Do job titles matter anymore?

With the evolution of technology and the various digital channels that consumers adopt to conduct their purchasing needs, our work environments are also evolving accordingly. It is no longer sufficient to adapt and transform, the pace in which this must happen has quickened in order to remain relevant to the marketplace and ultimately, in business. 

At the heart of this technological revolution lie organizations and people. The long-standing entities are in the process of flattening their hierarchy (which was known for its heavy mid-management tier) in order to become more agile while the new players have adopted a 'flatter' structure from day one of inception, awarding instead self-deprecating titles such as 'Jolly Good Fellow ' to their employees to further drive the point home that titles do not matter in their workplace.  

The question that I have been asking myself, as a Gen X caught in the middle of these cultural transformations is the following:

Do job titles matter anymore? As in, at all???

I did some quick research and have observed that the Facebook, Amazon and Spotify of this world, a.k.a known as the disrupters, have titles and structures in place in their workplaces. After all, Mark Zuckerberg is known to have given a little twist to the coveted CEO title by stating 'I'm CEO, bitch' on his business cards. I have thus reflected quite a lot to answer my question and truth be told, I do not have ONE clear answer, but rather, I think I have identified several contributing factors that can impact the way in which people would respond. To illustrate my point, allow me to share my background and upbringing for a quick second (ok, a minute). 

I am a Gen X female who grew up in a small French-speaking rural town located in eastern New Brunswick (Canada), whereby diversity was not a common word or easily observed. My mother faced many adversities in her life and sacrificed much to raise my two brothers and me. She was divorced, which back then was quite a social stigma in my town (I still remember some of my friends' mothers who would always find a way to ask me about my divorced mother during play dates. Big sigh). She went back to school at the age of 39 and not only did she graduate first of her class, she opened her own business very quickly afterwards and showed me throughout my teen and young adult years what being an innovative and hard-working entrepreneur meant. 

As a young woman, I was exposed to other cultures through participating in various cultural exchanges. I became bilingual out of necessity and then trilingual out of curiosity. When I started university, the arrival of the World Wide Web was quite a thing and people were just starting to use their computers in a social manner (emails, chats, etc.) instead of pure academic purposes (read: typing essays). I embraced technology along the way, but it did not define or influence me in the way that it is embedded in our kids' DNA today. I pursued postsecondary studies, worked while in school, worked hard upon graduating to later go back to school to upgrade some more, all the while earning my stripes and climbing the "elusive" career ladder. This ladder was dangled in front of me throughout my career, promising me that each step was necessary and taking me closer to my goal. Along the way, traumatic events have happened to me, and not only did they shook me to my core but they re-shaped my worldview in a pretty significant manner. As a woman, it became a mission to want more (for myself and my peers) and as a result, I started dreaming and hoping of wanting to be at the helm of an organization one day to be able to make a difference. I would also add that growing up in a small province definitely shapes your views on what succeeding means, and it can unfortunately be on the narrow-minded end of the spectrum at times. 

​I hope you have picked up a few key elements in this short bio, but allow me to help you out here nonetheless as we are slowly circling back to answering my initial question:

• Identity factors are important: Being a woman for instance has shaped my views and behaviour in more ways than one;

• Sense of place has an impact: Growing up in a rural town and in New Brunswick has definitely shaped my worldview while my beliefs and values have been influenced by living across Canada and in another country;

• Time frames or generational gaps exist: how workplaces were structured earlier in my career do not quite apply in 2017 and the differences between Millennials and Gen Xers are fascinatingly more pronounced than between Baby-boomers and Millenials;

• The stage in which you find yourself in your career is quite significant: For instance, someone who is close to retirement will be in legacy mode and will embrace and seek to implement major-scale changes worth remembering. A person starting out in their career has a blank canvas with no points of reference or comparisons to draw upon. The person who is mid-career and who had earned titles that were considered important up until this point will embrace change, but will feel cheated out of their careers in more ways than one when titles start to peel off. (To truly understand my point, ask a person who amidst change still keeps their titles, ranks etc. and ask them to picture what it would be like if tomorrow, that was stripped away. Their two-second pondering, as well as their quick response to state that it is NOT the case, nor will it happen is conclusive enough, as I have learned while conducting a very unscientific qualitative survey around me on the matter.) 
  

In the event that the above-mentioned did not bring you to reflection, let me draw an analogy that was painted by one of the secondary characters on the popular TV series "Suits" in its last season. (WARNING: Spoilers ahead if you have not watched season 7). In the first few episodes, Donna, our beloved executive assistant, becomes a partner of the firm. She had the balls to ask Harvey for a seat at the table and she got it. We were all rooting for her...  that is until one of the 5th year associate strums up the courage to tell Harvey (Managing partner) that while she is happy for Donna and certainly sees her value to the firm, she also tells him that he has just shattered the meaning of becoming a partner for her. She explains that becoming a lawyer is hard work, with many steps on the ladder to climb (from graduating to passing the bar to your first entry- level job as an associate, to junior partner and then finally senior partner), which makes landing a partnership a pretty big deal. If law firms start to give partnerships so easily to people who do not share this educational background and journey, then you strip away its veneer and importance.  Harvey reflects on that and decides to make Donna his COO rather than a partner, which was a move I personally agreed with in its principle. 

As you are reading through this, have you factored in your industry? I think this is definitely another contributing factor to whether or not one might say that titles matter. Sexy industries such as IT, advertising, and entertainment are paving the way for their agile models and their emphasis on collaboration and incremental results. Naturally, talent will gravitate towards these organizations, as there is nothing more exciting than being among the leaders of the pack.  Other traditional industries that have been around for at least a century or more are facing a clash of values when it comes to transforming culturally.

Finally, consider the fact that professional employment orientated-sites such as LinkedIn still rely on key words to identify potential suitable candidates to head hunters. Large corporations also use automatic sorters (Applicant Tracking Systems) to make the screening process easier. Those key words are most often than not contained in your job title and your best suitability is based on your current occupation. These titles or key words are increasingly important as artificial intelligence devices are integrated into those platforms or HR recruitment practices.  Add the fact that many of the HR senior management positions are held by baby-boomers

My conclusion or my own answer is that yes, job titles matter.  Organizations can adopt more fluid structures and remove hierarchical layers, but it doesn't need to remove job titles unless everybody in the organization, including the senior management, applies this same rule.  Then I am all for adopting "Sorceress of light bulbs moments" on my resume if the CEO adopts the title of 'Money Maestro' or “Jolly good fellow”.