Are You Set to Grow in 2014? Probably not…

Do your employees understand what you want?  Resolve to create performance clarity.

In this installment of our management blog series, the problem of fuzzy job expectations is tackled and solved with sharp job descriptions and performance goals.  There are 2 key parts of job clarity:

1. Job description (yeah, I know, they are a pain)
2. Clear performance goals

In this blog, you will learn about job descriptions and in the next blog, the secret to clear job goals will be revealed! So, are you set to grow in 2014?

Job Descriptions Affect Your Bottom Line!

Picture this…

You are writing a proposal to submit to a potential client – as always it is taking more time than you thought.  But, if you win the business, it will be your second largest contract ever.  You have done your research and run all the numbers, but now the potential client is too busy to meet and has not responded to several requests for a call to talk over the project requirements.  Without that key information, how likely are you to have a chance at winning the business?

Failure is, of course, the result of not knowing what customers need and want.  And guess what?  Your employees are unlikely to meet your performance expectations if they are not clear on what you want!   Tons of research has shown that performance clarity is critical to employee success and high performance.

But many business owners and managers think their employees understand their jobs, even though they have never talked about it. That creates a big problem for the bottom line.

Performance Clarity is a Big Deal

Over the last couple of months I heard 3 stories about fuzzy job expectations –any of this sound familiar?

• A young, smart, ambitious engineer working at a startup had been on the job for few months and he wanted to make sure his work was on the right track.  He asked his boss, the CEO, what he should focus on next.  The CEO replied, “You can do anything you want… we are a startup!”  There may have been more to the conversation, but the engineer remained unclear about his job, priorities, and what was expected.  The CEO was paying the engineer $65,000 a year.

• A seasoned database admin making over $100,000 was asked to interview with 2 execs at a different company – they were trying to recruit him away from his current employer.  After the meeting, the DBA said he would never even consider working for the company – the executives had given him two wildly different descriptions of the work. He said, “If they don’t even know what the job is, how can I be successful?”

• In a recent executive management class, only 6 participants of 21 reported that their managers had talked with them about the content of their jobs and how the job related to the company’s success.

The importance of performance clarity is easy: people are more successful when they know what they are supposed do and understand what a good job looks like.

Job Description

Creating a job description forces you to get clear on how the job helps your core business succeed.   Begin with the job title and keep it simple.  Forget titles that are snazzy and cute.  The title should tell applicants what the job is!  The best candidates want to know right away what they are applying for.

Now that you have the job title ready, write a simple description that explains the work.  The challenge for owners and founders is that they are used to “doing everything”.  They wear so many hats, it can be hard to figure out exactly which hat they want an employee to wear!

But describing the job is important for the owners or bosses, because it forces them to figure out just what they need …don’t need… for the job.

Here are the major sections of a job description, including samples of entries.  In the description include only tasks that make up more than 10% of the job.

Title:   Marketing and Business Development Associate

Summary:    Managed by the VP of marketing, the Marketing and Business Development Associate supports marketing and new business development staff.  Helps the vice president of marketing increase awareness of services and brand presence. Manages several projects simultaneously and completes them on schedule.

Job Tasks:

1.  Help marketing vice president develop and implement marketing plan. (15%)

•     Research market as directed by vice president

•     Prepare and edit the final plan

•     Distribute the plan to appropriate stakeholders

2.  Maintain website and social media presence (30%)

•     (Add details here)

3.  Event planning and management (25%)

•     (Add details here)

With a good job description managers can manage better and employees achieve success faster.  If you would like a handy template to build your job descriptions, just contact me through LinkedIn or by email at deborah@affintus.com .

Now that you have described what the job is, performance goals will tell employees about what you expect in terms of quality and quantity…and that is coming up in the next Ready to Grow blog here on Executive Street.

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