Benefits of Maintaining Up to Date Job Descriptions

June 29, 2018by Lisa Philp

Job descriptions are extremely useful, yet frequently overlooked employment documents. They provide value in many situations face, including hiring, team member training and performance management, setting and achieving practice goals, and determining appropriate compensation for team members.

Avoid hiring mistakes

The hiring process is a great time to update your existing job descriptions, or in the case of their absence create new ones.  Having a thorough and accurate job description can ease the hiring process by ensuring that you get the right fit team members joining your practice, based on what the needs, values and core competencies that are needed for the role.

Takes the guess work out of fair compensation

Team members’ wages are a critical factor in the financial health of your practice. Without clear expectations, you risk de-motivating those team members most crucial to your business, while disproportionately compensating those who perform non-essential functions. Using job descriptions as part of the process to align your wages helps takes the guess work for both you and your team members.

Be proactive in supporting team member’s success

Having a job description that lays out a team members job duties offers huge benefits during the performance management process. They allow you to compare the work the team member completes on a daily basis to the duties assigned to them. This reduces the potential for confusion between what the team members and the practice as to what is expectations for them; giving them the opportunity to better focus on what is required of them.

Creating job descriptions for every position in your company and keeping them up-to-date is good practice and makes excellent financial sense – so what are you waiting for?

Lisa Philp