Job Descriptions: The (Partial) Cure for Common Burnout

True story: I’ve never had a job description until I started working for PCG. Never saw one, never reviewed one, never knew of anything past the job posting. Imagine my surprise when I get to this line of work and we talk about them with our clients every week. 

When anyone calls to discuss employee performance, first question: Do they have a job description? I’ve learned there are 3 common responses to this question. 

The first one is, “no, there are no job descriptions and that’s why I called you because I’m drowning.” Fine, easy enough.

The second one is, “Yes, and they’re a million years old/no one knows where they are/people change their own.” Yep, heard. Let’s wrangle that up together.

The third one is that this company is somehow unique, exceptional from all the others, that there is no way to describe or quantify what these roles do. They say job descriptions are, “an afront to their creativity/a surefire way to stop people from pitching in/unnecessary for experienced professionals.” Ok, we’re gonna have to unpack that one, but we will get there!

When responsibilities are unclear or frequently shifting, employees absorb whatever work lands in front of them. There’s no real sense of where their role starts or stops, who should help, what work looks like to be considered complete. Ambiguity becomes exhausting because ambiguity IS exhausting. No one likes to spin their wheels.

A job description does more than list duties for a hiring posting. It sets expectations that both the employee and the manager can return to when priorities aren’t aligned. When someone knows what they are responsible for, they can say yes to the right things and no to everything else without guilt or confusion. If guilt or confusion aren’t enough to persuade you, how about a feeling of utter hopelessness that makes them disengage completely.

And when they disengage, it’s not some moral failing on their part. It’s that the work doesn’t make sense, which means your company goals, expectations, and performance needs won’t be met. We’ve said it a million times: You have to tell them! You have to help your employees see their purpose at work clearly.

Here’s the million dollar question to consider: If you can’t explain what they do on paper, really take the time to commit to a full description, how in the world do you have the words or time to tell them during the rush of work?

None of that means job descriptions should be set in stone. Roles evolve, and a description that stays gospel for years can become just as misleading as having no description at all. The goal is to keep it accurate and reflective, regularly updaters so it reflects the job people are doing, not the job that existed when they were hired. 

Overloaded and don’t know where to start? Try this: Job descriptions support conversations about workload and performance. In your next 1:1s with employees, start writing or rewriting it together. You don’t need to put aside a whole week to turbo-load a file of job descriptions. Get the employees that do the job in on the process. No better person to ask than the one who does it every day.