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You can picture the role type organization as a 'Greek temple', which rests its strength in its pillars. These pillars are the specialist functions or departments that exist within the enterprise. They are strong and almost independent organizations. For example, the Finance department would have very little involvement in the working of the HR department.

Coordination between the groups takes place at the top of the structure by a narrow band of senior management - the pediment. In this environment it is assumed that this should be the only personal coordination needed. "If the separate pillars do their job, as laid down by the rules and procedures, the ultimate result will be predictable."

Roles are usually more important than individuals. People are selected for satisfactory performance of a role, which is described so that a range of individuals could fill it. Reward systems are likely to be role or rule-based.

Often, clearly defined procedures exist for every task and process within the enterprise. For example, job descriptions and job evaluation procedures define individual roles and positions of authority. Also, it is common to find that procedures exist to govern communications, such as colored and numbered forms, committee reports, and so forth.

Representing Positions

Because you are focussing on the use of positions and position hierarchies you define organizations to show only the major divisions in your enterprise. You can model the details of these departments and sections using your position hierarchies. (If you also define detailed organizations and hierarchies, you are defining the same structural information twice.)

In this situation, jobs provide an additional level of information for positions, which is independent of any specific organization. For example, you might want to define job types of 'Managerial', 'Executive' or 'Clerical' so that you can identify skill requirements and levels of benefits for each job.

Position Name

• Cost Code

You might want to show the cost center, or a cost code for each position in your establishment. Using the segment of the key flexfield you could use the same list of cost codes as your general ledger.

• Funding Organization.

You might have funding for a position from an external source. For example, government funding.

• Multiple assignments allowed - Y/N?

In Oracle HRMS a position can have any number of holders. You can set headcount budget values to track any variance on budget, or you could use this type of segment to prompt users.

• Current status.

As part of your position control procedures you may need to mark the status of a position for reporting or management purposes. For example, you can label a position as 'Frozen', 'Vacant' or 'Active'.

Note: You can use the Additional Position Details descriptive flexfield to hold this type of information about positions if you do not want the information to be visible to all users.

Management Reporting Lines

Other Management Issues

Remuneration Policies	Individual compensation and benefits are often regulated, or based on union negotiated agreements.
	Reward systems are usually based on the role performed rather than on personal or performance assessment. This may mean that you have to define detailed eligibility rules for compensation and benefits.
Comparative Grades and Positions	Valid grades are defined for positions and it is common to use grade steps and progression points.
	National or union pay scales establish actual rates of pay for a grade and this is independent of performance. An employee is paid the rate for his or her grade and step. Incrementing rules, which determine progression to the next step, are usually part of the plan and are often time-based.
	Job evaluation methods exist to compare roles across the industry with agreed grading structures and rates of pay.
Budgeting	Headcount or full-time equivalent budgets are usually set for each position.
	You can calculate your Salary budgets from the position budgets, combined with valid grades and progression point information.
	In an HR environment you would calculate actual salary costs, at any time, from the current salaries of assigned employees.
	In an environment including Oracle Payroll, you would calculate actual salary costs directly from payroll run results.
	See: Salary Budgeting
Vacancies and Recruitment	There is an automatic vacancy when an employee terminates employment. The position exists even when there are no holders.
	The stages of the recruitment process and the procedures surrounding these are probably well defined and regulated.
	Standard letters for each stage of the process are also likely to be well established.
	In this environment people are recruited for their ability to perform a role. You would hold job descriptions and skill requirements for each position using attachments for text and the Special Information Type for structured data.
Standard Reports	Typically there is a well defined set of standard reports needed in this environment. Often these are required by government.