magazine Granta, says the tide may be turning against work that spawns woolly titles. “Nowadays you might ask if a lot of paid work is strictly necessary. We’ve had such a false belief in the service industries that we have all kinds of esoteric functions like ‘head of access and enrichment’. If we can’t understand it after five minutes of thought, what does that say?”

So two trends – the shortage of skilled craftspeople, and the huge cost of expanding higher education – may start to change the very nature of work. “The great pressure on the public purse means the target of getting 50% of school leavers to go to university has gone forever.” For Mr Jack – who left school and got a job on the local paper – that’s nothing to mourn. He complains of a Britain in which “the products of long educations sit on trains fiddling with symbols on their laptop screens or making self-important calls to say they are running late for the meeting”.
The new economic reality, and a revival of trades and crafts, could begin to reverse that – and perhaps rehabilitate the humble but proud one-word job title. “For me ‘reporter’ has always been the finest job description you could have,” he says.

Entry Filed under: Social policy, UK reportage