Job Architecture is a campus-wide project to simplify and standardize the way positions are categorized, grouped, and documented at the University of Saskatchewan (USask). This work is establishing the foundation needed for proper job design and analysis, and to design consistent and equitable workforce practices across campus and create role clarity and career paths for our workforce.
Goals
Create shared language that standardizes how jobs are grouped based on similarities in duties, responsibilities, and required skills
Benefits
Greater role clarity
- Clear roles and responsibilities applied consistently across campus
- Alignment between training and accountabilities
- Systematic and straightforward way in which performance is measured and assessed
Visible career paths
- Ability to map out career trajectories for growth and promotion and set achievable goals
- Monitoring of progress within the unit and institution
- Opportunity for collaboration across functional disciplines
Improved compensation alignment
- Confidence that compensation is appropriate and based on market comparisons
- Confidence in USask’s compensation framework and equitable treatment across the organization
Greater role clarity
- A better understanding of job titles and associated roles, responsibilities, and career progression at USask
- Consistent structures, which may result in less internal transfers
Administrative efficiency
- Simplified job design and analysis processes
- Ability to free up capacity and resources for specialized skillsets
- Assistance with future organizational structure changes based on standards
- Access to information and resources to assess current workforce capacity, identify any talent gaps, and develop an action plan and/or solutions for addressing them
- Support with talent and performance management, succession and workforce planning, and recruitment, retention, and employee engagement efforts
Clear career paths
- Grouping jobs by job subfamily and function (and not reporting lines)
- Work dimensions clarify qualifications, criteria, and expectations
Adaptable architectural framework
- Flexible architecture framework will accommodate future job needs
- Additional subfamilies and functions may be added in the future without disrupting other architectural components
- Uniform descriptive title guidelines ensure jobs at the same level use similar titling conventions
Market-informed practices
- Use of standard market-informed job titles and nomenclature decreases the risk of improper salary benchmarking
- Reflects USask’s needs, the evolving nature of work, and shifts in the market
Consistent practices across USask
- Creation and implementation of the job architecture will promote consistent practices across USask
- Classification glossary of terms will create a shared language for common understanding
Project Design and Consultation Process
The development of USask’s job architecture was a multi-year collaborative effort, spearheaded by the vice-president administration and chief administration officer with support from the project business lead and core design team. This extensive process engaged over one hundred subject matter experts from departments and colleges across campus to learn about current job profiles, relative to their responsibilities, scope, skills, and education requirements. The feedback provided by subject matter experts was synthesized and incorporated, where appropriate, with the core design team making final decisions on the job architecture design.
USask’s new job architecture design has four primary components:
Job families and sub families are the primary building blocks for the job architecture, as they group jobs by functions and related knowledge required to perform the work. While some families and sub families reflect the current organizational structure at USask, particularly in large centralized business units, they do not necessarily reflect the university's reporting lines.
- Job Family: A collection of jobs involving similar types of work and requiring similar or related experience, training, skills, knowledge, and expertise.
- Sub Families: A sub-set of a job family, typically more specialized in nature.
Examples include:
| Job Family | Job Family Description | Sub Families |
| Facilities Services | Manages planning, design, installation and construction services, operations, and maintenance of the university's physical environment and real estate. Oversees grounds, equipment, furniture, and basic services that influence the life of the university community. |
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| Human Resources | Attracts, develops, and retains a diverse, dynamic, healthy, and productive workforce through the development and delivery of integrated and effective programs, services, and policies. |
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| Student Services | Develops and implements strategies, systems, processes, learning experiences, and networks that support the achievement of desired academic and career outcomes to enhance the overall student experience |
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Career streams are a progression of job levels attributed to the fundamental nature of work being performed, providing consistency across job families. The job architecture includes the following career stream categories:
| Career Stream | Career Stream Description |
| Operational contributor |
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| Professional contributor |
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| Manager and leader |
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Job levels distinguish varying levels of scope, authority, and responsibility for jobs within a job category. This structure allows for enough levels to accommodate current positions and anticipate future positions, but few enough to draw clear distinctions between levels.
| Job Category | Levels |
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Operational Contributor |
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Professional Contributor |
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Manager and Leader |
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Job levels will be determined by how a position maps against a set of work dimensions.
Work dimensions are different aspects of capability and experience that help define the job level and are based on the job's complexity, nature of work, scope, degree of responsibility, etc.
Specific work dimensions include:
- Communication and collaboration
- Effective knowledge
- Independence of action
- Problem solving
- Scope of influence
- People management
Through the new job architecture, USask can significantly reduce the number of unique job profiles from more than 3,500 to around 400-500, providing greater consistency and clarity across every college, school, and unit.
In scope vs. Out of Scope
USask employees who have faculty or sessional appointments, are senior administration, or student workers are out of scope for the Job Architecture Project.
