Wait, That’s My Job?
When your business reaches the point that it’s time for you to build a team, two mission-critical things you’ll need to provide for your new hire(s) are clarity and accountability.
One of the best ways you can provide clarity and accountability for new hires from the outset is by creating job descriptions for their roles that outline their responsibilities and the mission, vision, values, and vibe of the company.
Outside of the obvious reasons why you’d want to provide clarity and accountability around someone’s responsibilities, sharing information about the company allows you to ensure interested applicants are aligned with the company’s culture and approach.
So many small businesses lack an employee manual or really anything else that helps new team members get acquainted with the company (other than a website). Adding these details to a job description is a way to provide an overview that helps candidates determine if they align with the company as a whole and not just the role they’re applying for.
I know it feels daunting to write a job description, but I promise you, it’s not! In fact, we’ve created one that we share with clients, and we’re going to share it with you today. 🙌
But first, let’s discuss how to find clarity around the information that will actually be included in the job description.
Get clear about your processes
First, you need to get organized around all of the processes your company runs on. To make that process easy, we recommend using our Delegation Planner and following the framework we share for filling it out in the two videos that are included when you sign up using the link.
Get organized around your company's foundations
Next, you need to get organized around your company’s foundations–your mission, vision, and values. This is critical information you’ll want to share with the prospective hires because you want to make sure you’re attracting candidates who are aligned with the “why” behind your company and your values.
Get clear about your company's culture and vibe
After that, get clear about your company’s culture and overall vibe. There’s a whole section in the job description template where you’ll share details about what type of person is a good fit for the role. Think: “You’re perfect for this role if…” statements. Those statements are going to be driven by your culture and how you work.
Hire an expert if you need HR-specific guidance
What we’ve covered up to this point is enough to provide clarity for existing roles, but if you're using the job description for hiring, you'll need to provide additional specifics that are outside the scope of our expertise–such as determining compensation and status as an employee or contractor.
For expert, HR-specific advice on those things and more, we recommend you reach out to our friends at Salt & Light Advisors.
And there you have it – it’s really that simple! And as I mentioned, we’re taking it beyond simple and all the way to easy by sharing our job description template with you.
You can find a Google Drive version of it here. Simply click the “Use Template” button in the top right corner to make a copy of it into your Drive.