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The Culture+ Blog

Insights to help you create a compelling and connected culture

Forget those long and boring job descriptions and try this instead

Long winded, descriptive, and tightly worded job descriptions will be a thing of the past in the future workplace. 

Think about it. Why do we have long winded, descriptive, and tightly worded job descriptions right now? The main reason is because we are still applying old industrial thinking to our organizations. 

In old industry the employee was supposed to occupy a work station and perform a narrow set of duties. Cogs in a larger machine. You have to tell them what to do.

While that kind of work still exists, the vast majority of work is different. Now we want innovation. Now we want creativity. Now we want collaboration. Now we need them to tell us what to do. 

There are two paths here. You can try to add even more wind to your job descriptions in an attempt to capture the evolving duties in a creative workplace, and totally bake any interest or excitement out of the position. Or, you can stop the madness! Forget the sanitized and corporatized job descriptions and instead give people a clear idea of what the actual work looks like at your organization.

Hint: The superstar professionals in any field already know what the work looks like. Now, show them what it’s like to be on your team.

by Jonathan

Jonathan Wilson is the CEO of Sandcastle, a leadership training and development consultancy. He frequently speaks and writes about building high performance teams. Jonathan regularly presents his latest findings and insights to business and government leaders at local, state, and national association events (both in-person and virtual). His first book, Future Leader: Rebooting Leadership to Win the Millennial and Tech Future is available now.

Tagged: Leadership

Published on: August 14, 2019

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