Winter 2015

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DELIVERING QUALITY CARE AND SERVICE
TO YOUR CUSTOMERS
Depending on who your customer is, and what your primary
service provides, will determine the impact of doing the job
well, or not so well. Providing each member of your team with
a written job description means each level of customer care
can be addressed by an appropriately allocated, and skilled,
person.
The smallest task can have a big impact if it’s not done well, or
worse, not done at all. An example of this could be the person
whose role it is to order supplies for the First Aid Kit. It may
not be a resource that’s used every day, but the consequence
of not having adequate supplies on the occasion you do need
it could be critical.
The importance in a health, aged, disability care or early
childhood setting ultimately translates to the care of people.
Someone is allocated a variety of tasks essential to the overall
quality of care to those that we are employed to look after. It
means there should be no gaps in care therefore decreasing
the likelihood of incidents.
Not documenting or recording information about the care
provided, an incident that has occurred, or something that
needs to be fixed is another example where things could
go very wrong. Not being clear with someone that they are
required to fill out paperwork or register where medications
have been issued, how much was issued and when, could
have significant consequences for the people being cared for,
and also for the care-giver. Documentation responsibility is the
kind of detail you would include in a job description.
I’m sure everyone could think of examples in their workplace
where the impacts would be great if the job was not done,
or done poorly. Putting measures in place such as providing
your staff a job description makes for better clarity and greater
quality outcomes.
When customers are happy with their level of service they are
likely to not only return, but to recommend your services to
others.
GREATER CLARITY WITHIN YOUR TEAM –
WHOSE JOB IS IT ANYWAY?
Like the story of Somebody, Nobody, Everybody and
Anybody, when people are unclear about their own jobs, you
can be certain they’ll be unclear of the jobs of other team
members. This can really inhibit effective team work and feed
into a blame culture.
Where people are provided with clarity around their role and
the expectations placed on them, they can be clearer about
where their own role ends and where someone else should
step in. This doesn’t mean that they should back away slowly
with a ‘not my job’ pursed on their lips, it does however mean
that for reporting and supervision purposes, important issues
can be appropriately addressed with the right people.
Well-written job descriptions can also be used as a means
of mentoring, particularly for people new to the industry and
your organisation, and for supporting apprentices or trainees
who are perhaps new to the workforce altogether. Being very
clear about each task and what level of responsibility that
person has over that task, provides a means of measuring
output, and providing guidance where needed.
Job descriptions not only provide guidance about what is
to be done by the people in your team when they are at
work, but also in the event that you have to temporarily or
permanently fill that role. You then have a guide to work
from in knowing what tasks and duties are required of that
role, what skills would be needed, and can allocate these
within your current team, or use the job description to write
a recruitment advertisement if necessary. (Tip: when you
undertake recruitment exercises dedicate a little extra time to
review the current job descriptions within your work team to
ensure you are recruiting for the ‘right role’, not just to fill the
gap you have).
When teams understand each other’s roles a little better,
and when individuals have their own job description and
understand their own responsibilities to the team, there’s a
greater sense of joint ownership of the overall work.
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IN THE LOOP