# Maintain Job and Career Architecture

Status: draft · v0.1.0 · Compensation System
draft reference — not a fitted standard

Maintain a coherent structure of job families, career tracks, levels, reference roles, and movement paths grounded in actual work.

## Purpose
Give role design, hiring, pay, development, progression, and workforce decisions a shared operating language without forcing every job into titles or generic corporate ladders.

## Steps
1. Charter the architecture decision — Define why the structure exists and which decisions it must support.
2. Inventory representative work — Build the structure from actual contribution rather than incumbents or titles.
3. Design families and career tracks — Group related work and make credible contribution paths visible.
4. Define levels and reference roles — Create distinguishable work levels using factors that can be applied consistently.
5. Map roles and test system effects — Evaluate the architecture against real roles, pay, careers, and operating consequences before approval.
6. Approve and publish the architecture — Create one authoritative structure and transition plan for connected processes.
7. Operate, govern, and improve the architecture — Keep the structure aligned with changing work without permitting title and level drift.

## Connections
- upstream: Define Role and Success Profile (/processes/define-role-success-profile) — trigger: A role is created or materially changed.
- downstream: Establish Compensation Range and Employment Parameters (/processes/establish-compensation-range) — trigger: A hiring range or employment parameter is established.
- downstream: Make a Progression or Talent Decision (/processes/make-progression-or-talent-decision) — trigger: A progression, mobility, or readiness decision is chartered.
- downstream: Review Employee Compensation (/processes/review-employee-compensation) — trigger: Employee compensation is reviewed.

## Measures
- Architecture decision utility: Structured review of downstream decision quality and defects across connected processes; not adoption or employee sentiment alone.
- Role mapping evidence quality: Active mappings satisfying required evidence and authority fields divided by all active mappings.
- Architecture request cycle time: Elapsed time from accepted request to disposition, separated by evidence, review, authority, and system waits.
- Authoritative architecture use: Applicable downstream records linked to an active approved mapping divided by all applicable records.
- Architecture exception pattern: Exceptions and remapping requests by family, track, level, role, site, cause, age, and disposition.
- Career access, pay relationship, classification, and title guardrail: Qualified review of mappings, movement, pay relationships, opportunity access, workforce patterns, and specialist findings; not a legal conclusion.