Noor Mensah· Global Mobility Manager, Halcyon Financial Group
Asked in Job Architecture & Careers ·
Insurance broker in the UK and Ireland, about 3,400 people, 21 job families. Our data people, roughly 70 across analytics, data engineering and data science, currently sit in the Technology family. Their leader has asked for a separate Data family, arguing that the market, skills and career paths are different.
I have some sympathy. The pay data does show data scientists running 8 to 12% above general technology roles at the same level. But I had the same request from cyber security in the spring and from pricing the year before, and said no to both.
What criteria do you use so that the answer is consistent, and is a sub-family a real alternative or just a family by another name?
11 helpful · 1 agree · 3 replies · 386 views · 6 following
Accepted answer· by Oscar Iversen
We use four questions and the request needs a yes to at least three. Is there a distinct external market we can price? Are there enough people for a path of four or more levels, which in practice means about 40? Would the level criteria differ in substance? And do people mostly build careers inside the group instead of moving in and out? Data probably passes. The useful part is going back to cyber security and pricing with the same four questions. When we did that, one earlier refusal was reversed and the other stood, and both leaders accepted it because they could see the test.
Read in the conversation ↓
Total Rewards Manager, Steinbach Industrie
Sub-family is a real alternative if you define what it can and cannot have. Ours can have its own market reference and its own technical criteria at each level, but it shares the family's level structure, title pattern and governance. That gave our data group the pay differentiation, which was the actual issue, without a new family.
Reward Partner, Aurora Hospitality
Accepted answer
We use four questions and the request needs a yes to at least three. Is there a distinct external market we can price? Are there enough people for a path of four or more levels, which in practice means about 40? Would the level criteria differ in substance? And do people mostly build careers inside the group instead of moving in and out?
Data probably passes. The useful part is going back to cyber security and pricing with the same four questions. When we did that, one earlier refusal was reversed and the other stood, and both leaders accepted it because they could see the test.
Colin QuinteroCSI, CEP
Director, Total Rewards, Orchard & Vine
One warning. Splitting data out of technology made moves between the two harder for us. Data engineers in particular sit close to software engineers, and after the split a move looked like a change of family, with re-levelling attached. If you do split, state up front that data engineering and software engineering levels are equivalent for transfers.
