I have seen scores of different job descriptions for a whole range of roles. The only aspect that I see common between them all is the fact that I find them frustratingly boring to read, full of jargon and contain as many words as possible.My simple rule is that you should not need a university degree to be able to decipher what your job description actually is. I don’t understand why so many people want to make job descriptions so long and complicated when they really just need to be simple descriptions!

Perhaps we try and include too much information. Processes and aspects like “terms of employment” and “working arrangements” are completely separate from job descriptions. The outline that you give your team members for their job role should be a simple one-page document that clearly outlines their job.Here are the three components that are important for a job description for your team members:

 

General overview

I summarize their complete job description into one or two paragraphs as an introduction and a general overview. This would include something along the lines of “this role is to project manage the different areas of the company and to schedule and oversee a team of five full-time staff members who will work on these projects.” That is a simple, effective and concise statement of what the person’s job description actually is. It does not need to be long and include a lot of general information but rather it should be specific and easily understood.

Key responsibilities

When I create a job description, I list the key responsibilities of the staff member in simple bullet point form and in order of priority and importance. Resist the temptation to include detailed steps on how to perform the job in this description, as that is not part of the job description. That content should be a part of your processes and training and this document should keep the responsibilities at a high level and simple to understand. Key responsibilities might include maintenance of a certain website, updating of content, actioning an email inbox and researching particular topics. These are high level descriptions, and not a detailed work plan on how to achieve these goals.

Performance indicators

Personally, this is the most important aspect of a job description for me. I want my team to know what I am measuring their productivity on. In most cases the general overview and the key responsibilities are pretty self-explanatory. If I am employing someone as a graphic designer then that title in itself explains what the role is and the responsibilities of the employee should be.

Performance indicators help to break down the daily or weekly statistics of productivity that you are expecting from a team member. That is why to me it’s the most important aspect. In the case of a designer, I may outline how many different client designs I expect to be worked on in a full-time week. I would also list a turnaround time on any amendments and revisions. It basically is a list of the items that I am going to look at to ensure that this team member is fulfilling their job description.

These three different areas are very simple and quick to write. The first time I wrote a job description I spent close to three weeks looking at different examples and templates , and I spent endless hours cutting and pasting bits that I liked and compiling it into a single document. The final document was around eight or nine pages long and not useful at all. Now, a job description would take me around fifteen minutes to write: I simply add a general overview, list the key responsibilities and outline what I am measuring as indicators of good performance.