Why trendy job titles risk damaging company credibility
The job title was a hugely motivating factor for workforces gone by. It was an indicator of where you stood on your career path and getting to the next level was what workers aspired to. But as the workforce evolves, and the humble job title takes on a different role, a trend of creative or alternative job titles has emerged - nowhere more prevalently than in the human resources industry.
From chief joy or happiness officer to chief zoo officer or HR Ninja or Rockstar, are names for human resources roles trending towards the bizarre and hurting your company’s credibility? One VP at security and risk company Gartner, believes that alternative job titles which may be seen as cool, funky, and progressive to some, could be undermining not only your own position, but your entire company.
VP of Research and Advisory, Aaron McEwan told HRD, “One of the most important changes that the pandemic accelerated is that employees want to be seen as people, not workers, and referring to yourself as the chief zoo officer implies that your employees are not people.”
Read more here: Do you need a chief happiness officer?
“But the really important thing in the changing workforce is people need to know what it is you do,” continued McEwan. “Job titles are actually a really important way of navigating these increasingly complex organisations. If you give people sexy or silly job titles, it might make them feel better, but it doesn’t help people find them. You can’t lose sight of how important the job title is to help people understand what you do and what you can help them with.”
HR Rockstar sounds cool, but should we expect that in addition to HR, you also whip out some tight leather pants and pull off a guitar riff? In most cases, unlikely. There are lots of different functions in HR and your job title should define the function that your role plays.
“There’s a credibility piece to this as well,” said McEwan, “In some sectors it could undermine your credibility. You might get away with it at a Silicone Valley technology company where there are equally cool names for other roles but imagine if you were working for an investment bank or an old-school, traditional, conservative organisation and you’re running around as a Chief Happiness Officer. I imagine that wouldn’t be helpful to your career.”
McEwan concedes that some alternative names do work, and from a marketing perspective can make your job ads stand out amongst your competitors in a saturated job market. For instance, if the CEO at an innovation company calls themselves a Chief Combobulation Officer it totally makes sense because they are using innovation disruption to drive creativity.
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“It can be brilliant in the right context,” said McEwan, “I know somebody who is a happiness officer, but this is a person who did their PhD in positive psychology and runs a positive psychology consultancy and positive psychology is the business of being happy. But I think when you're a publicly listed company, and you've got shareholders and you've got clients and customers, and you're not in the business of selling happiness, then it becomes problematic.”
Read more here: Opinion: The rise of the Chief Happiness Officer
Take the Chief Happiness Officer for example, even if you are in a progressive organisation, that human resources role is complex and covers things like engagement and wellbeing which covers some serious issues like mental health, which is not a trivial matter.
“At least one in three people are going to suffer mental health issues, and burnout rates at the moment are through the roof,” McEwan warns, “you don’t want to be making light of something that’s actually a really serious issue for your people and your business.