position

Particular organizational job

Record the identifying designation, owning organization and evidence that the entry represents a particular position.

1. What designation identifies this position within its organization, including among positions with the same title? definition
2. Which organizational record or responsible authority establishes this as a position rather than only a job profile or role? provenance

Same job or successor

Record whether a change preserves the position or creates a successor, with the basis for that decision.

1. Which changes to title, mandate, grade or organizational home preserve this position's identity under local rules? boundary
2. When a position is split, merged or replaced, who determines the successor relationships and their effective dates? action

Assigned job mandate

Record what this job is expected to achieve and where its responsibility ends.

1. Which outcomes and recurring responsibilities define why this position exists? definition
2. Which adjacent responsibilities belong to another position, and where is responsibility shared? boundary
3. Which approved job description or mandate establishes these expectations? provenance

Requirements and exceptions

Record position-specific appointment requirements, their basis and any permitted exception process.

1. Which qualifications, credentials or eligibility conditions are mandatory for this position, and which are preferences? definition
2. What source establishes each mandatory condition and its period of applicability? provenance
3. Who may approve an exception, and what conditions must an appointment satisfy before it takes effect? action

Typed reporting lines

Record the organizational home and reporting relationships with their purposes and effective periods.

1. Which unit owns the position, and to which positions or bodies does it report for each stated purpose? definition
2. Where reporting lines produce conflicting instructions, what escalation route or precedence rule applies? action

Position-held authority

Record decisions attached to the position, distinguishing them from powers granted separately to an individual.

1. Which decisions may an authorized occupant make by holding this position, within what limits and approval conditions? action
2. Which instrument grants that authority, and when does it take effect or expire? provenance
3. Which powers require a separate personal delegation or do not transfer automatically to an acting occupant? boundary

Capacity basis

Record approved capacity, permitted sharing and the conventions used to measure allocation.

1. What staffing capacity is approved for this position, and how is a full-time equivalent defined for the relevant period? measurement
2. May multiple people occupy this position concurrently, and what distinguishes permitted sharing from excess allocation? boundary

Dated position assignments

Record who is assigned, for which period and fraction, and what gaps or overlaps remain.

1. Who holds substantive, shared or acting assignments to this position, with what dates and allocation? definition
2. At the date being assessed, how much approved capacity is unfilled, multiply allocated or temporarily uncovered? measurement
3. What approval and handover conditions must be met to arrange temporary coverage? action

Authorized job state

Record establishment status and any funding, time or approval constraints on filling the position.

1. What is the position's current establishment status, and which decision establishes that status? provenance
2. Do a staffing freeze, funding condition, expiry date or further approval currently prevent an appointment? action
3. How does the organization distinguish a vacant position from one that is not authorized to be filled? boundary

Change and closure conditions

Record who may change the position and how responsibilities, authority and occupancy must be addressed.

1. Who may approve creation, transfer, redesign, suspension or abolition of this position, and from what effective date? action
2. Before a change takes effect, which responsibilities, delegations, reporting links and incumbent assignments require an explicit disposition? action

Kinds and varieties

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• Permanent / established position
• Temporary / fixed-term position
• Acting / interim position
• Full-time vs part-time or job-share (FTE fraction)
• Managerial / supervisory position
• Individual-contributor position
• Executive / officer position
• Classified civil-service vs unclassified / at-will position

1. Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of position this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Identifiers and schemes

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• Wikidata - Q4164871 - Item 'position' as an organizational employment post.
• HR Open Standards / HR-XML PositionID - employer-assigned PositionID (opaque string) - Persistent identifier of a position object in HRIS interchange; not a global public code.
• U.S. federal position description / occupational series and grade - GS-{series}-{grade} plus a local PD number, e.g. GS-0343-13 - Classifies a specific federal position; the series is occupational, the PD number names the post.
• SAP HCM Organizational Management / Workday Position - system position number (e.g. SAP object type S, 8-digit object ID) - Vendor HRIS keys; unique within an employer, not portable across employers.

1. Which of these identifiers and schemes hold for the sense of position this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Standards and regulation

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• ISO 30400:2022 Human resource management - Vocabulary (International Organization for Standardization)
• ISO 30414:2018 Human resource management - Guidelines for internal and external human capital reporting (ISO) - treats positions/FTE as reportable human-capital objects
• U.S. Office of Personnel Management Position Classification Standards (OPM) - classification of General Schedule and Federal Wage System positions
• Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. § 201 et seq., and 29 C.F.R. Part 541 (U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division) - exempt vs non-exempt status of a position by duties and salary basis
• Directive 2003/88/EC concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time (European Parliament and Council) - working-time limits that attach to how a post is scheduled
• HR Open Standards Consortium Position / PositionCompetency schemas (HR Open Standards Consortium, successor to HR-XML)
• Public-sector establishment and merit rules (jurisdiction-specific), e.g. U.S. Title 5 classification, UK Civil Service Commission Recruitment Principles, German Stellenplan / Tarifvertrag grouping

