Companies still think too much in terms of job descriptions with matching pay scales. This makes everything very convenient, and it’s easy to benchmark applicants’ salary expectations against information from HR consultants. Handy! But a big mistake.

Job descriptions give a false sense of security. More and more people are wanting to break out of their pigeon-holes to maximize their talents. They are fed up of always having to hear where their points of improvement are in every performance review while the things they do very well remain underexposed. Their focus is aimed at points for improvement rather than on excelling. This means we are forcing our employees to mediocrity.

Breaking free from traditional job descriptions is the solution. It’s better to look at what roles in the company need fulfilling. These roles need to be clustered in such a way that they can be combined logically, and fit in with employee skills available on the labour market. Their pay can then be structured to match the role’s importance for the company.

An example: technical experts end up in a management role because this is prioritised as a career path by the company, and not necessarily because they aspire to it themselves. Only to then realize later that the management aspect does not work. This is a shame, because it’s aprt of the job. This results in the best people becoming trapped in a role that doesn’t match their talents, which leads to frustration for the whole department. Working with roles means experts can continue to fully exploit their talents and guide their team through the technical aspects, while someone with good management skills can direct the team in terms of performance, assessment and coaching.

Results?
We are noticing that our clients have a much reduced employee rotation and satisfaction that even doubles, alongside the expected increase in turnover. Because employees no longer need to hear how and where they need to improve, so they can focus on doing what they do best. Good for them, and good for their company.