Reasons to Give Individual Contributors Powerful Job Titles
Procurement is considered by many as a profession that does not have junior levels. All steps of the procurement function are high level and entail risks to the company’s resources as it acts as the gate through which most of the spending passes.
Imagine an individual contributor doing the following tasks:
Planning demand in coordination with heads of business units, communicating with senior managers to review Statements of Work, liaising with multiple management levels within the company to finalize requests, interacting with suppliers on RFXs, performing complex cost analyses, speaking to leaders of IT, finance and legal units, sitting across the table from mega vendors (sometimes negotiating strategic high value agreements), solving conflicts between business units and suppliers, representing your company and maintaining its interests.. All that while carrying a job title like ‘buyer’, ‘buying agent’, or ‘purchasing assistant’!
When doing business with others, many people attach importance to job titles, and, even internally, many senior colleagues wouldn’t give much weight to a request, email, or a call from a colleague with a junior title. Similarly, the job title of the person negotiating with a supplier on behalf of your company can be an influencing factor in the negotiation outcome. Exception to the above is when the individual contributor demonstrates superior confidence as a result of being long experienced, well-versed, and eloquent on the subject-matter, which is rare and not normal to find in junior roles.
It is delighting to see more and more procurement leaders become aware of this point and give their team members powerful job titles. They empower their teams and strengthen their positions when interacting with internal and external parties, enable them to perform their duties smoothly and painlessly, and make their lives easier. Another advantage is the positive impact having a powerful job title would have on the individual contributor. It will boost their confidence, motivates them to learn and work harder to prove to their management and everyone else that their titles are well-deserved, will enhance employee loyalty, job satisfaction, and talent acquisition and retention.
At the end, it is needless to mention that building your procurement team’s capacity, in both technical and personal skills, is one of the wisest strategic decisions to make for the benefit of your company and your team, and will largely contribute to their growth to become leaders themselves.