Not happy with job role categories - AIBU

[chubbyspice]

I work for a science company. There are lab staff, staff who register products, staff work in supply chain, finance and admin. It is a small company (50pax) but is growing rapidly. There was recently a management exercise to grade the roles so that they are comparable across the company.
The roles were divided into 3 categories - scientific/technical, professional and admin. Each grade was then categorised against years of experience, professional qualifications and what level of spend/project responsibility. My role is the senior admin in the company. I'm quite upset that admin was made separate from 'professional'. It was made clear in the grading that people working in professional didn't have to have a degree/qualification although the lack thereof meant that you wouldn't get a job at the top grade without this. Admin only required that you finish school and have 4 years experience. There was no ranking for an admin who was a graduate, doesn't look like it matters.
Also, whereas other roles were assessed against the project budget, admin was assessed against how big an error they could make - so, a grade 3 manages projects of 30k whereas a grade 2 (admin) has capacity to make mistakes up to value of 5k. The lowest admin grade had the wording 'low impact' against it. I appreciate that this refers more to the a comparison with the top grade, in terms of the top grade being able to grow the business/increase sales/profitability etc but in what world is it a good idea to send out a document to everyone in the company and have the words 'low impact' against someone's role.
Seriously thinking of leaving now.
AIBU?

What do the professional roles involve? I wouldn’t consider any admin job to be a professional role, even if the person doing it has a degree. But ‘professional’ generally requires a qualification of some kind. If that doesn’t apply to the people marked ‘professional’ in your company, then it does seem an odd characterisation.

‘Low impact’ is not the best terminology, although it does sound like they have at least explained it.

It is a bit shitty to broadcast that it's a 'low impact' role and certainly not good for employee relations or engagement. If they are a good company to work for it just sounds like a misguided attempt at being transparent and I'd chalk it up as so but would try and feed that back in a constructive way.

If it's all about which piece of bullshit terminology is in use YABVU. If it makes a difference to pay YANBU.

I do a lot of this in work. It can be hard for a company when they’re expanding, and doing job categorisation when people are in roles.

Bear in mind that they’re grading the role, not the person in it. If you were to leave tomorrow and they hired a replacement, the level of education in the ad would be the minimum required, and. It indicative of the maximum.

Professional role might be supply chain executive, accounts executive, labelling coordinator. A lot of the people in the company have degrees and Phds.
I'm the Office Manager. My role's requirements are 4 years experience but further education qualification not necessary. I would not expect a school leaver with 4 year's experience to be able to competently do my role.

The other part of it is that no salary scales were made available so it isn't really of much value.

^^and not indicative of the maximum.

Hit post too soon.

Don’t underestimate how many people would like to see “low impact” on a job description when it comes to accountability.

The wording might not be ideal but it sounds like they have done an excellent job of the exercise.

I would not expect a school leaver with 4 year's experience to be able to competently do my role

Why not?

A school leaver with four years of experience in office management would be well able to do an Office Manager role, for which a degree isn’t required.

I'd absolutely recruit a candidate with 4 years suitable admin experience (so not a school leaver at all) for an office manager role with a 50 headcount if they were right. That's beside the point though, it sounds like you're not happy that they haven't classed you as a professional? It's really not a slight on you personally or your role, I've never seen an admin role be classed as professional in my nearly 25 years work experience.

The other possibility is, if they recruited too quickly in response to increase in work that's not panning out as hoped, they could be looking to make redundancies at some point and this is a preemptive exercise (sorry if this is doom and gloom, it did occur to me though as it's something I'd probably instigate if it were the case. If it's not happy days!)

They're not great on HR, there is no HR manager. I feel that the accompanying piece would have been a salary guide.
I've maybe taken it too personally but it just feels like the final straw.

I work in a massive law firm (hundreds of U.K. Lawyers, over 1000 world wide) and honestly any admin job in the firm could be done without a degree. Not because it’s easy - it’s not - or because it doesn’t take a lot of skill - it does. But the skills it takes are gained on the job, not from a degree. Good administrators are skilled workers, but they aren’t professionals. Professional roles are roles which require some kind of qualification.

