In the spirit of DIY (do-it-yourself) that so many have embraced during the pandemic, I’m devoting three columns to the steps needed to write your own employee documents. Last week we looked at letters of recommendation and next week we’ll cap the series with DIY performance reviews.
For this week, the focus is on writing the job description for the position you currently hold. Of course, this shouldn’t be necessary, except for the fact that overwhelmed managers seem to dropping the ball on identifying what they need their employees to do.
Is this really a problem? In a word, yes. For one thing, without at least a guideline describing your duties, you’re serving at the whim of anyone with more authority, or perhaps just the moxie to pretend they have the power to direct your day.
The lack of a job description can also cause friction during performance reviews, or when you’d like a raise. How does one demonstrate they’ve exceeded expectations when no expectations were described in the first place?
Sometimes the problem isn’t the lack of a description, but the fact that you’ve outgrown the original set of duties. In other situations – such as the all-hands-on-deck circumstances currently happening in some companies — you might be covering another person’s work, or doing something entirely different than you were hired for.
Whatever the reason for not having an accurate description, the fact is, it usually hurts more than helps the worker. While it’s true that you might be able to grow quickly without abiding the parameters of a description, in most cases, having no parameters at all opens the door to being simultaneously over-worked and under-utilized.
To resolve this issue, read on. The following steps will give you a starting point for this process. When you’ve finished, you may find it’s time to meet with your supervisor, or even revise your résumé for outside searches. Having your job more accurately detailed will give you the tool for either outcome.
WRITING YOUR JOB DESCRIPTION
Before you can start writing, you’ll need to know what a job description is — and isn’t. It is a document that describes the level and scope of one’s job, as well as the tasks and responsibilities the job entails.
What isn’t a job description? It isn’t an advertisement, posting, or other tool designed to elicit enthusiasm about the company or the role. Since this is an internal document, there’s no need to describe the organization as “experiencing exciting growth” and “poised for the future” or anything else you’ve become used to skipping over when you read external postings.
Nor is the job description a performance review. It doesn’t list production goals, for example, or other short-term objectives. It’s a bigger-picture tool, rather than a quarterly measuring stick.
With that clarification,…
Read More: DIY Employee Documents – part 2 of 3 – Twin Cities