Job Description

Introduction

A job description is a detailed description of what responsibilities an employee is expected to handle and what tasks are assigned to him/her. It is important to ensure that every task needed in the organisation is assigned to a specific employee. Job descriptions serve as an important recruitment, orientation and performance appraisal tool.

Why

";

This toolkit is useful for an organisation which:

• needs clarity on tasks and roles, especially in situations when staff is overloaded or tasks are not divided equally.
• hires new employees and needs job descriptions.
• want to create or modify job descriptions of the staff.

What you can expect

In six steps we will support you to evaluate roles and tasks of current and new employees and to (re)design job descriptions for the involved persons. Here you’ll find a step-by-step overview, tools, examples and other resources for establishing and (re)designing job descriptions.

Step 1: Establish Need

• Identify the scope within the organisation for which job descriptions need to be (re)designed. Reasons for reviewing job descriptions can be:
  • when an organisation is small and starting up, founders and early staff members find themselves doing “whatever needs to be done” rather than deliberately dividing work areas or tasks. While the organisation has grown it is now time to define job descriptions and have everybody's roles and responsibilities clear for everyone.
  • staff and leaders may find themselves overburdened or struggling to streamline work.
  • leaders need to delegate work to others so they can focus on developing the organisation.
• Watch this short video to understand why job descriptions are so important for an organisation:

[embed_yt id="4PqO7TJWz-8"]

Step 2: Review

• Review the existing job descriptions. How close are the they to describing what people actually do? Are people doing more than one job? What gaps need to be filled? 
• Review the functions of the organisation. Be sure to include both current and upcoming required functions. Based on this, create or modify the organisation’s Functions Outline. Add or delete the tasks that are relevant or irrelevant to the organisation.

Watch this short video by the University of Ghana about job analysis and design to get a general idea how you can use job descriptions:

[embed_yt id="6xTh4uO0kLo"]

Step 3: Workshop about Functions

• Organise a workshop with the leaders and relevant staff members.
• Use the Functions Outline, created during the previous step.
• Create/adjust job descriptions for each person that accurately reflect everyone’s role. Keep in mind the following:
  • Are the deliverables for each role clear?
  • Are there clear divisions in responsibilities between teams, work areas, and people?
  • Do leaders have the support they need?
  • Are expectations for each staff member clear and measurable?
• Identify which tasks/roles are not allocated. Decide to allocate these to somebody or to recruit, depending on the budget available and organisational needs.

Step 4: Staff Involvement

• Inform everyone in the organisation about the new open position(s).
• Encourage staff to share feedback and opinions on appropriate projects, expectations, and responsibilities for the new staff member(s).
• Make sure that each employee understands the need, the role and responsibilities and any possible changes in their roles. This is the first step towards making the future employee feel welcomed in the organisation and managing change effectively for existing staff.

Step 5: Write Job Descriptions

• Set clear timelines for each step of the recruitment process.
• Write vacancy advertisement. This is not just a job description but will also include basic information about the organisation, educational and experiential requirements for the role, and application process (see examples).
• Determine the medium in which the advertisement will be posted: the application instructions may vary accordingly.
• Document the recruitment process for future use.

Step 6: Recruitment

• Advertise the vacancy through internal (organisation’s website, social media, networks) and external channels (recruitment sites or organisations).
• Encourage staff to share the vacancy advertisement within their networks.
• Consider promoting the vacancy internally amongst volunteers and staff if there are appropriate candidates in the team, as they already know the organisation and have a proven track record.

Key To Success

• When using the functions outline, lead the discussion with questions. Let the organisation members involved give the answers. Let people see the evidence of who is handling too many responsibilities and come to the conclusions on their own.
• When writing the job descriptions, do not assume that the employee will automatically understand what is expected from him/her. Be as detailed and specific as possible when describing role and responsibilities.
• Refer regularly to the job description, for example during appraisals, to see if it is still up to date and relevant and make changes if needed.

Challenges

• An organisation often has job descriptions which do not match the reality of what each member actually does.
• Lack of human resources for proper task allocation which leads to people having multiple roles.