Streamline Training & Documentation: Job Descriptions That Do Their Job

Monday, March 26, 2007

Job Descriptions That Do Their Job

Earlier this month the Wall Street Journal had an encouraging article by Erin White about a new tack some companies are taking in their job ads. The idea is to use normal English to paint a picture of what a job actually entails.

Companies are moving in this direction because they want to reduce turnover due to unpleasant surprises new-hires often experience when they are confronted by the day-to-day reality of their job responsibilities. As White explains, typical recruitment ads

didn't help applicants understand the work they would do. Instead they featured jargon-laden task lists, and emphasized education and experience requirements.

There was also a problem with recruiters glamorizing jobs, instead of setting reasonable expectations for the challenges employees are expected to tackle and the culture within which they will be working.

All of this caught my eye because I have long been using job ads as a way of getting a feel for what a potential client does and what sorts of knowledge and skills their employees need to master. I've also worked with clients on performance management systems, so I'm well aware of the fundamental importance of clearly defining each employee's actual responsibilities.

Which brings us to job descriptions. What should they include and how should they be formatted? The National Federation of Independent Business provides a good set of guidelines, compliments of Jason Kovac of WorldatWork. There are five items on Kovac's list:

Make it clear, concise and accurate — Note that the summary introducing the job description should be about four sentences long, providing an "overview that describes the purpose of the job and how it fits into the organization..."

Prioritize — Start the list of responsibilities with those that are most important and that absorb the bulk of the employee's time.

Allow for flexibility — "With lower-level positions, you want to be as specific as possible when describing a position, but as you assign higher-level roles in your company, it's best to stay as general as possible" in order to accommodate exercise of independent judgment by your more senior employees.

Keep up-to-date — Revisit your job descriptions at least biannually. For particularly dynamic jobs, six-month review is advised. When doing your updating, invite employee input concerning actual tasks and time requirements, and take long-term company goals and new technology into account.

Look ahead — For instance, if you would like an employee to develop the ability to handle certain tasks down the road, you can include those tasks in the job description at the bottom of the list of responsibilities. Then move them up the list as the employee's skills expand.

CCH Inc. provides a template and three sample job descriptions here (rtf).

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Labels: Documentation, Employee performance management, Hiring and getting hired

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