Flat Titles at KMS

Dai Tran - Jun 23, 2013

What good is a title?

• A tool to encourage people to do their best, to learn and earn the title. Recognition.
• Categorizing people in different levels – so we know who is at which capability level. Separation.
• To look better when meeting external people. Hollow effect.
• Promotion is the way to earn bigger salary raise. Money.
• To bring home and proudly say – mom, I’m promoted. They don’t actually know what you’ve been doing in the past 5 years but well, it’s supposed to be proud of. Sharing with family.
• To proudly tell your ex-coworker, colleague friends that you are promoted. Everyone in the field is fighting to climb the ladder. We should do the same. Competition.
• To create a history of achievements so your Resume looks good and you are safe if you want to find another job. Job security.

Why flat titles

We recognize all the needs above and do have a title system to support the above purposes at the minimum level. But, at KMS we would like to look at each purpose of the title from a different view, beside the obvious above:

• Recognition: we ensure the recognition of each person works by Management members staying close to every one. We keep exchanging that info around and go through each and every one in PA reviews to not miss anyone.
• Separation: we only do enough of this for management purpose (and to bill clients correctly). Other than that we still want everyone as a team and no real separation between us. We do appreciate each and everyone’s contribution, from a fresher to MD. Without the work of each of us, KMS cannot be the same today.
• Hollow Effect: We don’t meet external people much – except Viet Hung I guess. But if you do and feel the need of a better title for this purpose – let the management know and we may approve a title for you.
• Money: We do have large overlaps in salary ranges – and SE can earn more than SSE, SSE can earn more than SA / EM. You earn by advancing in your ability, not by promotions.
• Sharing with Family: We would leave this to you – but we suggest you tell them more about your work – what you do, what you did well, what your team achieve, and how good KMS is – to create a better bond with the family. Instead of a promotion here and there but they don’t really know what you did.
• Competition: We would like to build KMS so that you can be proud only by telling them you are a KMS member. We would like you to be proud that you are working in a good company, you are happy that you can contribute a great amount to that company and you are continue to grow along with the company to a bigger future. That sounds much better than telling them you are a Senior Manager in a crap company – they are going to laugh behind your back. From my experience, happiness and proud of a promotion only lasts 1 week at most. The joy and proud of the new things you can do last much longer. At KMS, you are asked to contribute whatever way you can to the company, regardless of your title. Consider yourself already promoted. Now, what do you want to do?
• Job Security: KMS is different – we don’t want to be a company with only 13 months of salary. We want to share the success with the members who are with us – starting with benefits – and then with more reward when we make money – very soon. We believe in it and would like everyone to look forward to the same future, to work and think like this is the last company you will work for, and share the success when it comes. If, for a reason, you choose to leave KMS, we want that you will earn respect of the interviewers by the fact that you are KMS member alone, you will impress them by your knowledge and experience, you will make them like you by the maturity and thoughts that you learnt at KMS. We believe you will earn whatever title you deserve – no matter what title you had at KMS.

To conclude, we do support all of the common purposes of the title system – but at the minimum level and we look at them differently. We would not want everyone to rush for it as a goal – we would like the goal to be how much you can do for KMS and speed up our success as a company – and gain recognition, respect, knowledge and rewards in the process.