Job profiling, also referred to as job documentation, means identifying and documenting the core responsibilities and requirements of each position within your organisation to create a detailed job profile or job description.
Well maintained and regularly updated job profiles form serve as the foundation for many HR processes, including recruitment, job grading, and performance management practices like performance reviews, goal setting, and developing key performance indicators (KPIs). By linking job responsibilities directly with performance goals, it becomes much easier to track progress, measure success, and set achievable objectives.
From our experience, many organisations tend to update job profiles sporadically—often only when reviewing salaries (through market benchmarking) or when recruiting. Unfortunately, this approach overlooks the broader value of keeping job profiles up to date as an ongoing practice.
Why Job Profiling Should Be an Ongoing Practice
Job profiles should be reviewed annually – and ideally every six months. For example, one client of ours reviews job profiles during their bi-annual performance reviews. This gives employees the chance to reflect on their work, identify new responsibilities, and ensures that managers can align job profiles with upcoming performance goals and KPIs.
Tips for Writing Effective Job Profiles
If your organisation tends to treat job profiling as a once-off task, here are a few important things to keep in mind when updating your job profiles:
- Don’t List Every Task: Unless it’s a very entry-level or manual role, avoid creating an exhaustive list of every task. Instead, focus on the responsibilities that make up the role and are directly tied to key outcomes.
- Include Only Regular Tasks: Focus on ongoing responsibilities and avoid including one-off tasks that are outside the scope of your position’s daily functions.
- Clarify the Level of Responsibility: Be clear about the level of responsibility. Is the role managerial, coordinator-based, or administrative? This helps set clear expectations for the role and its scope.
- Start with Action Verbs: Use active verbs like “Analyse,” “Evaluate,” “Identify,” “Compile,” and “Audit” to begin sentences. This adds clarity and helps to define the role more directly.
- Avoid Vague Language: Steer clear of broad terms like “achieve departmental objectives.” Instead, focus on specific actions that lead to measurable outcomes, which makes it easier to assess performance.
Final Thoughts
Job profiling is about more than just creating job descriptions for hiring or salary adjustments—it’s an essential part of performance management. By regularly updating job profiles, you create clearer expectations for employees and foster more effective goal setting.
Plus, when your job profile is up to date, this can help boost productivity and better align individual roles with your company’s overall objectives.
