The Ethics in Job Design & Structure

“If you want a secretary, find someone whose dream is to become a secretary.“

This article mainly addresses HR practitioners and students but is also very useful for entrepreneurs and managers.

There is a difference between a job description and a job specification or person specification. The job description you use offers some details to those interested, but the job specification contains all the things an HR person must be careful of.

To properly design and structure a job specification as a framework, you must put yourself in the employee’s shoes. That’s why some of the most significant insights come from interviewing people who work in the same position or people who have worked in this position. First, understand a person’s motivations in doing that kind of job. Then, to find out the reason, put yourself these questions:

• What’s important about this job?
• Why is that important?
• To what greater purpose is an excellent employee doing this job?
• What does this job mean to this employee?
• What does this bring you?
• What is the outcome that will get you, as an employee, satisfied?
• If you have what’s essential for you as an employee, what will that bring you?
• What are the positive intentions a motivated employee has towards this job?

Then think: what skills would this person naturally have to have to comply with the tasks you have in mind for the specific position? Would it be possible to learn at least some of these abilities during work? Could you organize an internship to teach people without paying them while they learn?

Designing a job is essential when you think about making a clear selling pitch to all who come across it. Many start to think of words to use to impress and attract candidates. But if you feel smart, you don’t need to attract candidates. That does not measure the success of a recruiting session. Instead, you want to make the future employees naturally come to you. The words will come by themselves when you put on the employee’s shoes.

 

Begin with the end in mind

Do you want this position’s man or woman to remain in the company? For how long? Be realistic. If you search to find someone developing fast, you can count on the need for self-growth in your company. If you cannot offer and have a plan to stimulate this, you can trust that person to leave the company at a particular moment. Some corporations have the reputation of hiring people for 1-2 years, paying them less, and letting them work for other companies after that. Examples: Groupe Societe Generale, KPMG, MacDonald’s, or in Romania, Business Magazin. They have a clear-cut outcome: to keep a low cost to salaries and advertise to students and beginners, willing to be paid a fair sum but lower than paying experts.

Think of the employees you have now and how you found them. Think of where your future employee would naturally spend his or her term. Thinking of “candidates” is poor thinking. Use your marketing mind. Think of prospective employees.

This thinking will spare you a lot of later work and money spent on all sorts of advertising expenses you cannot afford to lose.

 

Properly structuring the job and the tasks.

Each job has several tasks to be managed within a time frame. This is, in most cases, extrapolated, assumed, by the employer, based on wishful thinking and current activity. But what if all the tasks taken by the employer to be offered to the employer actually occupy 150 % of the time (s)he is paid for? And what if your company develops or loses activity that would solicit that position? Think of workflow as dynamic. Actually, planning for the quantity of workflow beforehand might seem like juggling. But there are some limits to it. Doing this also gives you a more thorough perspective on the future employer, letting him or her know what might be expected.

 

Let’s say you have this structure for an assistant manager:

Result	Motivation	To do item	Time allotted	Skills required
A. Plan a daily schedule for the manager	Clear structure to follow	1. Receive requests and propositions by e-mail, phone, employees & manager.	20 ‘	Structure, organization
		2. Evaluate and prioritize	10 ‘	General perspective, planning
		3. Confirm the meetings	20 ‘	Detailed perspective
		4. Plan the following meetings	10′	Flexible time perspective
		5. Creating a “B” plan for the day	10′	Creativity
		6. Cancel several meetings	15′	Public relations
		7. Reporting back to the manager	5′	Briefing
B. Managing files to transfer between management and all other interesting sources.	Delivering Relevant Information	1. Receive all the relevant files and store them in a classified system	15′ all over the day	Computer fast working
		2. Applying the criteria for selection	30′	Selecting abilities
		3. Talking to the manager about the priority of documents to be read	5′	Briefing
		4. Delivering the files	5′	PC skills
		5. Acquiring the tasks after the manager reads the documents	10′	Taking notes

Planning the schedule for a manager is not rocket science, but it may take up to 1h 30 per day. OK, I might have exaggerated a bit, but that is 18,75 % of the working day. Then, just processing some documents might take up to 50 minutes. This time is necessary to get the job done and think it’s going out of the business owner’s pocket as a salary to the employee, hour by hour, day by day, month by month. It would make sense to do a little planning before hiring someone who might waste your time and money, correct?

The table offers an example of two activity families appropriate to an assistant manager. Do your job, do not skip this part. Be sure the person who is doing this knows what they’re doing. Usually, this is the HR manager’s job, but ultimately the manager decides who is needed, having an overview of the organization.

Indeed, all this seems like common sense. It is amazing how many people skip this because it is common sense. You don’t have to be a genius to have results. You just have to apply this common sense.

If you think within the frames of the employee’s mind, you will know to offer their reasons, not yours. You don’t need people who search for money. You need motivated people that will get the job done. Hiring appropriate people for the job is preferable to motivating them once hired. Preselection beats training. It is more likely to get people who like what they do to do their job and have enough inner motivation.

Marcus Victor Grant

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