This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.

A job title cannot explain a pay decision, a promotion or a career path on its own.

Put the work behind the title into one architecture, supported by 110+ tools in 16 downloadable resources.

Hundreds of historical titles make ordinary decisions harder. Two departments use the same label for different responsibilities, while an experienced specialist sees management as the only route forward. Each hiring request or promotion reopens a discussion that the role catalog should already support.

A shared architecture gives those discussions a concrete basis: a family boundary, a level description, a versioned role profile and an explicit relationship to grades. Career moves can refer to target-role requirements. A disputed mapping can retain the employee’s wording and the work comparison still needed, rather than disappearing into a spreadsheet.

Mike brings more than 20 years in HR and C&B, meaning compensation and benefits. He is the author of courses on Job Grading, Job Evaluation, Total Rewards and C&B and holds the PHRi credential. His education platform has operated since 2011, with 170,000+ students, 180+ courses and learners in 185 countries.

One company, eight decisions, eight artifacts

The simulation follows Alderwick Flow Systems, a fictional manufacturing company. You take the role of its new Head of Total Rewards. A Monday message introduces each task, followed by decisions, consequences and a debrief. Company figures are example numbers, and each lecture supplies its own context, so the task also works as a standalone lesson.

First comes the Architecture Diagnostic: why pay, hiring, careers and pay transparency depend on shared role records, and how a job-based model relates to a skills-based model. The Family Taxonomy Catalog then organizes Job Families and sub-families, linking required skills to actual work. The Leveling Guide sets Job Levels, individual contributor and manager tracks, and the dual ladder. Role Catalog Studio captures purpose, expected results, skills identification, required proficiency, titles and codes.

The Level-to-Grade Map makes the connection to grades explicit while keeping pay decisions separate. The Career Movement Map connects a Career Framework and Career Paths to promotion rules, lateral moves and skills development against target-role requirements. The People Mapping and Conversation Plan adds employee dialogue, appeals and HRIS handoff; HRIS means HR information system. Technology and data analytics support reconciliation, stable links and data quality rather than automatically assigning people. Finally, the Architecture Readiness Map brings the outputs together for worker-category and progression-criteria review.

The tool count, by type

• 8 standalone HTML workbooks: Architecture Diagnostic, Family Taxonomy Catalog, Leveling Guide, Role Catalog Studio.
• 45 editable working parts inside those files: Scope decision, Skills map, Profile composer, Skills bridge, HRIS handoff.
• 29 templates and sample records on the slides: baseline record, family boundary card, role purpose and results row, legacy code crosswalk.
• 12 checklists and field checks on the slides: five scope fields, catalog integrity checklist, pre-review checklist, accessibility and review checks.
• 9 procedures and practice sets on the slides: primary output choice, title and code convention, conflict review route, wave release conditions.
• 4 calculations and reconciliation rules on the slides: formatting excess, disjoint population reconciliation, integer allocation, movement-plan denominator check.
• 6 questions and conversation scripts on the slides: independent-decision question, opening comparison script, five-years reply, repeat-back questions.
• 1 dual-track comparison matrix on the slides: IC5–M1 comparison, IC6–M2 comparison, band-five track change.
• 2 explained models, counted separately from ready templates, illustrated through architecture corrections, individual pay review and the connected seven-output architecture.

The actual total is 116: eight files, 45 working parts, 61 slide tools and two explained models. The title rounds this down to 110+. These are tool elements within 16 resources, including examples and alternate presentations of related work, rather than 116 separate downloads. Save, copy, print and repeated demonstrations do not increase the count.

Where the tools sit in the work

• Diagnose and classify — 29 tools: the diagnostic, scope template, family catalog, boundary cards and skills map.
• Describe levels and roles — 29 tools: the leveling guide, dual-track matrix, role composer, inheritance record and code crosswalk.
• Connect grades and careers — 23 tools: the grade map, conflict route, skills bridge, committee record and track-switch card.
• Map people and review readiness — 35 tools: the mapping register, conversation rehearsal, handoff checks, candidate-category records and progression criteria.

Scope and demonstrations

Profiles are catalog records. The grade lesson covers the level-to-grade relationship. The career lesson covers paths and movement rules. Job evaluation scoring, salary-range construction, job-analysis methods, competency libraries, pay-gap reporting, coaching, succession planning and a complete skills-based organizational transformation sit outside this course.

The European Union (EU) Pay Transparency Directive provides the context for the final architecture review. Family, level or grade membership alone does not establish equal work or work of equal value. Categories remain candidates until actual work is compared using objective, gender-neutral criteria. Check national transposition and local employment counsel; architecture drafts are not a legal opinion or a compliance certificate.

The SAP SuccessFactors demonstration is a mockup rebuilt from public documentation; the real interface and workflow may differ. Other catalog illustrations are vendor-neutral interface mockups. No vendor access is included, and the course is independent of HRIS vendors, job-evaluation consultancies and the authors of public career frameworks.

What is included

• Eight standalone video lessons and eight practical assignments using one fictional company.
• 16 downloadable resources: eight PDF lecture presentations and eight interactive HTML workbooks with filled examples.
• Local draft storage, text copying and print-to-PDF workflows within the workbooks; keep backups of your work.
• Lifetime access to course materials for an individual course purchase, subject to platform terms.
• Active instructor support in Q&A and a Udemy Certificate of Completion.

Every unresolved role label is another hiring or career conversation without a shared starting point. Bring one unclear title to the first diagnostic and prepare a scope proposal for your HR and rewards team. Enroll now and start your first lesson today.