Bar Chefs – Are Job Titles Important?

The emergence of organic fruits, veggies and spirits has started a new bar trend.  Bartenders are on the search for the freshest ingredients for their drink creations.  And since bartenders are now combing farmer’s markets and specialty stores for absolutely perfect ingredients, there’s also a trend to change their job title to “bar chefs.”  Versus the traditional term – bartender.

This got me thinking…how important are job titles?  I can see both sides to this one:

Titles are important. I had a boss who said once you’re a director of ‘whatever’, you wear the executive label forever.  The idea being, that title should help with future job opportunities.  It sounds very superficial but I have to admit, once I became a director, certain things were just a given in my skill set.  So that being said, will “bar chefs” take more pride in their work and maybe do a better job with the fancy new title?  I wonder…

Titles aren’t important. It’s about the work.  Customers don’t care what your job title is as long as you take care of them.  Case in point, we only ask for a ‘supervisor’ when our needs aren’t being met.  Otherwise, we really don’t seem to care who we’re dealing with.  Will customers care if you are a bartender or a bar chef?  Or do they just want the drink?

Seems to me that corporate job titles like Head of Magic might be eye-catching on a business card and a great conversation piece but they aren’t very practical and don’t help sell what you do.  And don’t even get me started on people who have inflated Vice President titles and aren’t even close to doing VP level work.

I’m thinking job titles should be practical descriptors of the work a person does.  What’s your take on this? What role does the job title play in organizational development?  And how about recruiting?  Let’s get some conversation started…

P.S.  No worries…I’m not changing the blog to HR Bar Chef anytime in the near future…HA!

Image courtesy of isante_magazine.

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