12th June 2006, 01:13 PM
Kevin,
This is a result of a project we ran last year, run by my former colleague Mary Walkden, in which we drafted new fieldwork job descriptions from scratch using the National Occupational Standards for Archaeology. This work was carried out by a small team from Fort Cumberland, with a few 'stakeholders' from our Human Resource team, IFA and our TU side. Further comments came from the EH Heads of Training and Standards and of Outreach (we included project outreach staff in the job description project).
There were a number of reasons for doing this. For example, we have been running a training module in field skills for some time on our projects for graduate-level archaeologists, and it is our long-term aim to develop more courses for supervisors and project managers - so defining the skills necessary for each grade was an essential first step. The new job descriptions have already been very useful in helping us to set up the IFA/HLF-funded Finds and Environmental Supervisor traineeship that was advertised recently.
It is also true that the quality of applications that we received in the past was extremely variable, and we wanted to make the skills and experience required for each post more explicit. In doing so, we hoped that this will help applicants to identify the training that they might need to apply for higher-graded posts.
Once we had the revised job descriptions, we asked a Human Resources colleague to assess pay and grading, to ensure that the levels of responsibility and pay were consistent with other EH staff. It was this comparison of the set of skills and experience required for each field post against a wide range of other EH jobs that resulted in the revised salaries.
Whether this sets a new benchmark or not remains to be seen. We do intend to publish this report in our new Research Department reports series, which will be available electronically in the near future. By setting out the reasoning behind the new job descriptions we will, I hope, be making a useful contribution to this debate.
In the meantime, we have started to send out the new application packs, and have asked for feedback from potential applicants whether they decide to apply or not.
Happy to discuss further, on- or off-list,
Brian Kerr
English Heritage Archaeological Projects, Fort Cumberland, Portsmouth
This is a result of a project we ran last year, run by my former colleague Mary Walkden, in which we drafted new fieldwork job descriptions from scratch using the National Occupational Standards for Archaeology. This work was carried out by a small team from Fort Cumberland, with a few 'stakeholders' from our Human Resource team, IFA and our TU side. Further comments came from the EH Heads of Training and Standards and of Outreach (we included project outreach staff in the job description project).
There were a number of reasons for doing this. For example, we have been running a training module in field skills for some time on our projects for graduate-level archaeologists, and it is our long-term aim to develop more courses for supervisors and project managers - so defining the skills necessary for each grade was an essential first step. The new job descriptions have already been very useful in helping us to set up the IFA/HLF-funded Finds and Environmental Supervisor traineeship that was advertised recently.
It is also true that the quality of applications that we received in the past was extremely variable, and we wanted to make the skills and experience required for each post more explicit. In doing so, we hoped that this will help applicants to identify the training that they might need to apply for higher-graded posts.
Once we had the revised job descriptions, we asked a Human Resources colleague to assess pay and grading, to ensure that the levels of responsibility and pay were consistent with other EH staff. It was this comparison of the set of skills and experience required for each field post against a wide range of other EH jobs that resulted in the revised salaries.
Whether this sets a new benchmark or not remains to be seen. We do intend to publish this report in our new Research Department reports series, which will be available electronically in the near future. By setting out the reasoning behind the new job descriptions we will, I hope, be making a useful contribution to this debate.
In the meantime, we have started to send out the new application packs, and have asked for feedback from potential applicants whether they decide to apply or not.
Happy to discuss further, on- or off-list,
Brian Kerr
English Heritage Archaeological Projects, Fort Cumberland, Portsmouth