The importance of Job Descriptions

One of the most important matters for a good management of human resources is the analysis of the working positions or Job Description. When we design the structure of a new organization or when we want to analyze the actual structure of our company, the job descriptions will give the basis to a suitable decision-making in relation to selection of personnel, training, internal promotion, performance evaluation, motivation, work climate, etc.

In every business organization regardless of its sector or size, a key element exists, which is in an intermediate area between the organization itself and the worker. That key element is the working position. If we do an appropriate and detailed study basing on describing and analyzing the working position, from the target this working position has till the relation it has with other working positions, determining which are the main activities to do, which functions it will have, which tasks, which skills will be demanded, which competences will be necessary for the candidate to have, etc., we will achieve not only to contribute to a greater performance of the person in that working position but also a significant organizational improvement of our human capital. Apart from this, it will give us information about which aspects are critical in the performance and which ones influence directly or indirectly in the motivation of the person who occupies the working position, in the search for similar candidates to the same post, in the work climate, etc. Thus, this study is presented as a basic and essential tool for the management of the talent in the great organizations and it will give us a lot of advantages in our task as leaders.

If we want to do an analysis of the working positions in our company, we must know that it requires a descriptive period and another one where the competences, the requirements of the working position and the remuneration are specified.

One of the advantages that these analyses of working positions give to the organizations is that the result will help to know about the general structure of the business organization. Another type of information we can obtain from these results is to know:

• Which are the necessary human resources and how to optimize them.

• How to establish an adequate division of the structure, in departments or work areas.

• It also informs us how to decide the way in which the working positions are going to be grouped.

• It helps to study in which way the levels of business hierarchy are distributed and to make a suitable Organization Chart of the company.

• It also helps us to know about the performance of our employees. The criteria to evaluate the performance are joined to the working position. The evaluation of the performance can be done by employees or by the leaders of the departments.

As a conclusion, we can say that many of the problems the actual companies deal with when they evaluate the performance could be avoided with an appropriate analysis of the working positions.

 Juan José López Delgado is managing partner and headhunter at Quorum Selección.