Context

Recently, this writer browsed a few vacancies advertised in the website of a leading Sri Lankan University. The purpose was purely academic. To his amazement and utter disappointment, the advertisement and the position requirements were so poorly documented. Then, the same was done for a leading semi-government organisation. The documents were found better in quality but far below from the international standards.

Let’s dissect this situation. Getting the right professionals for the right positions is a tedious process. It is an end result of a stepped process. It starts from the development of an effective position specification and then followed it up with developing of interview guides, advertising positions, assessment of applications, conducting targeted interviews with potential candidates, conducting alternative assessments and referee checks. So, the writer’s scope here is on developing position descriptions only. The rest is for the future.

Resources

Any organisation has resources. To become a successful organisation, it needs ‘right resources’. To assign right resources, there should be a right organisation, at the first place. So the pertinent question is that “what is the right organisation?

Any organisation is originally formed to achieve a purpose. However, just having a purpose is not enough. It needs a business plan with objectives. A perfect organisation must have a vision, a mission and a set of values. In addition, the organisation must have a sound organisation structure that would be populated by the right people. Hence, it is imperative that the executive leadership possesses far-sightedness and has the ability to develop and implement a strategic plan to achieve the organisation’s vision while promoting the upholding of organisational values. Having secured right mix of right resources, the responsibility of optimum use of the resources is left with the entire management team. Having said that, in the real world, there is no such an entity called “a perfect organisation” because it is a momentary status for an organisation that would only last a millisecond as the external business environments are so volatile prompting all to chase the “perfectness”. This requires organisations to have built-in continuous improvement processes in motion. Nevertheless, human resources are imperfect as well.

Vision, Mission and Values

Vision is, in simplified terms, a statement describing what an organisation wants to be in long-term. A vision statement is characterised with “SMART”® elements (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound). Mission statement is a guiding, action statement. This statement shows what an organisation would do to achieve its long term vision. Mission statements are supported by specific action plans; tactical and strategic.

People develop their own values through their upbringing. In the same vein, the organisations also have own values. The both set of values are supposed to be on same wave length. There was a recent incident that an Australian public sector employee clicked a “Like” to a friend’s post on Facebook® page, which was aimed at criticising the employee’s work place. This action was considered as a breach of the organisation’s “Code of Conduct” although it happened after business hours.

If there is a conflict between own values of the employees and those of the company, then, obviously, there is an issue. If this conflict is allowed to be escalated, the both parties would suffer eventually. To avoid this, the best approach would have been to invite the key employees to the table when developing organisational values. This writer has participated such workshops when his public sector employer developed the organisational vision and mission statements and the set of values. That task group was represented by the key employees from every management layer including representatives from the operational staff. Otherwise, those statements and values, typically developed by the senior management would just be documents in shelves which would mean nothing to the employees.

Organisation Structure

An organisation structure is formed to assign key performance activities to employees. Each position is to be designed outlining clear responsibilities, accountabilities and duties. Organisations have to develop a set of organisation design principles and follow the principles when developing the organisation structure. In Australia, State Government Deportments and Local Government City Councils assess their organisation structures every four years, in line with the political life cycle, the State or Local elections. Private sector organisations do this more often, in accordance with the change of business needs.

Irrespective of having a rigid hierarchical or a flat matrix organisational structure, the salient feature of a good organisation structure is the existence of clear ‘line of sight’ from the CEO to any employee, on activity reporting and accountability. Also it should avoid the duplication and conflicts of duties among employees to ensure activity efficiency.

Everyone has a born potential. However, the employees willingly offer only forty percent of their potential at work. It is the executive management team’s role to extract the rest. As a proactive measure, the business leaders could set the organisation structure and duties such a way that employees cannot survive without putting at least 60% of their potential into practice. However, that only would not bring organisational excellence. Hence, other enticing tools should be used to drag the percentage up. If an organisation pays enough attention to document a quality position description and conduct a robust and comprehensive selection process, the extraction of 70% of the employee’s potential from the day one at work could be possible.

Developing a position description (PD)

All positions must have a PD and the position holder must know it by heart. It should outline the duties, skills, competencies, experience and qualifications. Except the duties, the rest is generally listed under the two headings; essential and desirable. Desirable requirements are used as a tool for selecting the best from a pool of good applicants.

In the developed countries, the essential position requirements are listed in the order of importance and the formal qualifications are listed at the end. In Sri Lanka, this is in the reverse order. In developed countries, the message to the applicants is that “if you are not capable of applying your knowledge and skills, your formal qualifications mean nothing”. This does not mean that a person not having an academic qualification could be selected. Academic qualification is just a hoop that every applicant should jump over and after fulfilling it, it won’t any longer play a part of the selection process.

The information below is based on the author’s experience in involving professional recruitment processes. When a position is vacant, the supervisor has to develop a ‘business case’ to justify the need of filling the vacancy and submit it to the senior management for approval. This exercise entails the review of all other positions within the team and also finding alternative ways to fulfil the need, without employing a person. Any employee would be an asset as well as a legal liability to the organisation. Hence, possible alternatives under consideration would include the reallocation of duties among the rest of the team members with monetary and training incentives or getting an external service provider for a fee. Sometimes this review would result complete abolishing of the position if the position does not any longer contribute to the objectives of the organisation.

