Job Descriptions: A New Opportunity for HR Technology Innovation

Analyst Viewpoint

Job descriptions have long served as a foundational element of an HR department’s daily operations. This is largely due to the organization needing a common lens and framework through which to hire, evaluate, develop and compensate employees. And in fact, one of the few items in the HR toolkit that has been able to serve as that lens is job descriptions. In the absence of these standardized role definitions and qualifications, organizations place themselves at risk of potential litigation and regulatory compliance violations, and even greater potential damage to the business in terms of its ability to hire, retain and motivate the workforce. A blueprint that clearly describes what a job entails—and what success in the role looks like—is indispensable in any people-centric organization.

Optimized and standardized job descriptions are critical to organizations that seek to navigate fluid and unpredictable business dynamics.

But there are challenges that cannot be overlooked and should not be minimized when it comes to maintaining job description accuracy across departments. Different functions within the organization can have unique conceptions of roles, even when they are similarly named or theoretically equivalent. These challenges rise to an acute level when we consider that many of today’s current, cutting-edge roles were scarce or non-existent just a few years ago. Descriptions for jobs such as Data Scientist, Employee Experience Leader, Brand Storyteller or Chief Medical Officer can vary across companies and industries, or even across business units within the same organization. Furthermore, the descriptions and responsibilities for these roles are still being fine-tuned in most organizations.

In today’s operating environment, improving organizational agility has become a key focus for HR given the range of managed business risks and opportunities. Optimized and standardized job descriptions are critical to organizations that seek to navigate fluid and unpredictable business dynamics. How roles and duties are defined, and how corresponding job qualifications are determined also shape “compensable factors” which are all the relevant inputs to how a job is priced in the market and internally. Job description management is therefore a vitally important set of activities for ensuring appropriate and equitable pay as more information and guidance becomes available about the value of jobs and skills. But the ability to manage these foundational activities is being stretched in too many organizations. As a result, executives and hiring managers are seeking ways to ensure accuracy, reliability and adaptability, while also efficiently collaborating throughout the whole process.

When conditions are dynamic, certain technology helps by effectively mitigating risks and highlighting opportunities. A centralized and automated approach to monitoring, controlling and fine-tuning role descriptions, assisted by best-practice guidance is a sustainable method that HR organizations use to cope with constant change. Any size organization has unique job titles and descriptions of duties across its workforce, with larger organizations having hundreds or even thousands of distinct jobs. This creates a situation where it becomes very time-consuming to determine which roles need updating of their duties and qualifications, and where there is enough overlap in job definitions to justify reducing job description volume, thus making them more manageable and useful in hiring and compensation activities. This directly leads to saving time—possibly hundreds of hours annually—spent reading, creating and updating the descriptions in use.

The other key benefit accruing to HR organizations and compensation teams using these types of smart technology resources is the ability to dynamically marshal the most accurate information from within the enterprise about existing roles and what is needed to excel in them. This allows the organization to maintain more accurate pay ranges for both recruiting and retaining key employees. Additionally, automatic workflows and notifications can let managers know when a formal job definition has changed, thus preventing inconsistencies in how employees performing in the same or similar jobs are evaluated and managed.

The impact and value of these technology capabilities will be felt not just by the HR and compensation team. It is in everyone’s best interest that job openings are accurately depicted to avoid sub-optimal decisions and disruptive and costly churn. And when a job is not priced to attract and retain the best employees, nor priced to reflect internal and external supply and demand, unplanned and sometimes significant costs can ensue related to employee turnover or productivity downturns. Even modest upticks (or the opposite) in productivity can impact key metrics for the organization in quantifiable ways, and this is the crux of why optimizing a job description infrastructure can have such a dramatic effect on a business.

New sources of HR technology innovation do not occur every day. HR organizations need innovative technology that achieves material business results. Organizations should evaluate whether their job description infrastructure can keep pace in a fluid operating environment. Purpose-built tools help build, maintain, refine and audit job descriptions, ensuring the right talent will be attracted, retained, appropriately rewarded and encouraged toward excellence.