1. Which of these standards and regulation hold for the sense of position this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Real-world use

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• Position management in HRIS (Workday Position, SAP OM object type S, Oracle HCM): the position is a durable costed object; people are assigned to it and can leave it vacant.
• Establishment control and headcount budgeting: authorized positions (funded FTE) are the unit finance and workforce planning argue over, not named employees.
• Recruitment: a requisition is opened against a vacant or new position; the offer fills that post, not a generic job class.
• Public-sector classification: a position description is written, evaluated to a series/grade, and used as the legal basis for pay, qualifications, and bargaining-unit status.
• Organization charts, span-of-control, and succession plans treat named posts (CEO, ward manager, shift lead) as nodes that persist across incumbents.
• Job evaluation schemes (Hay, Mercer IPE, JEGS) score a position's duties and accountabilities to place it on a grade or band.

1. Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of position this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Typical measurements

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• Full-time equivalent (FTE) of the position - 0.1-1.0 (occasionally job-share splits of 0.5/0.5; overtime-authorized posts may budget >1.0) - FTE
• Incumbency / occupancy - 0 (vacant) or 1 (filled); dual incumbency is an exception or error - persons
• Span of control (direct reports) - 0 for individual contributors; about 3-12 for first-line managers; wider at the front line, narrower at the top - direct reports
• Vacancy duration (time-to-fill the post) - about 20-90 days for many professional posts; much longer for specialist, executive, or constrained public-sector posts - days
• Fully loaded position cost (pay + statutory + benefits + overhead) - from a fraction of a local average wage up to multi-million executive packages; typically 1.2-1.5× base pay in high-income employers - currency per year
• Classification grade or pay band - employer-specific (e.g. GS-1 to GS-15; Hay points; UK Civil Service AO-SCS) - grade or points

1. Which of these typical measurements hold for the sense of position this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Failure modes and hazards

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• Misclassification of a position as exempt from overtime (or the local equivalent), creating wage-and-hour liability even when the job title sounds managerial.
• Ghost, unfunded, or 'held vacant' positions used as budget slush, which distorts establishment control and audit trails.
• Position descriptions that lag the work actually done, so hiring, pay, and accommodations rest on a false account of duties.
• Acting or interim occupancy that becomes de facto permanent, bypassing merit, equality, or budget rules for the substantive post.
• Title inflation and dual-hatting that hide true span of control, reporting lines, or bargaining-unit status.
• Key-person concentration: a unique position with no deputy or documented work, so vacancy or departure stops a process.
• Discriminatory essential requirements written into a position (unjustified degree, language, physical, or availability rules) producing disparate impact.

1. Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of position this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Regional variation

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• United States: 'position' is the classification and FLSA unit; private-sector employment is often at-will, while federal and many state posts are classified civil-service positions with a position description.
• United Kingdom and much of the Commonwealth: civil-service usage prefers 'post' and 'establishment'; private HR uses 'position' and 'job' more interchangeably.
• Germany, Austria, Switzerland: Stelle and Stellenplan are the authorized-post objects; works councils (Betriebsrat) typically have co-determination over new Stellen and Stellenbeschreibungen; pay groups come from Tarifvertrag, not a free-standing grade.
• France and several Romance-language administrations: poste; the cadre / non-cadre split (and statut for the fonction publique) is a primary legal kind of post.
• Japan and some Korean large-firm practice: historically person- and grade-based (shokuno / membership) rather than Western position-based organization; 'position' as a vacant box on a chart is a more recent HRIS import.
• Public sector globally: authorized establishment, merit appointment, and political vs career posts; private sector: positions are often created and deleted with budget cycles rather than statutory establishment.

1. Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of position this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance

Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart

Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.

• Job - A job is a class of similar work; one job (e.g. 'registered nurse') can be instantiated as many positions. A position is a single post that can be vacant.
• Occupation - An occupation is a labour-market category across employers (ISCO, SOC, ESCO). A position exists only inside one organization's establishment.
• Role - A role is a set of expected behaviours or accountabilities a person may hold without a dedicated post (RACI, agile roles). One incumbent can hold many roles; a position is the box they sit in.
• Appointment / incumbency - Appointment is the act or period of assigning a person to a position. The position persists when the appointment ends.
• Vacancy / requisition - A vacancy is the unfilled state of a position, and a requisition is the recruiting case opened against it. Neither is the position itself.
• Grade / pay band - A grade is a compensation and evaluation class shared by many positions. Two posts can share a grade and still be distinct positions.
• Job title - A title is a label, often inflated or honorary. Classification, FLSA status, and org-chart authority follow the position's duties, not the title string.
• Employee / incumbent - The employee is the person; the position is the post. Headcount counts people; establishment counts positions.

1. Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of position this model covers, and on what evidence? provenance