Designation: This position should have a meaningful designation reflecting the responsibilities and duties of the position. The way it is worded also an indication of the hierarchy of the position.

Objective of the position: This is a concise strongly worded statement relating to its key outcomes and the relationship of outcomes to the objectives of the organisation. Usually it is followed up with the generic description of the role of the division or the department, the position is attached.

Class and Grade: Every position is placed within a certain hierarchy, specifying the class and the grade. This eventually sets the entry salary point and the range. HR officer would advise if it conflicts with similar level positions as it would impact morale of the rest of similar position holders. However, if there is a special business need to create a unique position, it must be justified and communicated to the concerned employees.

Reporting relationships: An organisation chart should be attached to the PD showing where the position is located within the organisation structure, to whom the position reports and who reports to the position holder. Also, a PD should have the details of the level of authority in terms of financial delegation, if any.

Duties: The supervisor should develop the duties list and the HR officer has no ‘say’ on this. However, HR officer will comment on conflicting or overlapping duties of the position which would affect others. Also, legally and ethically questionable duties would be highlighted. Duties must be concise, specific and appropriate to the grade and class.

Internal and external communication: This section describes the key internal and external stakeholders for the position. This is an indirect indication of the importance of the position within the organisation as well. If the CEO is in the direct communication list, the position holder should expect an occasional call from the CEO.

Competencies: Bartram and Kurtz® defined competency as “the repertoire of capabilities, activities, processes and responses available that enable a range of work demands to be met more effectively by some people than by others.” This is the most difficult section of a PD to be developed as the selection of the best applicant is predominantly hinged on this. If the wrong competencies are listed, the organisation will end up selecting the wrong person. Usually, this consists of technical and behavioural competencies.

Technical competencies: If an applicant has formally recognised academic qualifications, it is safer to assume that the person has the required technical knowledge. However, having knowledge does not necessarily mean that the person has the ability to apply the acquired knowledge. The person who applies the already acquired knowledge at challenging and new work environments, needs to have specific competencies. These skills and competencies are developed gradually over the time by continuous application of knowledge. This is why, in the developed countries, pure technically qualified applicants are appointed only at the entry point of the positions. These position holders are to be groomed by more experienced senior persons. It is also important to note that the years of a position held, is not a true reflection of the level of experience and skills gained. Experience and skills gained are dependent on the intensity, complexity of the challenges the position holder would face, during the period of employment. How many Sri Lankan executives are at high positions purely due to the number of years in employment, not due to the levels of skills gained? The supervisor should have the capability to list the required technical competencies for a position.

Behavioural competencies: This is about the expected behaviours from the employee. To select behavioural competencies, the both HR Officer and the supervisor must have a very clear understanding on organisational values and the culture of organisation, division and the team. There are core behavioural competencies which are essential for a position and the rest can be termed as desirable or ‘nice to have”. HR officer would use colour coded cards and request the supervisor to select from the pack and form two piles; essential and desirable. The officer would play the ‘devil’s advocate’ and reject a selection, forcing the supervisor to justify to retain it. At the end of this play, both parties would agree what should end up in the PD. Generally, colour coding is done based on complexity, importance, frequency and the degree of strength. Within each of these four categories, a few levels of competencies are listed from high to low. Then, the selection of competencies from each list is done and placed under the essential and desirable sub categories.

Typical approach- This includes grouping competencies under headings such as demonstrate corporate values, deciding and initiating action, leading and supervising, working with people, adhering to principles and values, persuading and influencing, learning and researching, creating and innovating, planning and organizing, adapting and responding to change, presenting and communicating information, writing and reporting, formulating strategies and concepts, delivering results and meeting customer expectations, coping with pressures and setbacks, achieving personal work goals and objectives and entrepreneurial and commercial thinking. This is no way an exhaustive list. Under each of these competencies, there are number of descriptive statement to define each competency.

An alternative way - Some organisations list competencies as a range of capabilities. The core capabilities can be grouped as personal attributes, relationships, results, business enablers and people management. Personal attributes could consist of display resilience and courage, act with integrity, manage self and value diversity. Relationships could be such as communicate effectively, commit to customer service, work collaboratively and Influence and negotiate. Results driven employees are important for any organisation. This group could consist of deliver results, plan and prioritise, think and solve problems and demonstrate accountability. Some positions demand specialist technical capabilities and they are called business enablers. It depends on the type of the business. The supervisor has to decide the required level of the capability. There are five capability levels which are foundational, intermediate, adept, advanced and highly advanced. For each capability level, a set of statements is given to illustrate the type of behaviours expected at that level.

Selection Criteria: This is the last section of the PD and it is also divided into essential and desirable. Selection Criteria is a summarised version of all competencies which could be used to develop the interview guide. The applicants should address the selection criteria in writing when applying for the position especially in the public sector, in addition to submitting a Curriculum Vitae or Resume. Failure to do so would end up not securing an interview.

Could Sri Lankan employers start their journey to organisational excellence by taking aforementioned first step?