The Need for Role Alignment

On average, only about 30-40% of companies believe they have effectively aligned job titles and roles with the actual work being performed, according to research by Deloitte. Strong role clarity in organizations leads to those organizations outperforming their peers in terms of overall financial performance.

Why does this happen? Well, there are a variety of originating practices that can quickly cloud an organization’s workforce framework. These include:

• Legacy structures that persist long after the work has evolved;
• Rapid change in the type of work a company now needs to do, versus what it has always done;
• Lack of real clarity of role requirements when the role is created;
• Rapid growth through merger or acquisition that flood the company with new roles;

And perhaps most scary:

• Compensation frameworks — tying jobs to pay bands or labor law requirements rather than the work they should perform.

Legacy Structures

Legacy structures come with all sorts of deeply rooted elements — tools, strategies, org charts, or perhaps even regulatory or legal arrangements — that often don’t get reviewed to ensure alignment with current organizational needs. You may hear trigger phrases such as “it is the way it has always been,” or “this is how our leader wants it,” or “it runs too deep to change it,” indicating this practice is present in your organization.

An example of this is a financial services company that maintained separate “Commercial Banking Specialists” and “Small Business Specialists” roles based on a decade-old system, despite the fact that these specialists were now handling identical client portfolios. The artificial division created inefficiencies in client handoffs and prevented cross-training that would have improved customer service.

Rapid Organization Change

Rapid organization change is probably one of the most frequently cited reasons for misalignment of job roles. Modern workforces work differently than they did in the past — work tends to be more project-oriented, flexible, and multi-faceted. Most roles today don’t focus on “one thing” so much as they address a multitude of factors affecting multiple things within a singular discipline. A 2023 World Economic Forum report identified that 44% of workers’ core skills are expected to change within the next five years, highlighting how quickly role requirements evolve.

For example: A “Digital Marketing Specialist” hired five years ago primarily to manage social media content might now be expected to handle email campaigns, SEO strategy, analytics reporting, and paid advertising management – all without a role redefinition or title change to reflect these expanded responsibilities. Research from LinkedIn shows that the average job title now encompasses 25% more skills than it did just four years ago.

Merger and Acquisition Challenges

Rapid change can be accelerated particularly after a merger or acquisition when bringing together similar structures, especially in sales departments. For quick go-to-market integration, many organizations simply import new roles or keep HR systems completely separate for an extended period. This approach can create not only a large volume of roles to manage but also significant confusion around job descriptions and responsibilities. Harvard Business Review reports that 70-90% of M&As fail to deliver expected value, with role confusion and organizational inefficiency cited as key contributing factors.

Unclear Role Design

Similarly, lack of clarity in role design, driven by descriptions or vanity titles used to attract talent, may not actually match the real-life expectations or daily responsibilities of the job. It’s also possible to swing too far in the opposite direction, using one-size-fits-all job titles into which many disciplines are combined for easier management. Research from Josh Bersin Academy found that 83% of organizations struggle with outdated job architectures that don’t reflect how work actually gets done, while Gallup data shows that only 50% of employees strongly agree they know what is expected of them at work—a key indicator of role clarity issues.

One position that often falls into this pitfall is “Manager of Sales Operations.” This single title might cover individuals who manage systems, communications, program management, supply, store operations, territory management, and numerous other functions. Companies like this approach because they can move people between different functions without changing their title, pay, or organizational structure. However, when the time comes to understand what each person with that title is actually doing, the lack of clarity becomes problematic.

Compensation Constraints

Lastly, compensation, while it should never be the primary driver of sales strategy, is often cited as the reason why a role cannot be changed. For example, if a retail organization needs an assistant manager but knows the hours may exceed 40 per week, they might add just enough additional responsibilities to the job description to pass the exemption test for overtime pay requirements – thus avoiding overtime expenses while potentially creating role confusion.

A Willis Towers Watson survey found that 62% of companies admit to manipulating job descriptions and role parameters primarily to fit compensation structures rather than to reflect actual work requirements. This misalignment costs organizations approximately 3.8% in payroll inefficiency annually, representing millions of dollars for mid-to-large sized companies.

The Solution Path

The million-dollar question is: how do we get past all this and align roles to both the work and the ultimate strategy, creating a system flexible enough to prevent constant change but structured enough to avoid over-flexing the workforce?

