Flagship programme
Workforce Architecture Studio
Six weeks for HR leads and operations partners who inherited a pile of titles that no longer describe the work. You leave with a job-family map, a promotion evidence pack, and a list of titles to retire — not a slide deck about “agility.”
What you will be able to do
- Separate job families from the org chart so a technician is not “promoted” into a coordinator title that pays the same.
- Write promotion evidence that a skeptical plant manager can test on the floor.
- Identify dual ladders (individual contributor vs. coordinating) without copying a Silicon Valley template.
- Brief finance on why two roles with similar English titles are not interchangeable in overtime cost.
Limitation you should know
This studio does not rewrite your payroll software, and it will not settle disputes already in litigation. If your titles are frozen by a collective agreement, we can map the architecture but we cannot invent grades the agreement forbids. Participants who skip the week-three site observation usually produce maps that look tidy and fail on night shift.
Modules
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Inventory without vanity
Bring every title in use, including the unofficial ones on name cards. We sort work, not status.
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Families and levels
Build families that match how skill actually accumulates in your industry — machining is not the same curve as inside sales.
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Floor observation
One day watching a handover, a quality hold, or a client escalation. Architecture that cannot survive that hour is discarded.
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Evidence, not adjectives
Replace “shows leadership” with artifacts: a closed CAPA, a trained deputy, a drawing pack that others can run.
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Retirement list
Titles to freeze, merge, or stop printing. Includes a conversation script for people whose English title was doing emotional work.
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Handover to payroll and recruiting
A one-page rule for new requisitions so the architecture does not die in the first hiring rush.
Studio lead
Hui-min Liao
Hui-min spent eleven years inside a listed manufacturer’s people function before joining Panel PathHub. She designs job architecture for plants that run mixed local and migrant crews, and she is blunt about maps that only work in the Taipei office. She teaches this studio in English with floor notes in the client’s working language.
From people who sat in the room
Week three on the coating line made our draft look foolish. We had graded “process engineer” as one family. After watching two different kinds of waiting, we split it. I would not have paid for a remote-only version.
Clear syllabus. The dual-ladder session was shorter than I wanted; we still argue about senior specialists. The retirement-list script was the piece I reused with our GM.
Questions we get before week one
Can I send only HR, with no operations partner?
You can. The maps tend to be prettier and less true. We still admit the seat; we will say so in the critique.
Is this certified against a government framework?
No. Panel PathHub is a private practice. Completing the studio does not confer a licence or a labour-bureau credential.
What if our titles are in English and work is in Mandarin?
That is a common Taiwan pattern. Module five treats English titles as a communication layer, not as the architecture itself.
Do you guarantee a reduction in turnover?
No. Architecture can remove fake promotions and unexplained ceilings. It cannot fix a wage position you are unwilling to discuss, and we will not pretend otherwise.