17 Jul 2018
One of the most powerful hiring and motivational tools you have in your workplace is a job description for each employee. Good ones will help you find the right person for the job and team members focus on doing their jobs well, so it is worth spending time to get them right ...
Caroline Bäck
Job Title
All members of the organisation in which you work, from the boss to the part-time dog walker, should have a job description.
Well-written job descriptions enable employees to understand clearly the expectations of the role, its essential duties, the competencies needed and responsibilities involved, as well as the required educational credentials and experience.
When hiring, they serve as a clear, concise communication tool to inform potential applicants about a job’s requirements.
Here is an example: an operations manager was unsure about her role and also her working relationship to her new boss, the general manager for the organisation. As a result she was uncertain about when and how she could make decisions and where the borderline went between herself and her boss.
Things became much clearer when, together, they agreed on the following job brief:
“The operations manager [OM] plans, directs and coordinates most of the organisation’s operations. The OM is responsible for improving performance, productivity, efficiency and profitability through the implementation of effective methods and strategies.
“The OM manages a team of four unit managers and a number of other direct reports. The OM is part of the senior management team and reports to the general manager.”
More specific duties and responsibilities were listed in the actual job description, and later discussion helped define how the improvements to performance, productivity, and so on, would be measured.
In large companies it is typically the HR department that prepares job descriptions. In smaller businesses, such as veterinary practices, a team lead by the practice manager should do this job.
Team members represent different roles in the organisation that help create a balanced and accurate description of the various roles and their requirements. For example, how a veterinarian sees their key activities in their role may differ from how the receptionist views it, and vice versa.
The job description should be as neutral as possible, describing the actual needs of the role and not the way the current inhabitant of the role behaves, especially if they have particular behaviours or quirks that are tolerated, but not desirable. Remember, this description could serve as the basis for an employment advertisement in the future.
When creating job descriptions from scratch in an established organisation, it is important each employee has input into their description. They can provide insight that you may not have into what they see as their day-to-day duties and what they feel is necessary for success in terms of skills and experience.
If several people in the organisation do a similar type of job – for example, a group of veterinary nurses – a useful way to personalise their job descriptions is to use a generic one of the basic role then highlight, in a separate supplement, specific tasks assigned to that individual.
A job description is a written agreement between employer and employee, so content should be formally agreed and regularly updated – for example at the annual review.
A job description is not a shopping list of all possible tasks the individual is expected to perform, nor is it a detailed narrative of how a task should be performed. This information should be available separately as written routines or standards of practice.
For example, a key responsibility for a managing director might be as follows:
“Developing and executing the company’s business strategies to attain the goals of the board and shareholders.”
It would be entirely inappropriate to detail exactly how this should be carried out as this stifles creativity, imagination and the likelihood of achieving good results.
In the same way, putting exact time requirements on different aspects of a role is unhelpful and restricting. Whereas saying “around 20 per cent of the time should be spent on administrative tasks” is helpful, specifying “six hours per week should be spent on writing health reports and no more than one hour in telephone contact with clients and writing prescriptions” is unhelpful.
This is the sort of time management that can, if necessary, be developed with the individual during discussions about how to structure their time.
Job descriptions do not work if they are too detailed and finicky or if they are treated as rigid descriptions of exactly what an employee should and should not do. One of the ways of getting around the latter is to include the phrase “and other tasks appropriate for this role”.
Job descriptions should not be long. One page is about right, possibly with very specific functions described separately in an appendix.
Apart from recruiting, the job description should be part of the annual performance review – not only as the basis for evaluating performance, but also to ensure it is still up-to-date and relevant. Used in this way, it gives clarity of expectation, which minimises misunderstanding between employer and employee, and also helps motivate the individual as they:
A good job description is much more than a laundry list of tasks and responsibilities. If well written, it describes the individual’s responsibilities and priorities, and helps them structure and perform their job well.
For potential candidates, it provides a clear picture of the position. A job description can also serve as a vital reference in the event of disputes or disciplinary issues.
The more concise you can make a job description upfront, the more useful it is as a tool.
