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Human Resources
by Shane Isley and Donnie Staff
Good Job Descriptions Can Save You Time and Money
Why Are Job Descriptions Important?
Bringing out the best in your employees, and continuing to meet your business
goals, starts with the development of thorough job descriptions. A good job
description will provide employees with clear expectations, and can also
take the place of more expensive and time-consuming training. Well-written
job desciriptions can add value to many parts of your business. A good job
description can: (1) help attract a strong pool of candidates more efficiently
by describing the qualities, qualifications, and experience required to be
successful in the position; (2) guide your training and development, ensuring
your managers focus only on the skills & knowledge the employee needs
to do the job; and (3) enable your managers to engage in meaningful and
productive performance conversations with their direct reports. Well writtten
job descriptions, while typically underrated, can be one of the most influential
contributions to your business success.
How to Create a Good Job Description
Step 1: Mapping The starting point for writing a good job description is
“mapping” the position. This helps you identify what someone serving in a
position is expected to accomplish and whom they are expected to deliver work
products to. Mapping a position requires an understanding of the company’s
culture as well as the duties, responsibilities, and demands of the position. It
also requires a familiarity with the position, specifically, knowledge of whom
the employee will interact with both inside and outside the business. Before
you begin mapping a position, it’s important to specify the position you
wish to describe and not a person you want to convey information to (e.g.,
write a job description for your pub’s head bartender, not for Peter the head
bartender and manager). After you have specified the position, identify all of
the people that expect to receive work products from the employee, including
co-workers (internal customers) as well as customers, vendors, and partners
(external customers). Your mapping assignment is complete once you identify
the position's work products and which internal and external customers they
are delivered to.
Below are some tips for selecting work products.
A work product is:
• A product of behaviour, not a behaviour itself
• A thing, not the measure of a thing
• A valuable contribution to business results
• A noun, not a verb
Tips for writing work products:
• Add criteria to help clarify what counts as an acceptable work product.
• Ask yourself if you can state the work product in a plural tense. If so, then it is
likely you have identified a countable noun that will function as a work
product.
Step 2: Defining The second step in writing a job description involves describing
why the work products are important to the business as well as stating the
criteria for an acceptable one. In order to show how work products contribute to
the business’ overall success, link the work products to business results. Business
results are the metrics a company uses to measure its success as a business,
(e.g. profit margins, customer satisfaction, employee turnover, marketshare,
etc.). Once you have shown the link between work products and business
results, detail the criteria for what constitutes an acceptable work product. A
list of criteria allows an employee and his manager to evaluate the quality of
the employee’s work product(s) more easily.
Lastly, list the actions or approaches recommended to complete each work
product. Providing an employee with guidance as to how to produce work
products can help ensure they follow company policies, engage in best practices,
and are on track to becoming a more independent team member. Continue
to link work outputs to business results, detail performance criteria and list
actions until you have described all of the major work products for the position.
Below is an example of one item, out of several, you may find on a store, pub,
or bar manager’s job description.
Business Results
Work Product
Criteria
Behaviour
Revenue streams
Customer satisfaction
Profit margin
Cash flow
Purchase order
Includes the appropriate amount
of supplies for the current business
needs
Replenishes inventory
Establishes supplies to meet future
customer demands, expected future
sales, and daily sales goals
Expands selection based on customer
habits and current business plans
Requests needed supplies at the
lowest possible cost
Placed in a timely manner so
that stock is not depleted before
purchased items are received
Includes the business’ license number
Is signed
Research vendor costs and selection
Take inventory of current stock
Review past sales data
Predict future sales
Submit purchase order
Shane Isley is President
and Donnie Staff is VP of
Consulting Services at Optimal.
They can be reached at
206-905-4660
©2013 West Coast Behavioral
Consultants, Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
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