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The act of writing a job description can be a daunting and difficult task for many managers. This article focuses on the key concepts of What, How, and Measureable Results as they relate to an employee's job duties. When the answers to these three elements are articulated, they define the core responsibilities of any job that form the basis for an effective job description.
KEY WORDS: Job descriptions; job duties; performance management; management.
Many years ago, I visited a manager who had just terminated an employee the day before for substandard performance. Because I knew the staffing requisition for a replacement would be approved, I stopped in to talk with the manager to get the recruiting process started. In my traditional human resources (HR) style and as a starting point for our discussion, I asked if the job description for this role was current and accurate. I wanted to make sure I was going to start a search based on what he really needed rather than what he thought he needed, and I didn't want to work with a document that was developed by a previous manager and no longer accurate. A job title alone was not sufficient for me to start the search.
A job title alone is not sufficient.
Without hesitation, the manager proceeded to blast me about how stupid job descriptions are and that he had no need for all this HR baloney. In fact, during his outburst, he made it clear he needed someone who could "do more of this... and less of that...," report on accurate data, manage his or her staff with inspiration, teach everyone in the department a good work ethic, reward good performers, develop good goal plans, achieve results, and be nice to be around!
Although his comments were more specific to the job than what I've outlined here, I kept listening and started to write notes about the "specs" of what I thought would be a good job description-with some exceptions. I first took all his negative comments and converted them to positive statements. I changed his comment, "I can't stand that the engineering work flow documents were sloppy, late, or never done!" to "Develop accurate and timely reports that document interand intra-department processes." Then...