Definitions:

Job: Generic Title or Role within a Business Group, independent of any single organization. Required. Usually more specific if positions are not used.

Position: Specific occurrence of one job, fixed within an organization. Not required.

Jobs:

• Required
• Generic within Business Group
• Independent of any single organization
• Jobs can occur in many organizations
• Holds Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) Code
• Holds Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Work Category
• Holds Evaluation Criteria Information
• Associated with Worker’s Compensation Codes

Positions:

• Optional
• Specific occurrence of one job
• Must be unique within an organization
• Linked to an Organization, Job and Location
• Shared with Other Applications (i.e. Purchasing)
• Position Hierarchies control access to information (security)

Jobs and Positions - Similar Functionality:

• Flex structure for name
  
• Valid Grades
• Evaluations
• Competencies
• Skills
• Work Choices
• Not Date Tracked

Some Advantages of Using Positions: · Define jobs more specifically · Reporting · Views · Position hierarchies for P.O. approvals · Position hierarchies for security · Occupancy View · Probation Periods · Standard Conditions & Working Hours · Successor · Position Control for Authorized Positions · Competencies · Requirements · Recruitment · Career Management · Career Paths · Job and Position Skills Matching Report · Expands Oracle Training Administration · Allows for eligibility through element linking · Can view which position it reports to · Simplifies Assignments by connecting and populating org, job and location · Web security and online approvals · ADE (Application Data Export) Position Hierarchy Diagrammer · Grade relationships · Evaluations · Competencies - more specific to job · Skills - more specific to job · Work Choices - more specific to job · Mass Moves: Organizations, Locations, Jobs, GRE’s, Standard Conditions · Succession Planning · Positions are better (than Job and Supervisor) for P.O. approvals

You may NOT want to use positions in the case of: · An enterprise where there are frequent re-organizations of departments and job functions as this might require moving many positions across organizations. Oracle provides a feature to manage mass changes of Positions and People, but this is optimized for 'mass' change. However, if you are considering using positions then it's really important to think about the level at which you define your Organizations - these are the containers of Positions. If you use Positions you should consider creating Organizations at the level of a 'Department' or Cost Center, not for every work group within a department. Position and Hierarchy can carry the detail of work-groups and management hierarchy within the department. If you define every work-group, or management team in a Department as its own organization you will have extra work for any re-organizing of teams within a department.

Positions for Governments and Unions: Positions are typical of government/public sector agencies or those companies with a heavy blue collar or union influence. There are a few reasons for this:

1. Public sector agencies are position driven which means that they identify roles and skills based on the position, not the individual. The position carries with it a defined set of criteria that the person who is applying for the position must have, people are not brought into the agency because they have special skills - they are hired to fill a role and they have the skills/knowledge/abilities that the role defines.
2. You can also have multiple "holders" or people filling one position and that does not necessarily mean job sharing.
3. Companies can define positions and employees on a one to one relationship, meaning each position can have only one employee assigned to it. Unless one is dealing with a small company, this can be an administrative nightmare. This might be used in an organization that wants to define purchasing authority on a per position/person basis (provided there is no costing of positions so maintenance may remain relatively low).
4. Public sector agencies also practice encumbrance based accounting compared to private enterprise - meaning the funding or budget for departments can be determined ahead of time, providing flexibility in budgetary spending.
5. Positions are tracked and monitored as a result of this type of accounting for another reason as well. Typically in government agencies, funding for positions comes from multiple sources, such as 50% of positions X is paid for by the federal government and 50% is paid for by the state therefore, detailed tracking/costing is required on a per position basis.

Summary & Recommendations:
· If you are using Positions, you may wish to create a segment on the Position Key Flexfield called, “Organization” to simplify the connection process.
· If the client has a need to know who reports to who, has a highly volatile organization, needs to do immediate mass moves and has strict security needs, then positions are a must. In this instance, stress the importance of creating very generic job names, and make the position name specific.