Do job title’s matter? We’ve covered this topic before. It depends on who you talk to. To many, their title conveys and defines who they are and what they have achieved in their career. In business, many argue that titles help employees understand who is in charge of what areas and who they need to go to for help, guidance and their own roadmap of what assignments they need to be working on. In general many healthcare IT organizations in different parts of the country have they own set of titles - sometimes less in stature to some, even though the responsibilities are identical. I say, get over it. No big deal.
To others, titles mean nothing. They could care less. Give me a great job, a way to career growth and new skill development and working in a culture where they can thrive in and you can give them any title you want! They are more interested in living in the now, learning more and working for a great organization. I get that and totally understand their point of view. Many of those that fall into this camp are more interested in quality of life and being happy and decided long ago to check their ego at the door.
I’m not sure there is a right answer or a wrong answer to the title question as we have seen it all – especially over the last few years. Larger organizations have title and salary bands that are stringent and rigid while smaller organizations use title to recognize performance in lieu of higher compensation. I call that the "title wave".
Recently I’ve seen a CIO title at the beginning of a search assignment morph to a director level title and in the end it all made sense to everyone involved. You have to be comfortable with "who you are" and in the "what you accomplish" and in the "value you create". If you make your mark in any organization I doubt very seriously that anyone will say "He or she did a great job, knocked the cover off the ball - but they were only a Director". Nope that’s not the way it works. Do your job and do it well and you will always be in demand in the HCIT market. Regardless of your title…
