Why have job descriptions?
- Job descriptions are an essential part of co-ordinating and motivating employees
- Without a job description an employee does not have a clear understanding of what they are supposed to achieve and how their performance is measured – and you have no way to hold them accountable
- The process of creating and reviewing job descriptions is an opportunity to discuss and clarify the role – to reinforce two-way communication
What should be in a job description?
- Job Title
- The role that the position reports to (not the person)
- Main purpose of the role. One or two sentences that describe the main output of the job.
- Responsibilities
o The tasks and deliverables of the role - keep this to a maximum of six
o One sentence each
o Include only the permanent elements of the role – not transient targets or projects
o Be generic rather than specific: “Conform to current operations procedures “ rather than “Carry out procedures x, y and z”. Do not duplicate procedures or manuals.
- Dimensions
o The budget controlled
o Number of direct reports
o Regional or product boundaries
- Key challenges of the role
- Performance measures
o The key deliverables: “Performance against sales target” or “Customer satisfaction score”
o Keep this to a maximum of four
o Don’t include actual targets – these may change
- Required attributes
o Technical knowledge or skills
o Experience and qualifications
o Personal strengths: “Able to work on own initiative” or “Aptitude with technology”
Implementing job descriptions
- Use a standard template – or possibly two, one for management and one for other roles
- Where a new job description is required then get the post-holder to write it using the standard template (you still need to review and own it)
- Use generic job descriptions where you have more than one person doing the same job
- It gets more difficult to write a job description the more junior the role. It is difficult sometimes to identify performance measures for a clerical assistant. Nevertheless, if you are to develop a high-performance team then every employee needs to understand what they are supposed to be doing and how their performance will be measured
- Job descriptions should be no longer than one side of A4 - try these employment templates
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