Writing Job Descriptions: A Challenge For Business Owners

Job descriptions describe the tasks or duties and functions and responsibility of the jobs being written about.

When writing job descriptions, it is important to ensure that key result areas are clearly defined:

• employees want to know what they are expected to do;
• why it is important to do so and the connection to other areas in the department or business;
• how to do the tasks;
• if applicable, the timing of when the tasks need to be done;
• how they will know if they’ve done a good job (for example, referencing job standards or standard operating procedures is a good method of measuring or comparing performance);
• who they have contact with in the job: from supervisor, to subordinate, to peers, to suppliers, to customers;
• and what knowledge, training and/or education they will need to have to do the job.

It is also useful to both the employee and the employer to share the business strategy and the business plan outline (at minimum); and to explain how the job fits into both of those key business elements.

In short, use a framework to create your position description:

• Job position title
• An overall statement of responsibility and how the job contributes to the business
• Specific tasks or duties, described with action verbs (such as to do, to write, to analyze, to operate, to set up, etc.)
• Specific knowledge or education required (for example, for a graphic designer working in a design firm, there will be a requirement to be capable with specific designer software)
• Key result areas (what will be measured; and the link to measure business performance)
• Reporting structure – who the position reports to and who, if anyone, reports to the position
• Contacts – does the position have contact with customers, other departments, other employees?

Writing job descriptions is often considered the role of human resources, however it needs input from the operational manager to ensure it is a good reflection of the job expectations. If the job is an existing job that needs to have a description written, use your human resources department or specialist to do a job analysis. If you don’t have a human resources department or specialist, the advantages of outsourcing these human resource activities are significant.

With input from your human resources specialist discover: What are the daily activities, the weekly activities, the monthly and yearly activities? Is the job operations- or manufacturing-driven? Or customer service-driven? Is accuracy important? Is the ability to write in technical English important? What skills, experience, education is necessary to do this job? Look at the job attributes and begin listing them on a job description form to help you design the job. If there are human resources issues in developing this description it is best to find out now.

Descriptions for new jobs are more challenging to create because while you might have an idea of what the job should be and what it might look like, no one has actually done that job in your business.

In this case, see if you can find comparative job descriptions on job boards or on industry association websites or in comparative industries. Review a new job and the description at least six months to one year after the job was created to ensure that the description is still valid.

List of characteristics common to writing job descriptions:

1. Break down individual tasks and duties
2. Knowledge: What does the individual need to know to do that task (e.g. a carpet layer would need to know how to handle different types of carpet)
3. Health and Safety: What are the safety requirements of the job? (Make sure your business has a safety checklist or plan.)
4. Quality: Define what a quality performance looks like?
5. Measurement: are there standards or measurable objectives for the job?
6. Experience and Education or Certifications required. With education requirements, ensure that they are a real requirement of the job. For example, a lifeguard needs the training, education and certification to be a lifeguard.
7. Physical Requirements: eyesight, hand and eye coordination, ability to lift 40 lbs., etc. Again these requirements must be necessary to do the job, they cannot be excuses not to hire people with disabilities.
8. Ensure that all aspects of the job description comply with the laws in your region and country.

Creating and writing descriptions enables you to better understand what is required in each job in your business. If you understand what you need in each position, it will help you in recruiting employees and hiring the right people for your business. If you do this wrong, your newly hired employees may quit or you may find yourself firing employees because they are not performing to your expectations (even if those are not clearly spelled out in the job description). If you do not have time to do this work, consider human resources outsourcing or contracting consultants or specialists.

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