Field entry, published 2026-11-03T00:00:00.000Z, updated 2026-11-03T00:00:00.000Z. Group: Major Group 1: Managers

What work sits in Major Group 1?

Major Group 1 holds work whose central purpose is to direct an organisation, a department, a service or an enterprise, to set its direction, and to make sure other people’s work moves in that direction. A job belongs in spirit to this group when planning, organising, coordinating and taking responsibility for results form the core of the role, rather than being occasional extras on top of a different kind of work. The title on a business card matters less than that core purpose, and a grand title alone does not move a specialist job into this group.

What unites such different manager jobs?

A chief executive, a hotel manager and a factory production manager may work in unrelated industries, yet their classification logic has a shared thread. Each one carries responsibility for a whole operation or a defined part of it. Each one makes decisions that bind other workers, sets priorities when demands conflict, and answers for outcomes that are produced by a team rather than by one pair of hands. That accountability for a collective result is the clearest signpost. It separates managerial work from skilled work that is excellent but individual, even when the individual worker is highly experienced.

The work also tends to involve a mix of looking ahead and dealing with the present. Managers plan staffing, budgets, schedules and standards. They also respond to shortages, complaints, breakdowns and sudden changes in demand. The balance between those two sides varies a great deal. A senior leader may spend most time on strategy and external relationships, while a shift or site manager may spend most time on daily operations. Both still sit on the managerial side when their main task is to direct the operation itself.

What kinds of work are included?

The group is broad on purpose, because directing work appears in almost every sector. It includes senior officials and chief executives who lead whole organisations. It includes managers who run administrative functions such as finance, human resources, policy and general administration. It includes managers who lead commercial work such as sales, marketing and business development. It includes managers who direct production in agriculture, manufacturing, construction and related fields. It also includes managers who run services for the public, including hospitality, retail trade, health, education and social services.

That breadth can be confusing at first glance, because the day to day tasks look nothing alike. A useful way to read the group is to ask what the manager is responsible for, not what industry they happen to be in. Is the responsibility a function, such as finance or sales? Is it a production process, such as a plant or a building site? Is it a service setting, such as a hotel, a shop or a clinic? The ILO structure below Major Group 1 organises managers along those lines, and the official structure should be consulted for the exact grouping that fits a particular kind of operation.

What work falls outside this group?

Work falls outside Major Group 1 when directing others is not the main task, even if the worker is senior, trusted or influential. A senior engineer who designs systems, a senior doctor who treats patients, a senior teacher who teaches classes and a senior lawyer who advises clients are all doing professional work first. Supervising a trainee now and then, leading a project for a few weeks or being the most experienced person in a room does not turn that professional core into managerial work.

Team leaders and supervisors need care as well. Some supervise closely and carry real responsibility for a unit, while others mainly pass on instructions or check completed work. Classification looks at the substance of the role: who plans the work, who decides how resources are used, who hires or disciplines, who sets standards and who is accountable when the unit fails to deliver. If those powers sit elsewhere, the job is closer to the occupation it supervises than to management.

How should this group be used in reading a classification?

Think of Major Group 1 as a first sorting step, not a final answer. It tells a reader that the work is managerial in character. The next steps in the ILO structure narrow that character by function and setting, and only at the most detailed level does a specific unit group appear. Readers who need a precise group should work through the official ILO hierarchy for the kind of organisation and function involved, rather than guessing from a job title alone.

Titles are especially unreliable across countries and company sizes. One organisation may call its top manager a director, another may use president, and a small firm may use owner manager. The classification question stays the same in each case: what is directed, how wide is the responsibility, and is directing the main work? When those answers point to management, Major Group 1 is the right neighbourhood. When they point to a specialist craft, a clinical task or a teaching task, another major group will fit better, even if the person also manages a small team.

Major Group 1 therefore describes a kind of responsibility, not a level of prestige. It gathers the people who keep organisations moving as organisations, and it leaves the detailed specialist work to the groups built for that work.

Sources checked

1. International Labour Organization, ISCO-08 structure

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