On Job Descriptions

Job descriptions have three clear purposes in the firm: to guide recruitment (in concert with a Person Profile), give guidance to the principal on the relative value of that job against another, to guide the job holder should that ever be needed. Since there are such clear-cut purposes, it will come as no surprise that there is a very specific way of writing a Job Description such that these needs are satisfied.

There are four areas in the document. The first is the title area where the Job Title, the name of the Job Holder and who they are Responsible To are defined. These need to fit within the overall scope of the organisation and care should be taken here.

The second area is the Job Purpose. This needs five or six lines describing why the job exists and why the firm expects to benefit from the role. Avoid putting any accountability statements here. Reserve it for big-picture stuff.

The third is the Job Scope. It’s here that all the metrics that size the role need to be laid out. Such metrics might cover order acquisition and sales targets, project management scope and number of direct reports. Metrics should be specific and measurable and hence be in terms of money, numbers and geographic locations. In drafting, treat this section as the place where the job evaluation analyst will concentrate. The more scope and the bigger the metrics the more points the job scores.

The fourth and final section is the Principal Accountabilities. These are seven or eight statements that define what the job holder will actually do. The final accountability should always be a statement that the job holder can also be asked to undertake such other tasks as may be agreed from time to time. This avoids the claim “it’s not in my job description”. These statements are of the form ‘do something, to something, to achieve a result’ and hence there are three parts to each.

An example of an accountability might be ‘manage (do something) projects (to something) to achieve target gross margins (to achieve a result). Leaving the measure as that to be agreed allows improvements to be planned and new objectives to be set without having to edit the Job Description. A further example for a person with sales responsibility might be to ‘quote for work, visit customers and close sales to achieve annually agreed targets’.

This last section allows competence to be determined and from that comes qualifications, skills and experience. These form the basis of recruitment and of a Person Profile. It also allows would-be recruits to tell if they can do the job and indeed if the job sounds interesting.

Finally, Job Descriptions should use simple language but be very specific in message. Aim to cover everything in just one side of A4.
TimelessTime consultants have prepared many hundreds of job descriptions. If you would like TimelessTime to write your firm’s job descriptions or complete a comprehensive job analysis, do contact us today (on tel. 01444 220754). Also see www.timelesstime.co.uk for more information.

A little about the author

Sue Berry TimelessTime

Sue is founder Director of TimelessTime. Having gained HR experience in most business sectors and headed up HR in three very different business sectors, she is able to draw on this experience and provide clients with a bespoke service offering them the best solution for their own unique problems. She is a qualified trainer, job analyst, and is Level A and B qualified occupational psychology test user able to administer and interpret both personality and ability tests.

Sue has a BEd(Hons) in sociology, she holds a Masters degree in Human Resource Management and is Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.  Her current research studies are in psychology and economics.