When last did you take a hard look at your company job descriptions and consider carefully whether they truly identify the key tasks, responsibilities and have the necessary detail around what, why, how and for whom and in what surroundings the work is performed?
A recent project focused on the creation and re-work of job descriptions following a strategic planning exercise which highlighted some overlaps and role conflicts.
What a significant exercise, which included the CEO’s JD… especially when often job descriptions are lists of qualifications and don’t really capture the imagination!
Have you also given a weighting to these duties, including essential or marginal and indicated the percentage of total time that should be spent?
Also, does the JD include a short description that summarises the job and is descriptive enough to be used to achieve a number of purposes, including the writing of interview questions or what’s key to successful performance – ensuring you save a lot of time and money later on!
What a worthwhile exercise, despite it being so labour intensive, it really facilitated engagement of individual’s and teams around their roles and helped to further consolidate the implementation of the strategy.
“The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today.” – Elbert Hubbard