We recently decided to go back to the drawing board to fill a position within our company. We followed our Recruitment and Selection process, and reviewed the Job Description for the new candidate. We summarised the job, listing essential duties and responsibilities, job requirements, key performance areas, and personal attributes. My colleague and I critically brainstormed about the position and the role that the new candidate would have to fulfil. The discussion we had sparked my interest, as we were not clear on how to include all the additional activities outside the core Job Description. I explored reasons behind this and came across something really interesting: The Job Description of a Knowledge Worker!
In the old days, work was obvious; it was clear what needed to be done: fields had to be ploughed, machines tooled, boxes unpacked, cows milked. You knew what you had to do – you could see it. It was clear when work was finished, or not finished. What was then known as “work”,was later transformed to assembly line, make-it and move-it kinds of activity-, and then to information processing, determining what next action needs to be taken.
David Allen (well-known for his book “Getting Things Done”) hits the nail on its head posing the question: “Which of you are doing only what you were hired to do?”
If you had a chance to stick to a specific Job Description for long enough, you would figure out soon enough what you needed to do (how much, at what level) to stay sane. However, things are not always that rosy in an age where continuous growth is critical.
In his book, “Getting Things Done”, Allen provides two reasons for the constant shift in the definition of our jobs:
The organisations we’re involved with seem to be in constant morph mode, with ever changing goals, products, partners, customers, markets, technology etc. These all, by necessity, shake up structures roles and responsibilities.
The average professional is more of free agent these days than ever before, changing careers as often as his/her parents once changed jobs. Even 40-somethings and 50-somethings hold standards of continual growth.
Little seems clear for the long term anymore, as far as what our work is concerned. I’ve come to the realisation that in today’s “Knowledge Age”, the professional doesn’t really have a fixed job description!
By Justin Siljeur