Job Descriptions and Business Strategy

How Do We Link Job Descriptions With Our Business Strategy?
	What best practices could we follow when developing and linking job descriptions to our organizational strategy? —Making HR Count, finance/insurance/real estate, Harleysville, Pennsylvania
	Given the turbulent market conditions facing modern companies, including frequent reorganizations and changes in business strategy, preparing job descriptions that withstand the test of time is especially challenging. Nevertheless, the steps below offer some practical approaches that should help you. 1. Be clear about the purpose your job descriptions will serve. For example: When preparing job descriptions for purposes of compensation, companies tend to use phrases that convey "compensable factors" that enable categories of responsibilities to be compared and contrasted across different jobs. But these factors may not align well with the content of your business strategy. Job descriptions aimed at selection or performance management, on the other hand, tend to align more closely with strategic objectives but must be frequently revised lest they become outdated. 2. Verify that a logical linkage exists between each job accountability and your business goals and strategies. 3. Make sure you pay adequate attention to defining logically linked competencies and skills related to each job. 4. Anticipate a short life expectancy for job descriptions. Given the rapid rate of change of high-tech companies, for example, job descriptions for research, engineering and information technology will need to be revised far more frequently than those for finance, legal or human resources. 5. Recognize that performance management is a natural complement to job descriptions. When effective, performance management emphasizes short-term outcomes (about one year) that are within the "line of sight" of your organization's more long-range goals. In fast-moving professional services and high-tech firms, traditional job descriptions are practically obsolete. Instead, these companies rely on individual performance plans to define work objectives, performance standards, competencies and needed areas of development. The goal is the same: to motivate employees in ways that sustain their organizations' performance. SOURCE: John Furcon, Central region leader, human resources management practice, Buck Consultants , Chicago, January 26, 2006.