2014 EMEA Job Levelling Summit

Case Study: Rio Tinto

Jodi Holt – Principle Advisor of Employee Remuneration

Rio Tinto

Building a Career Framework

Agenda

• Rio Tinto – Our Company

• Our Situation

• Our Solution

• Lessons Learned

• Questions and Answers

3

Our Situation

Disproportionate amount of time; 388 person days year

evaluating and peer reviewing roles & time spent by BU

Duplication of roles in system creating possible inequities

Delays in recruitment

Role definitions inconsistent across our various systems

therefore no clear way to identify talent across our

business

Difficulty to reconcile data during transformation

programs and to maintain proper data in HRIS

Pain points driving the need for Job Architecture

13,000 roles

for 25,000

employees

5

In 2007 Rio Tinto implemented what was termed the ‘Global Banding

Framework’ with the following goals and objectives:

• to provide a single, consistent methodology for the evaluation and

banding of roles across the Group;

• to develop a common banding structure across all Rio Tinto Business

Units (BUs) and Functions providing a standard language, system and

process to support a range of organisational requirements;

• to act as a basic building block for a range of Human Resources (HR)

programmes required to support the business;

• to provide a methodical framework for regional and local

remuneration;

• too support consistency and transparency within and between

Business Units and regions; and

• to enable efficient global performance and talent management.

How did we get here?

6

The Framework covers all employees, with two ‘streams’, recognising both managerial

and functional roles. The initial focus of the framework was on the professional roles

(GGS grades 8 – 14). Executives had been harmonized previously and adoption

below the professional level is optional.

The Framework is underpinned by a formal job evaluation tool, Towers Watson Global

Grading System (GGS) and supported by Global Benchmark roles to ensure

consistent application.

The Global Banding Framework

7

Our challenges

Implementation of the Global Banding Framework and the original processes

established for the framework were not well understood or followed, resulting

in an inefficient process.

Our challenges included:

Technology

Security – access to view roles in GGS was limited to a users business unit,

resulting in duplicate roles being created.

GGS was not linked to our HRIS.

No job codes (GGS nor HRIS).

No standard role titles (GGS nor HRIS).

No alignment of functional areas between various HR processes and HRIS.

8

Our challenges (continued)

Governance

HR lacked an understanding of how the system works and when a role should be

evaluated.

Larger number of system users ~350 vs. recommended 50 – 70 maximum.

No formal and consistent training for new users.

Benchmark roles were not properly used.

Job descriptions

Geared toward the individual leading to all

roles being unique

Too many job bands

Difficult to clearly delineate between levels

9

Our solution

Our solution

Achieved through:

• The design of a Job Family Architecture, brought to life in a model for

employees and leaders to utilise.

• Successful embedding within our HR processes and technology.

• Support from an appropriate change management and communication

plan

The Rio Tinto Career Framework

a globally consistent and easy to navigate classification of roles,

designed with the business to inform, guide and engage both employees

and leaders, to effectively develop and manage our workforce.

11

Job Architecture

16 defined functional areas with 87 defined job families

Each functional area has an “owner” from the business with assistance

by subject matter experts who responsible for:

Approving the job families and associated definitions.

Identifying the jobs in each family and approving the associated role profiles.

Standard roles profiles simplified.

Number of roles reduced from over 13,000 to

1,000 – 1,500.

Our solution (continued)

12

Technology

HRIS is being reconfigured to support and align with the new job architecture. Job codes are being introduced, functional area, job family, job title, band will be linked.

Governance

A new governance model is being developed.

Only jobs within the job architecture are available for use in the HRIS.

Transparency

Role profiles will be published.

Band Levels

Minor updates made. Decision made not to make major changes.

Our solution (continued)

13

Lessons Learned

Band Levels

• Ensure proper understanding by decisions makers that the number of

levels is a design feature of the overall job architecture, and not a

separate project that can be undertaken at a later time.

• Very emotive topic.

• Difficult to reduce.

• Not about pay but clearly defined career progression.

Functional Areas / Job Families

• Difficulty with Leaders in separating organisational structure from

functional area (i.e. where the job is performed versus the what the role

does).

• Ongoing desire to change functional areas / job families to reflect the

organisational structure.

Lessons learned to date

15

Managerial versus Individual Contributor career streams

• Lack of understanding about the differences between the two streams,

and when a job is considered to be in the management stream. A role

can have direct reports or manage a project and still be an individual

contributor.

Transparency of role levels

• While it was stated up front as an outcome of the project, the discomfort

with actually being transparent is causing HR to rethink if they are ready.

Lessons to date

16

Questions & Answers