All that said, it doesn’t sound like the people classed as professional in your company are actual professionals either, so it is a weird differentiation.

I'm think that I'm a grade 2, 1 up from entry level. I don't think that reflects my workload/responsibilities at all. Others within the company have questioned my grade as well.
I have low self esteem and am a people pleaser so put up with more than I should. I'm supposed to work part time but always bring my laptop. Line manager is aware of this but has done little to solve the issue.
Think that for me, the only way is out.

Sorry but I'm really unsure why you are so unhappy about this and wanting to leave? An admin/office manager, is never classed as a professional.

OP, with the greatest respect, yes I do think a non-grad with 4 years of office management experience could be doing your job.

In NO company where i've worked would an Office Manager job be considered one of the professional staff. However, most places i'd worked would have called them "support staff" or "support function"-type roles, not admin per se.

whether you have a degree or not yourself is actually kind of irrelevant here, your actual job is as office manager, and you don't need a degree at all.

it doesn't mean your role is unimportant, and the assessment of "low impact" just presumably means that their level of risk exposure/liability is minimal in your role vs. say someone who's client facing or a lab staff.

don't be so sensitive, basically.

YABU and oversensitive. Admin isn’t a professional role.

While your job isn't necessarily an admin role, it certainly wouldn't fit into the 'professional' category IMO. Just the virtue of having a degree doesn't make you a professional. You aren't doing a customer facing role and are support staff.

I don't understand what degree would add more to the role than 4 years experience in an admin role - I think you may have a little chip on your shoulder about that. My workplace hires school leavers as our version of office assistants (large company so more like 6 or 7 per floor but a large office) and they quickly work their way up to floor managers or higher. I believe a school leaver would be capable.

How many grades are there and who's would sit in the grade above you? If there are say 6 grades I'd expect an office manager/senior admin to be around a grade 2 tbf.

What grade would you expect an accounts exec to be? To be fair, I would have expected to be at the same level.
Because we don't have HR, I get a lot of HR questions. I also get consulted on issues by more senior members of staff.
We're getting a new HQ built at the moment and are taking possession of that next week and I'm the lead person (at this stage, it was over a 1million spend so boss made those purchasing decision).
We had a company meeting/overnight last week and I was hosting that (boss couldn't attend so I was leading the meeting/co-ordinating/taking care of everyone).
I think that my job has more responsibilities than the grade makes out - it's probably more like executive assistant.

or at least I think that my role has the same responsibilities as an accounts exec.
the company only has 1 credit card and I control spend on that (limit is 15k)

there are 9 grades

This sounds to me like an exercise to grade roles according to industry standards - and unfortunately, as PPs have said, an admin role (however senior it may be) is not classified as a Professional role in any sector. Not sure about exec assistant either, I would tend to put that in an Admin section too.
That said, if you feel you are doing more than an Office Manager role, can you look for your title to be changed to reflect your real workload ?

only admin are grade 1 or 2, technical/scientitic and professional start at grade 3
also, admin only has grades 1 or 2, nothing higher

Can only go off my experience and opinion, but no I wouldn't expect (nor have i seen) an office manager to be the same grade as an accounts exec. An exec assistant is still 'only' senior level admin (I don't mean ONLY iyswim).

I used to manage a company credit card with over 300 staff and coordinating regional conferences when I was an office coordinator around the age of 22. Are you paid well for the work you do? Are you happy? Can you see a career there? Those are more important considerations than wanting to be a higher grade because of vanity imo.

The problem is not with the grading, that sounds fine. The problem is that you do stuff in your job that is not part of your job description. I've worked in 2 start-ups and that's the way things develop, you start with a couple of admin people who do everything from office management to payroll and HR and as the company grows these jobs differentiate. I presume your company is in the process of expanding and that's why they are trying to standardise grades.