All other non-unionized and unionized employees at the director level and below are considered in scope of the Job Architecture Project. These include members from the following groups:
- ASPA
- CUPE 1975
- Exempt
- Non-union Employees
- Public Service Alliance of Canada (research associates only)
Every USask employee role that is considered in-scope will be categorized to fit within a family, sub family, career stream, and level, and will have a job profile title that conforms to the new job architecture titling conventions.
Job Architecture Implementation
The new job architecture is gradually being rolled out across campus in three waves from September 2024 to December 2025, with potential to stretch into 2026.
| Wave 1 (subject to change) |
Wave 2 |
Wave 3 (subject to change) |
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With each wave, the project team is collaborating with people leaders from individual units to review, adjust, and refine all position descriptions that were developed through the extensive consultation process that occurred in 2023 with subject matter experts.
Through this process, the project team is identifying whether architecture profiles need to be added, revised, or adjusted. Once finalized, the team will map the position to the appropriate place in the architecture and will identify whether job profile titles need to be amended.
Once implemented, employees may see changes to their job titles to accurately reflect their current position descriptions, based on the standardized architecture profiles developed within the job architecture framework.
Frequently Asked Questions
Job Architecture is a campus-wide project to simplify and standardize the way positions are categorized, grouped, and documented at USask. This work is establishing the foundation needed to design consistent and equitable workforce practices across campus and create role clarity and career paths for our workforce.
The Job Architecture Project was one of the five foundational projects within the Integrated Services Renewal project.
Job architecture is a standardized structure that defines and organizes roles within an organization. It identifies, clarifies, and ensures job titles, job duties, required skills, and scope of responsibility, are consistent. It is also the foundation for job design, managing talent acquisition, compensation, career progression, and overall talent management.
Currently, jobs and roles are not standardized across USask. Gaps are often identified at the college, school, or unit level and roles are created to meet locally identified needs. This has led to over 3,500 unique job profiles on campus, resulting in:
- Inconsistent administrative processes, localized processes and systems, a lack of clarity in role expectations, and misalignment in compensation across the institution.
- A lack of consistent, market-informed job titles and clear career pathing which limits USask’s ability to attract and retain top talent.
The new job architecture framework has reduced the number of unique profiles to between 400-500, organized into families, sub-families, career streams, and levels that are consistent in every academic and administrative unit at USask.
Jobs that are in-scope of this project are in the following employment groups at the director level or below:
- ASPA
- CUPE 1975
- Non-union employees (exempt and non-union)
- PSAC (research associates only)
The Job Architecture Project will:
- Provide greater role clarity: Includes a better and consistent understanding of employees' scope and responsibilities, accountabilities, and training required, resulting in less employee turnover.
- Highlight career paths: Ensures greater visibility across campus, empowering employees to map out their career trajectories, set achievable goals, and monitor their progress within the organization.
- Improve compensation alignment: USask’s ability to benchmark job roles against the market will improve with job title standardization.
An architecture profile is a document that defines the high-level purpose, requirements, responsibilities, and skill qualifications required to perform a specific role, as categorized by the job sub-family. It is used to ensure consistency in the way jobs are defined across the university. An architecture profile does not include the department-specific nuances. Instead, it includes those elements that are important to the USask compensation team when making compensation-based decisions.
A position description is a document that defines a specific position within a team, unit, and organization. It includes a detailed description of duties and responsibilities, qualifications, and reporting lines. Position descriptions are used by people leaders and employees.
A job posting is an advertisement used to profile a specific job opportunity to potential job seekers. It provides an engaging description of daily tasks, knowledge, skills, and abilities required, and minimum and preferred qualifications.
A titling convention is a set of guidelines or a standard format for job titles. It ensures consistency and clarity in how titles are created and used.
Through USask's job architecture, uniform titling conventions serve to contextualize and clarify roles, both within official systems of record and between USask’s stakeholders.
There are two types of titles for each position:
- The job title is the title of record attached to an architecture profile. It is used in university systems and to anchor architecture profiles to market data.
- The working title serves to clarify and describe work for internal and external collaborators and audiences.
In many cases, job titles and working titles will use identical language. For example, someone with the job title “Custodian I” may use the working title of “Custodian”. In this instance, the roman numeral suffix is included in the job title to indicate job level.
Sometimes, job titles and working titles may be quite different. For example, “Project Portfolio Director” may use the descriptive title “Director, Undergraduate Study Abroad Program.”
No. The job architecture is a new framework that spans across all in-scope employee groups, and is a way to simplify and standardize the way positions are categorized, grouped, and documented at USask. It also provides the university with a measurable means to benchmark job titles and position descriptions against shifts in the employment market.
The position placement models and matrix within USask's compensation model determine the level of compensation an employee receives.
The Job Architecture Project benefits managers and senior leaders by providing you with a clear, consistent framework for understanding roles, responsibilities, and career progression at USask. This new framework will help support talent and performance management, succession and workforce planning, and recruitment, retention, and employee engagement efforts.
