GUEST COLUMN.

Across state governments, similar pressures are pushing leaders to take a hard look at classification and compensation systems they have leaned on for years. Competition for talent, a growing interest in skills-based hiring and promotion, employees who expect room to grow, and work that keeps changing faster than the paperwork have all exposed the limits of frameworks that in some cases have gone decades without a meaningful update.

This work is not just about refreshing job titles and pay ranges. It is about building a system that lets people move, lets agencies adapt, and gives employees a reason to stay. Real reform pulls in agencies, managers, employees, budget officials, policymakers, and the folks at the top.

An outdated classification system quietly makes everything harder. It boxes people in, muddies pay decisions, and leaves employees guessing about how to get ahead.

Managers cannot recruit for skills that did not exist when the system was written; they cannot move good people where they are needed; and employees cannot see the next rung on the ladder.

Over the years, states have piled up hundreds and sometimes thousands of narrow classifications, each written for one situation and then never retired. Modernization usually means collapsing that thicket into broader occupational families and career bands. You end up with more consistency and, at the same time, more room for agencies to adjust as their needs change.

Designing for the Future

Much of the conversation among HR officials at the late July conference of the National Association of State Personnel Executives (NASPE), turned to building systems that can bend with whatever comes next, especially as artificial intelligence starts to change the work itself.

Talk about AI has moved past the hypothetical. State leaders are now asking practical questions about how these tools change what a job actually involves, what skills it calls for, and who is being groomed to step up next. As agencies bring the tools in, the job descriptions and classifications underneath them have to keep pace.

Instead of pinning everything to narrowly defined jobs, many states are shifting toward broader occupational categories and skill-based career paths. That gives employees room to grow and move, and it gives agencies room to respond when the demands change.

AI may also turn out to be a tool for the work itself, not just a reason for it. There was real interest in using it to spot positions that are all but identical, flag classifications that duplicate one another, and keep the whole system consistent. For a state trying to simplify and then maintain a sprawling classification structure, that could be a genuine help.

From Recommendations to Reality

Efforts to reform HR policy changes calls for money, new technology, and leadership that stays committed after the excitement wears off. A study can tell you what needs fixing and that takes planning and steady coordination among many people who do not always report to the same person. In addition, the improvements only last if you are willing to overhaul the underlying system rather than patch it.

Funding is its own hurdle, especially once pay is on the table. The states that get somewhere tend to pick their priorities, put the changes in order, and move in phases they can actually manage, rather than trying to do everything in a single stroke.

Building Trust

Employees and managers want to know one thing above all: how does this affect me, my pay, my job, and where I am headed? The states that succeed at reform, treat communication as something you keep doing, not a one-time announcement you make and move on from.

HR, managers, executives, finance, and employees all need to be in the loop from the start. When people understand the goals, how decisions are being made, and what to expect, there is less rumor and more buy-in.

Managers in particular need practical guidance and training, or they will each apply the new structure their own way in hiring, workforce planning, and developing their people.

Recommendations

While there are no silver bullets that guarantee success with HR reform, there are some general principles that will make a big difference. Here are half a dozen:

·        Start with the data. Turnover, recruitment trouble, where your pay stands, and what employees are telling you are the ground on which you build every decision.

·        Get your leadership aligned early. Executive sponsors, agency heads, budget officials, and HR need to be reading from the same page on goals and priorities. And do not forget the legislature. Your allies there can carry the project when you cannot.

·        Bring people along the whole way. Employees and agencies support what they

helped shape and understand, and they resist what gets handed to them cold.

·        Call your counterparts in other states. Most are glad to share what worked, what did not, and the materials they built, and it will keep you from stepping in the same holes they did.

·        Expect the unexpected. I can speak to this one from experience. Like the rest of the states, our work here in Mississippi ran straight into he pandemic that upended how everyone operated, and partway through we lost our key consultant to cancer. On top of that, we found hundreds of employees who could not tell us for certain who their supervisor was or which agency employed them, and plenty who had no email or computer to complete a role survey in the first place. You cannot plan for all of that, but you can build a team and a timeline with enough give to survive it.

·        Finally, do not treat this as a project with an end date. Classification, compensation, and job architecture need tending. Workforce needs shift, the labor market moves, and the technology keeps changing, and the system has to be governed and maintained right along with them.

At the end of the day, modernizing classification, compensation, and job architecture is not an HR exercise. It is an investment in whether the state can do its work. The states that build simpler, more flexible, and forward-looking structures will have an easier time hiring good people, helping them grow, and delivering for the citizens they serve.

The contents of this Guest Column are those of the author, and not necessarily Barrett and Greene, Inc

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