The Importance of a Job Description
If you are a business leader, or in a position of leadership, do you welcome and continue to work with clients without a contract? If a client repeatably tells you that they expect additional services that were not discussed ahead of time, and they refuse to discuss additional payment for those services, what is your response?
Just like a contract for a client, a job description is your “contract” to an employee. It clearly states what the expectations are for the salary that is provided to them. And asking employees to take on responsibilities that aren’t directly related to their job description without clearly recognizing their effort is a sure-fire way to breed employee disengagement and lead to distrust throughout an organization. This is especially true in small business where managers are supposed to be willing to assume a multitude of responsibilities that don’t directly relate to the position that they hold. This might be a sales manager that has to double as a project manager, or an HR manager that is doing all of the accounting work, or even an employee that steps up to assist in a leadership position.
One of the best things that you can do for any size business is to start with your job descriptions. Clearly define the responsibilities for each role in the company. Going through this exercise will not only give everyone a clear view of their own responsibilities, but it also brings into focus the roles and positions that you will need to fill in the future to streamline and make your company more efficient.
This is more important than ever as gen z has shown that they prioritize a work/life balance that isn’t weighted toward their career. It isn’t that they are lazy or don’t want to work as many boomers and gen x say in the media. They just grew up watching their parent(s) work themselves into a mental health crisis with the outdated notion that going above and beyond will be rewarded with a promotion, while in reality they are given more responsibilities with little or only a bare minimum of recognition.
So, let’s get to work on those job descriptions!
P.S. If you want a place to start your journey of standardizing your job descriptions, I suggest looking up Don Berman at JDXpert.