What's in a designation?

Please excuse the play on the Shakespearean adage but had a nice animated discussion with folks a couple of days back on the topic of designations and the importance they play on a person's professional life specially in the IT sector.

The way I look at it - the value of designations is driven a lot by the socio economic environment in which the job / role is located.

Typically, in America it seems to me that it is easier to get fancy titles. People with not that much of experience in the profession do call themselves Directors, there are lot more hierarchies between the Director - President level etc. Maybe that's driven by the fact that there is lot of entrepreneurial focus in States and of course when one is running his / her own business one can decide to call himself / herself what one wants. The other reason could be that everybody prefers a shorter job life i.e. one prefers to retire earlier or get out of a job mode earlier and do what one wants to do.

In Germany, on the other hand I find that the designations have lesser value, hierarchies start much lower, middle management is bloated etc. I believe one of the most important reason for this is the fact that the job life of an individual is longer. People are typically risk averse and when they join an organization they tend to retire from it. Maybe the entrepreneurial spirit is lesser as compared to other places. Also people concentrate a lot on quality of life where they really value their free time and sometimes prefer not higher designations or responsibilities concerned with the fact that it might affect their time for themselves. People do value the work they do and believe a lot more in perfection even if it means that they are doing repetitive tasks.

In India I notice there is extreme importance laid on designations. Here India is more like US but the difference is that the hierarchies are more extensive. Maybe that is got to do with the fact that designations back home are linked to the professional success of an individual. Unless every 2-3 years a person gets a vertical growth he / she is not seen to be good. Maybe it is got to do also with the fact that the work which is done is not that high in the value chain and to retain talent organizations depend on titles. Many things like marriages, house ownership, social standing etc. are all linked to titles too and hence they have critical need for people. Typically job lives are longer in India but people do change many jobs and one of the important criterion for talent acquisition or talent retention is designations. With entrepreneurial opportunities growing there is the trend coming up that designations in previous jobs also influence the ease with which people get funded for their ventures.

Of course some of the things which i wrote are controversial but they are my own observations. Do let me know what you think about it.