Do Your People Know What Their Jobs Are Supposed To Achieve?

In our business we were paying an annual subscription for a piece of software. On closer examination it looked like we were not getting good value. The support was fairly mediocre, and was available elsewhere anyway, and the upgrades were fairly minimal. We didnt pay the renewal.

A few weeks later we received a call from someone in that company who apparently was not interested in why we had stopped the subscription. She only wanted to know if it was being paid or not so she could tick a box. A great opportunity to keep a customer, or at least obtain some useful information, was lost because the job was not designed or measured properly.

When designing jobs, it is important to have the linkage very clear between what someone is doing and what the business objectives are. If this person was focused on retaining subscribers, and having them pay for the privilege, the call may have been very different, and with a different outcome.

Finding out why we werent renewing could have provided a lot of information and the right response may have reversed our decision. The business may have been better off if the subscription follow up was with a customer service department rather than, what appeared to be, an accounting area.

How often do we come across people who only see their job as being what they are actively involved in at a particular time rather than what their organization is working towards?

Of course we want them to focus on what they are doing right now. The bus driver must concentrate on driving the bus and keeping to the timetable. However, knowing that he should be assisting people in moving around and getting to work may influence whether he waits five seconds for the commuter running down the street to catch the bus or drives off to keep to his timetable. He needs to be able to handle the technical side as well as being aware of the contribution he can make to the larger business and, in this case, community goal.

So, when designing and writing job descriptions, not only is it important to define the key results the job is going to produce, along with the measures of these, we must make sure they link to business objectives and this connection is fully understood.

For example, Maximise revenue and customer retention by reducing the delivery time for products being despatched from the warehouse. The measures may be Delivery costs within budget guidelines, within one working day of order receipt unless variation is discussed with customer and agreed This is a lot different than just despatching goods. This key result has a business and customer focus.

How much more satisfying is it for an employee, say at a supermarket, to know that they provide a useful service to customers, rather than I just stack the shelves here? And how much is that going to influence their interactions with customers? This has got to be good for the business, the customers and the employee.

Imagine what a difference it would make to your business if all your people were not only focused on the key results of their jobs but understood how these related to the broader business and were constantly looking for improvements.

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