The answer is multi-faceted and, to set expectations – it will take time. According to PwC research, successful role restructuring initiatives typically require 12-18 months for full implementation, but organizations begin seeing meaningful benefits within 3-6 months of initiating changes.

1. Conduct an audit. Document all job titles and required tasks. Establish a survey for role incumbents to compare what they do with what their role description says they should be doing. Score the audit results. Any role with a match rate of 70% or better is in good shape and may only need minor tweaking. For scores lower than that, the role should be reevaluated.
2. Define role families and architecture. Create logical groupings of similar roles into families (e.g., Sales, Marketing, Operations) and establish clear career progression paths within each family. Define the core competencies, skills, and outputs expected at each level. This creates a framework that makes it easier to place new or evolving roles appropriately and helps employees understand potential career development paths.
3. Define decision rights and accountability matrices. For each role, clearly document not just tasks but decision-making authority using frameworks like RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed). This helps eliminate overlap and confusion, particularly in matrixed organizations where multiple roles might touch the same process.
4. Align compensation structures with the redefined roles. Once roles are properly structured and defined, review compensation models to ensure they reinforce rather than undermine the role architecture. This may require phased implementation to manage budget impacts. A Mercer study found that organizations that align compensation with clearly defined role responsibilities experience 20% lower voluntary turnover and 15% higher employee satisfaction scores. Be mindful that for sales roles, determining if sales compensation should apply and to what degree should also be considered.
5. Implement regular review cycles. Establish a cadence (typically annual or bi-annual) for reviewing role definitions to ensure they remain aligned with organizational needs and market realities. This prevents the gradual drift that leads to misalignment over time.
6. Create transition plans for affected employees. When significant role redefinition is necessary, develop clear communication and transition plans for employees whose roles will change substantially. Provide training resources and clear timelines to help them adapt to new expectations.

When properly executed, role alignment creates numerous benefits: improved employee engagement through clearer expectations, better workforce planning capabilities, more effective talent acquisition, and ultimately stronger organizational performance through having the right skills applied to the right work. A study by IBM’s Smarter Workforce Institute found that employees with high role clarity are 53% more efficient and 27% more likely to stay with their organization over a three-year period.

Role alignment isn’t a one-time fix but rather an ongoing organizational discipline that requires attention and maintenance. The investment pays dividends in workforce efficiency, employee satisfaction, and organizational agility in responding to market changes. According to a comprehensive study by the MIT Sloan Management Review, organizations that pursue continuous role optimization are twice as likely to be industry performance leaders than those that treat roles as static entities.

Need Help With Role Clarity in Your Organization?

Is your organization struggling with misaligned roles? Are you experiencing the challenges of unclear job definitions, overlapping responsibilities, or compensation structures that don’t match actual work requirements? At SalesGlobe, we specialize in helping organizations diagnose and solve these complex role alignment challenges.

Our expert team brings decades of experience in sales effectiveness, organizational design, and role optimization to help you:

• Assess your current state of role alignment and identify critical gaps
• Develop customized role frameworks that drive your business strategy
• Create clear career paths and progression opportunities
• Align compensation structures with redefined roles
• Implement sustainable governance processes to maintain alignment

Don’t let role misalignment hold your organization back from achieving its full potential. Connect with SalesGlobe today for a complimentary consultation to discuss how we can help bring clarity and effectiveness to your organizational structure.

Visit www.salesglobe.com or email us at info@salesglobe.com to learn how our proven methodologies can transform your workforce framework and drive measurable business results.

References

SalesGlobe is a leading sales effectiveness and data-driven creative problem-solving firm. We specialize in helping Global 1000 companies solve their toughest growth challenges and helping them think in new ways to develop more effective solutions in the areas of sales strategy, sales organization, sales process, sales compensation, and quotas. We wrote the books on sales innovation with The Innovative Sale, What Your CEO Needs to Know About Sales Compensation, and Quotas! Design Thinking to Solve Your Biggest Sales Challenge.

Elizabeth Swann

Senior Consultant – Sales Effectiveness with SalesGlobe
Results-driven executive skilled in strategic sales, revenue optimization, and team empowerment for sustainable growth.