Managing people well can have big benefits. Staff are happy and more productive, turnover is lower, customer service is better, your reputation is enhanced, and profits soar as a result. In our opinion, it starts and finishes with excellent job descriptions. Commit to them, and your entire process will run efficiently. Neglect them, and the process becomes erratic, inconsistent and unfair.

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A Job Description (JD) is simple enough. It captures key info like job title, qualifications, duties and responsibilities, hours, reporting structure, compensation, and job conditions. The real benefit comes from applying this JD consistently throughout the HR process. Apply it to the following areas:

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Recruitment – use the JD to advertise positions, screen the applicants, and then as the criteria for selecting.

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Evaluations – staff should be evaluated against the duties and responsibilities in their JD. Too many companies stray from the JD when evaluating their employees, which is inconsistent and very unfair to the employee! Evaluate them against the JD criteria, and then develop improvement plans to address their deficiencies.

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Training – defined duties are vital to training strategies. You can’t develop a training plan if you don’t know what is required of the employees.

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Protect Your Company – JDs will help if an employee takes legal action. When JDs are implemented consistently, and stages are documented, companies can defend their actions. A good HR process will never let problems begin in the first place!

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Identifying and Retaining Good Employees – Comprehensive job criteria will help top performers meet your expectations and ready themselves for advancement.

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Compensate Fairly – Defined JDs help compare positions within the industry and within your own company to ensure that you are paying a fair and competitive wage: not too low, and certainly not too high!

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Career Paths and Succession Plans – Employees are more committed and motivated when they have a career path that to work towards, and companies have clear information to develop succession plans.

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To be successful, a Job Description must be consistently communicated and implemented throughout the organization. Different departments can’t have a inconsistent understanding of a person’s role, and different managers can’t interpret it differently.

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Click here to download a Job Description template developed by the HR Council.

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