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FROM THE FOUNDER
Thoughts on job descriptions
Flexible job descriptions with clear responsibilities, single reporting lines, and adaptable salary ranges foster employee satisfaction and avoid rigidity.
J ob descriptions. I never cared for them. But the HR people always tell us we need them. Do we really?
The answer to the question above is both “yes” and “no.” We do need basic roles and responsibilities, and the individuals in those roles need to understand who their boss is (who they report to), what their goals are, and how their performance is going to be measured. These things are good. We don’t need rigid role definitions, arbitrary experience requirements, titles that mean nothing in terms of functional job differences, and/or rigid salary ranges that can never be strayed from. These things are bad. Putting these job descriptions together in a meaningful way is never easy. If you ask the individuals involved to list their current duties and responsibilities their first thought is probably going to be, “Are they getting ready to fire me?” You have to
do this as a firm-wide project, ask everyone for their list, and explain what you are doing and why so that paranoia doesn’t run rampant. A few other pointers: 1. Too many titles with no difference in function or responsibilities is bad. Don’t do it. Many times I find companies cannot distinguish between multiple levels of engineers in any way other than their titles. Doing that leads to a lot of unhappiness of the people involved. 2. Duties and responsibilities for each role should always include “other duties as assigned.” When you ask someone to do something, I don’t ever want to hear, “That’s not in my job description.” It will get an immediate negative reaction from me.
Mark Zweig
See MARK ZWEIG, page 6
THE ZWEIG LETTER NOVEMBER 18, 2024, ISSUE 1562
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