Through the Job Architecture Project, you will have the information and resources to assess current workforce capacity, identify any talent gaps, and develop an action plan and/or solutions for addressing them.
By adopting a structured and consistent job architecture framework, people leaders and HR SBAs can make better assessments on current job levels and provide recommendations on how employees can advance their careers at USask. This could be through soft and hard skills training and professional development, involvement on projects that best utitlize their expertise, mentorship, and through new employment opportunities that arise at USask.
Within USask's job architecture, a career path (or pathway) is a structured plan or roadmap detailing the progression of jobs, skills, and experience an employee can pursue at the university to achieve their long-term career goals.
Benefits of identifying pathways include:
- Greater clarity and direction - Employees have a better sense and understanding of their career trajectory on campus.
- Better employee engagement - Employees are more engaged and motivated if they can see how their current roles and skills can build over time to support their long-term career aspirations.
- Skills development - Employees have a better understanding of areas of professional development and skills needed to achieve their career goals.
- More effective strategic and talent management planning - People leaders can better forecast if and how current employees can fill future positions with proper training and support, and identify opportunities where they may need to attract new members to the team.
With each wave of project implementation, the project team is collaborating with people leaders from individual units to review, adjust, and refine the architecture that were developed through the extensive consultation process that occurred in 2023 with subject matter experts. Through this process, the project team is identifying whether position descriptions need to be added, revised, or adjusted based on USask's approved job architecture. Once the position description is finalized, the team will map the position to the appropriate place in the architecture and will identify whether job profile titles need to be amended.
If there is a disagreement between the unit's proposed position description and job title, and that recommended by the project team and compensation team, the request will be escalated to the associate vice-president people and chief human resource officer for review, consideration, and final determination.
The new job architecture is gradually being rolled out across campus in three waves from September 2024 to December 2025, with potential to stretch into 2026.
In November/December 2023, the President's Executive Council (PEC) approved a hiatus on all non-academic primary job title changes at USask so work could proceed on the Job Architecture Project of mapping existing job titles to the new infrastructure. The hiatus allowed for the core design team to have a snapshot of all current titles in existence without having to take into account new titles being created.
In May 2024, the job hiatus was extended until April 30, 2025, to ensure the core project team could establish a governance model, create process documents around the job architecture, and allow more time to map to the new architecture.
On May 1, 2025, USask introduced a new process to support people leaders in requesting a change to an existing non-academic primary job titles for current employees, so to better reflect their current job roles and responsibilities. Information has been shared with people leaders and HR SBAs outlining the new process.
To coincide with the roll-out of the Job Architecture Project over the coming year, the university will be establishing a new Job Title Review Advisory Committee. Chaired by the associate vice-president of people and chief human resource office (or a designate), the committee will provide oversight over USask’s titling convention to support the university’s goal of consistency, clarity, transparency, and equity across the institution. The committee will include representation from the Office of the Vice-President Administration, Office of the Vice-President Research, Office of the Provost and Vice-President Academic, and the Office of the Vice-President University Relations.
USask's Human Resources unit, and specifically the compensation team, will oversee the maintenance and updating of the university's job architecture.
The Job Architecture Project will not impact the work that you currently perform; however, it may determine that your title needs to be amended to properly reflect the work you are doing.
Compensation is not within the scope of the job architecture project. However, existing mechanisms in which positions are reviewed and compensation updates are made, will remain active and are not changing as result of the project.
One of the goals of job architecture is to align current USask titles around similar job responsibilities, functions, and levels, creating greater consistency in HR systems and transparency across the institution.
If your current job title does not align with your architecture profile and the work you perform, your title may change. Please note that employees and managers will still be able to use working titles to clarify role responsibilities or reporting lines.
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An architecture profile is a document that defines the high-level purpose, requirements, responsibilities, and skill qualifications required to perform a specific role, as categorized by the job sub-family. It is used to ensure consistency in the way jobs are defined across the university. Architecture profiles do not include the department-specific nuances. Instead, it includes those elements that are important to the USask compensation team when making compensation-based decisions.
The job title is the title of record attached to an architecture profile. It is used in university systems and to anchor architecture profiles to market data.
The working title serves to clarify and describe work for internal and external collaborators and audiences.
The Job Architecture Project was designed to reflect functional responsibilities, broad job categories, and levels, but not reporting structures. Most units will include employees from a range of job families and functions, and employees and managers will not always belong to the same job family. There are no plans to change reporting structures based on job architecture mapping at this time.
No. Staffing levels are not within the scope of the Job Architecture Project.
Once fully implemented, USask’s job architecture will:
- Provide greater role clarity: Includes a better and consistent understanding of employees’ scope and responsibilities, accountabilities, and training required, resulting in less employee turnover.
- Create career paths: Are more visible across campus, empowering employees to map out their career trajectories, set achievable goals, and gauge their progress within the organization.