Who writes the job description?
Who approves the job description?
When should a job description be rewritten?
How does the position description differ from the job description?
After we give you some tips on basic writing techniques, we'll answer these questions. You will then have a clear idea of what goes into writing an effective job description to be used by many different members of your bank's staff.
The finished job description will result from a process that included collecting, analyzing, and organizing information about each job's purpose and duties. No job description will perfectly outline a job. Good job descriptions will, however, identify the chief tasks involved in performing a job efficiently as well as give the jobholder and his or her supervisor an idea of the scope and limitations of the jobholder's responsibilities.
A good job description will give a clear idea of what a particular jobholder does to someone who does not necessarily have any working relationship to the jobholder. It is like a map of the job with major areas highlighted and boundaries clarified.
Writing Techniques
Many job descriptions used today in banking are poorly written. The descriptions are excessively wordy or the language is imprecise. Because clarity and conciseness are important, careful attention to writing is imperative.
Figure 3.1 features a helpful "use and avoid" list that will help you write better job descriptions. Below are some more detailed suggestions for writing effective job descriptions.
- Use action verbs to describe duties and responsibilities. Each duty or responsibility statement should start with a verb. For example, "Calculate accrued interest" or "Post credits to general ledger." Figure 3.2 lists some common action verbs that are helpful in writing action-oriented job descriptions.
- Avoid imprecise terms. Words such as "typical," "difficult," or "complex" are subject to different interpretations by different people. Verbs such as "handles" or "deals with" are not specific indicators of what is done. Terms must be clear enough so that the person doing the job, as well as others who will use the job description, can readily recognize and understand what is being described.
- Use short sentences. Sentence structure should be simple. Avoid complex and compound sentences that are difficult to read. Use a style that easily identifies "who" does "what," "when" or "where" it is done, and "how" it is accomplished.
- Be detailed, but not wordy. Each statement should be concise and to the point. Excessive verbiage tends to confuse; it may also imply a degree of variety and difficulty in the performance of a task that does not exist.
- Use an outline format. A job description is not a form of narrative writing, with the exception of the job summary which is usually written in paragraph form.
Who Writes the Job Description?
Many people should be involved in the process of writing job descriptions.
The Jobholder and Supervisor
The jobholder and his or her supervisor are of course excellent resources from whom to draw information and get help in editing the final job description. Usually, however, both the jobholder and supervisor are not the best people to write the job description, for several reasons.
First, both the jobholder and supervisor would find it extremely difficult to remain objective throughout the process of writing the job description. Something a jobholder might want to highlight because of its prestige is not necessarily crucial to the writing of a good job description. In fact, it may hinder the job description by distorting the relative importance of various duties. Similarly, the jobholder's supervisor may have his or her own "hidden agenda" when writing a subordinate's job description.
Second, the jobholder and supervisor may lack the writing skills necessary to produce a well-written thorough document of the job's details. Finally, both the jobholder and supervisor are not necessarily trained in specialized personnel areas such as job analysis and job description preparation. The jobholder and supervisor are crucial to the process, but are probably not the best people to draft the job description.
The Expert
A professional from a bank's personnel department or an outside personnel consultant are full-time professionals in personnel matters. They are trained to be able to conduct job analyses and to draw information from these analyses that can be used to write accurate job descriptions.
If a bank has a trained personnel staff it is usually to its advantage to draw upon it when writing job descriptions. One of the drawbacks of trained outside consultants is the cost involved. But if no personnel staff is available, it is best to rely on the outside professional who can provide the bank with well-written, useful job descriptions.
Working Together
Before a job description is finished, the jobholder and supervisor should be allowed to thoroughly review the work completed by the personnel expert. As a result, all duties, procedures, and responsibilities listed can be examined to ensure that they accurately reflect the work performed in the job being described.
Who Approves the Job Description?
More than one draft of the job description, after feedback from the jobholder and supervisor is received, is often necessary. Throughout the process of revising drafts, the question that should constantly be asked is whether an outsider or new employee would understand the job after reading the job description.
After job descriptions are edited for consistency, they usually will have to go through some sort of approval process. It is best if the approval process involves more than one person. The jobholder's supervisor, an upper level supervisor, and a personnel department officer should each review the job descriptions and come to a consensus about them. Each of these people can review the job description from a unique perspective and add different input to the approval process. Once these three people or equivalent counterparts decide that the job descriptions accurately reflect what is done in each job, the job descriptions can be approved for use within the bank.
When Should a Job Description Be Rewritten?
When a job description no longer accurately reflects the job that a particular jobholder does, it needs to be rewritten. It's as simple as that. The difficulty lies in keeping job descriptions up-to-date.
When a major change is made in a jobholder's job, these changes should be reflected in a revised job description. As duties shift or are added, the writer should try to keep the job title similar to the previous one so there is little confusion about the revised job description being for the same job.
Jobholders and supervisors should learn to keep track of job changes as they occur so they are prepared to update the job description. It is typically the supervisor's responsibility to ensure that his or her subordinate's job descriptions accurately depict the work being done. The supervisor should bring major changes to the attention of the personnel department or the person responsible for the bank's job description program.
It is most efficient to review job descriptions on a regular basis, whether it is yearly, every other year, or every five years. Obviously, the more often job descriptions are reviewed for accuracy, the more likely they are to be kept up-to-date. The same procedure that was used to compile data for the original job description should be used in preparing the revision.
When job descriptions become out-of-date and no longer accurately reflect the job, they not only lose their accuracy and effectiveness, but also can cause frustration among jobholders and mismanagement by supervisors. The tendency of people to let job descriptions go severely out-of-date is what leads to the belief that job descriptions are restrictive tools that don't accurately reflect the work done on the job. This needn't happen if job descriptions are kept alive and up-to-date. They can remain a useful tool and guide if used and updated responsibly.
