What? Why? Where? Who? When?
What is Job Profile Builder?
Job Profile Builder (JPB) is a platform tool within SuccessFactors which is used to create comprehensive job profiles (descriptions) containing multiple different content types such as responsibilities, skills, conditions etc. These explain the job characteristics that are shared across one or multiple positions, which may be in different departments or locations, and therefore provide consistency in job descriptions across your organisation.
The job descriptions are organised into families and roles which form a library that can be utilised and provide a structure to the organisation, allowing for easy determination of the responsibilities of each role. Defining different elements of the job at this level can be useful to distribute the attributes down the hierarchy to the position and employee level, as well as be integrated with other SuccessFactors modules to provide a consistent approach to an employee’s lifecycle and development.
This will, among many other uses, allow customers to identify the skills, competencies, experiences that are required for each role; determine development opportunities; provide recognised and detailed descriptions to candidates and employees; and find the right candidates for new positions or succession.
Why should we use it?
Although there is a lot of upfront work to set this up, it can provide huge benefits in terms of streamlining the system, acting as a link between many of the modules, and further enhancing the functionality of the SuccessFactors system.
There are many benefits to introducing job profiles into your system, some examples are:
- A repository and framework for your job profiles which can be easily updated and kept in a familiar and navigable structure.
- Consistency across modules as information from JPB is shared between them, meaning not having to duplicate effort, less chance of missing information and content being uniform across the suite.
- Time saving is achieved as information will auto populate, admin and managers will be able to complete processes much quicker and utilise their time on more meaningful tasks.
- Improving the employee experience by showing value to roles in the organisation and refining employee development opportunities.
Where is it used?
JPB integrates with several SuccessFactors modules and with each release its functionality extends further. Below are some examples of how JPB information is utilised by other modules.
- Employee Central – Information from JPB that is assigned to the employee’s job code can be included on the employee profile, such as a link to the job profile itself, skills ratings, and competency ratings.
- Recruiting – Information in the job profile can be included in the requisition as well as in the advert content that is seen by candidates. Competencies and interview questions included in the job profile can be assessed at interview stage.
- Performance and Goals – Competencies that are mapped to job families and roles can be included in performance forms for assessment by employee and manager during review periods.
- Succession – Skills and competencies are analysed to determine who would be a suitable replacement for a role should an employee leave the company.
- Learning – Courses could be assigned based on competencies that are defined against the employee’s job code.
- People Analytics – Ability to include JPB information in reports and stories.
Who benefits from this?
Setting up JPB will benefit all users of the system in different ways. Some examples are:
HR and managers will benefit from information being automatically populated in various administrative tasks, saving them time by preventing the need to duplicate effort. This will also provide more consistency to reporting and analysis as they compare information across their workforce.
Employees will benefit as they can see the skills and competencies they need to improve or keep up to date through performance measures and learning items. Not only will employees see that their role in the organisation is acknowledged, but they will also see that they too are recognised and valued as they can get insight into what they can do to improve but also where their career might take them.
In addition to the above, some businesses like to work with their employees to build their job profiles, or they may be in a regulated industry where they are required to provide proof that employees understand their role. In this case there is a feature called ‘Job Profile Acknowledgement’ which can be configured so that employees review and confirm the profile when it has been created or changed.
Potential candidates will also benefit as they will see defined requirements for the role, as well as be impressed that there is structure to your recruitment process. An optional feature to recruiting management that can also be installed is ‘Job Analyzer’ which scans the description elements used in your profile for potential bias as well as recommended skills to include. These insights will help make your job profiles more attractive to the candidate. Note this is a free feature which can be installed through the Upgrade Centre within Admin Centre, but these elements are currently only available for English language (UK and US).
When should we start using this?
As soon as possible!
Ideally, customers would focus on implementing JPB as they work through implementing SuccessFactors as a suite rather than a later point in time, as this will bring forward the realisation of benefits and not be deemed another (later) radical change by your workforce. There are specific modules where it really comes into its own though such as recruitment, performance and goals, and succession so if taking a phased approach, it may be worth considering as you come to implement these modules in particular.
However, implementing JPB itself is not an insignificant amount of work and could be considered a project in its own right. If there isn’t a structure already in place for job profiles in your organisation then there will be a level of planning required with your HR team to determine how things such as the job family library, skills and competencies library, content of profiles etc. should be considered. Even if you do have this in place then it may be a good opportunity to perform a review. The effort and time this takes will obviously depend on the size and nature of your organisation, and whether you have the resources available. Note however, that there are also some import features in the system that could help to make the task a bit easier, should you have an existing structure available.
It is never too late though, and even starting off with the basics, such as basic free text job descriptions, can be a big step forward in providing a better user experience and more consistency within the system.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this article helps you somewhat in gaining an understanding of job profile builder and deciding on whether to utilise its features or not. Understandably, it may have scared you off due to the effort you feel may be required, or alternatively provoked thoughts that would make it a worthwhile challenge for you to accomplish. There is definitely an element of short-term pain for long-term gain here.
Personally, I see JPB as a great tool to use, especially if you are going to use recruiting as it will speed up that process indefinitely. Something I am very keen on and interested in is user experience and improving it where we can (as you will have seen from my previous articles). We need to be able to use a system easily and with confidence, whilst also progressing tasks quickly and accurately, freeing up our time for more meaningful work. JPB is absolutely something that assists with this, so I encourage you to think about implementing it in some form, in your system.
Stay tuned for a follow up article where I will describe key steps involved in configuring Job Profile Builder (the ‘How’).