NCN HR departments offers tools and information to help NCN organizations revise existing job descriptions or develop new ones. These tools include a job description template, job profiles of some common staff positions in NCN organizations along with sample job descriptions. The job profiles available in the HR Toolkit provide a broad overview of the typical types of duties and responsibilities performed by staff in a position and the qualifications that are most common for that position.

Please read the following important introduction before using the tools - it gives useful and important information to consider before working on your organization's job descriptions.

Why are job descriptions important?

A job description is a basic HR management tool that can help to increase individual and organizational effectiveness. NCN HR department has developed job profiles for key positions in NCN departments and agencies that are available for you to use and adapt for your own use.

For each employee, a good job description helps the incumbent to understand:

• Their duties and responsibilities
• The relative importance of their duties
• How their position contributes to the mission, goals and objectives of the organization

For the organization, good job descriptions contribute to organizational effectiveness by:

• Ensuring that the work carried out by staff is aligned with the organization's mission
• Helping management clearly identify the most appropriate employee for new duties and realigning work loads

Job descriptions are also the foundation for most HR management activities:

• Recruitment
  Job descriptions are used to develop a recruitment campaign that clearly articulates the duties to be performed and qualifications required by the organization for the position
• Selection
  Interview questions, hiring criteria and the screening process are based on the duties and qualification outlined in the job description
• Orientation
  The job description helps the employee see how their position relates to other positions in the organization
• Training
  The job description can be used to identify areas where the employee does not adequately meet the qualifications of the position and therefore needs training
• Supervision
  The job description can be used by the employee and the supervisor to help establish a work plan
• Compensation
  Job descriptions can be used to develop a consistent salary structure, which is based on relative level of duties, responsibility and qualifications of each position in the organization
• Performance Management
  The job description and the work plan are used to monitor performance
• Legal Defense
  If an employee is terminated for poor performance, an accurate, complete and up-to-date job description will help the organization defend its decision

Performing a thorough job analysis

If your department does not have job descriptions or if your job descriptions are out of date, the first task is to conduct a job analysis.

Job analysis is a process for systematically collecting information to help you fully understand and describe the duties and responsibilities of a position as well as the knowledge, skills and abilities required to do the job. The aim is to have a complete picture of the position - what is actually done and how.

The purpose of job analysis is to provide the information necessary for writing job descriptions. Job descriptions are used as the basis of most other HR management practices from selection to training to performance management. Job analysis information can also be used in the job evaluation process, which is the process for assigning value to a job for the purpose of setting compensation.

The types of information collected during job analysis will be specific to each organization. However, typical kinds of information that are gathered are:

• Summary of duties
• Details of most common duties
• Supervisory responsibilities
• Educational requirements
• Special qualification
• Experience
• Equipment/tools used
• Frequency of supervision
• Others the incumbent must be in contact with
• Authority for decision making
• Responsibility for records/reports/files
• Working conditions
• Physical demand of the job
• Mental demands of the job

Information about jobs can be gathered using qualitative or narrative techniques such as interviews, questionnaires, observations and activity logs.

Interviews

• The employee and/or manager are asked a series of questions about the job, the essential tasks of the job, and the abilities required to perform it well

Questionnaires

• Ask the employee to fill out a standard job analysis form about the essential tasks of the job

Observation

• The person collecting the data observes the activities of the employee and records these on a standardized form
• Direct observation of the employee at work is a useful technique if the activities are easily observable

Activity Logs

• The employee is asked to keep a log of every activity and the time spent on it for a set period of time