Creative job titles can energize workers

Job titles

1. Group Members Muhammad Ismail Shahid FA16-MBAG-0061 Amir Hussain FA17-MBAG-0042 Nijabat Ali Mughal FA17-MSMG-0057

2. Article TALENT CREATIVE JOB TITLES CAN ENERGIZE WORKERS Issued on: Harvard Business Review - May 2016 © HBR.ORG Written by: Adam M. Grant, Justin M. Berg & Daniel M. Cable

3. Key points: They reduce burnout and increase satisfaction. while Job titles don’t usually generate much excitement. They are printed on Business cards, emblazoned on LinkedIn. A c hance to get creative. Consider Disney, which calls, its: Theme Park Worker “Cast Members” Engineers & Multimedia Experts “Imagineers” Line Workers “Sandwich artists” Receptionists “Director of First Impression”

4. Views of London Business School Professor Dan Cable over a past decade as: Legitimate tool for improving worker’s attitude and boosting recruitment. Traditional view of job title is “Standardization & benchmarking” but he says: Titles often send wrong signals & fails to attract the best applicant. Companies should recognize they are powerful symbols of who we are , what we can do and what others can expect from us.

5. A Study on “ Self Reflective” job titles by Cable - 2014 : This paper took a deep dive & experiment done on “Make-A-Wish-Foundation” whose CEO invited employees to create fun titles to supplement their official ones. Cable says Employees described how their new & improved titles made their jobs more meaningful and help them cope with emotional challenges of serving families with sick children. The researchers concluded that the initiatives reduced stress by helping people focus on the more purposeful aspects of their jobs.

6. A Study on “ Self Reflective” job titles by Cable - 2014 : Full Fledged Experiment at a Hospital Chain by creating two groups i.e. Make-A-Wish Retitling Group and Controlled Group: Infectious Disease Specialist “Germ Slayer” Nurse(who gave lots of immunizations) “Quick Shot” X-Ray Technician “Bone Seeker” The researchers observed the attitudes of two groups and found that after 5 weeks later new titles had lower levels of emotional exhaustion, felt more recognition and validation. In another experiment in European brewery, three months later showed that those employees were 16% more satisfied with their work than earlier. This research suggest that titles can be vehicles for agency, creativity and coping.

7. Cable since created a methodology for companies looking to launch retitling initiatives in two steps. In step one employees reflect on their job purpose and question of identity & In step two, employees brainstorm potential new titles, perhaps crowdsourcing ideas from other employees and input of manager. The exercise causes job incumbent to ask themselves “what is the purpose of the work and what is my unique connection to it.” Laszlo Bock, Google’s SVP of People operations was initially turned off by his novel title the fact that it wasn’t clearly an HR Job and would be harder to find a new job. Cable suggest that large companies try it with small units to gauge employee reactions. It has also a big advantage of cost cutting. Cable says “Rebranding job titles”, unique cultural traits and employees personnel identities can have important effect on how outsiders respond to the jobs and how see in job themselves.