Over my career I’ve written, reviewed and formally evaluated loads of job descriptions and specifications. I have interviewed and onboarded and realise that the use of job descriptions was because it was part of the rule book for recruitment. We believe that this method ensures people have clarity over their roles and responsibilities and leads to increased performance.
In a strength based inclusive workforce, do we need to reconsider job descriptions?
When you are embedding positive psychology, strength based practices and processes and inclusivity, I realise how damaging job descriptions can be!
They are static documents which box people in – they don’t encourage innovation or personalisation and are often are used as a reason for why they cannot go the extra mile.
They are out of date as soon as they are written.
They are often works of fiction – they don’t describe how a job is actually done.
They don’t capture the true value or purpose of a role.
They get lost in the organisation Human Resources files.
Job Descriptions stop people from being fully engaged and energised by their work and creates restrictions and constraints in how they are able to perform their jobs.
If our weaknesses are celebrated and accommodated – does a job description work?
I believe the job description prevents inclusion.
They limit a sense of personalisation, individuality and personal growth which are the very things that give people joy and meaning.
They tend to be used if we are trying to flag an area of performance and form part of the performance management plan.
They are used by those employed in a role, to refuse to do something new as it is outside their job description.
Most of us want to feel a sense of meaning in the work we do, yet we seldom design job descriptions in a way that supports this.
What’s the alternative to a job description?
If job descriptions aren’t fit for purpose and don’t reflect our modern ways of working what’s the alternative?
In The Maslow Foundation and Nurture Health and Care Ltd, we are describing our purpose, identifying the gap that is needed and the vision we have and will be asking our teams to define their own job roles and personal development plan including their own measures of success.
We believe in dynamic teams which work together to achieve goals, building on individual strengths, recognising and accepting our weaknesses. The wider team absorbs the needs of the organisation and we pull on our team mates to achieve success.
We are job crafting, creating mastery and supporting our strengths with a plan for those areas we find challenging.
We can create opportunities to achieve balance and ‘flow’ in our work. This needs appropriate levels of stretch with problem solving and challenge and creates opportunities to network and connect with others in proportions that meet our individual requirements.
We believe you can have accountability and clear achievement of goals with good communication and a healthy action plan when the ‘to do’ list is divided amongst the team.
We have written our own ‘job canvas’ and this includes identifying our challenges, building on our strengths and identifying our goals to achieve in the next 3-6 months which align with the organisational vision.
Many roles include core competencies to be able to be safe and effective but these can be captured in a competency framework. We record our Mandatory and Statutory training and our compliance with legislative and organisational policy in our education passport and staff handbook.
So lets roll out job crafting and include in our job canvas, our passions and ambitions, with innovation and quality improvement documented with our values and shared goals.
