Job Description Guidance - Professional Services


Introduction

When advice is required regarding job design and structure, please contact your HR Business Partnering team in the first instance.

All Professional Services roles must be graded before they can be advertised for recruitment.

For information and advice on recruiting to your vacancy, please refer to the University’s recruitment and selection guidance.

The UBJES process is not required for a role in the Research and Teaching job family. Instead the appropriate academic career pathway and role profile will need to be selected to determine the grade. The relevant pathway and Faculty specific template should be used.

General advice about using the job description template

The following sections need to be completed:

The Job Title

The University is implementing a suite of generic job titles and therefore advice should be sought from HR re appropriate titles for any new roles. If the submission is a re-evaluation you may wish to take the opportunity to revise the current job title with advice from HR as well as obtain consensus from the role holder(s).

Section 1: Job Description

The following information should only be completed once the role has been graded and is ready to be submitted for recruitment.

Section 1.1: Main Job Purpose

The main job purpose outlines the overall contribution the job makes, or alternatively “why” the role exists. 

Section 1.2: Main Statement of Responsibility

This section includes the key responsibilities of the job or “what” the role is intended to achieve. 

For Professional/Administrative roles only: 

For all roles

Aim for 10-12 main statements of responsibility that you would expect the role to fulfil.

Additional Responsibilities

Section 1.3: Relationships 

Section 1.4: Job Hazards/Safety Critical Duties (Pre-employment health screening)

Please refer to the guidance notes at: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/hr/resourcing/practicalguidance/appointment/checks.html

Section 2: Person Specification

Section 2.1: Relevant Experience, Skills, Knowledge, Qualifications, Communication and Interpersonal Skills

Detail the experience, skills and knowledge, relevant qualifications, communication and interpersonal skills, that are essential for the effective performance of the job. The requirement for these should be recognisable in the main responsibilities.

Section 2.2: Additional Responsibilities and Additional Skills, Knowledge and Experience

These sections only apply in JDs that will be generic – that is where the role content will differ between role holders whilst the role purpose remains the same. This could be because the JD will apply in different areas or within one area but with a slightly different specialism/focus.

If there is only one role holder or all of the role holders have the same responsibilities, then these sections should not exist and everything should be covered in the Standard Responsibilities and Standard Skills, Knowledge & Experience.

The additional sections will usually be highlighted yellow so they can be picked from each time the JD will be used to tailor the role. The wording of the additional sections should remain intact unless it is designed to be tailored (for example by including options in square brackets, such as ‘[team/project/service]’).

New additional sections should only be added by following the ‘Changes that can be made by HRBPs to JDs already in the new template’ section of this guidance. The purpose of the additional sections is not so that managers can add whatever they like to the JD.

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Section 3 Job Evaluation 

Section 3 (3.1-3.4) is neccesary to supplement the job description for the purpose of evaluating the role through the UBJES process. 

Section 3.1: Typical Work Activities (across a day/week or month)

Please describe in more detail the typical work activities relating to the key and representative responsibilities of the role in a maximum of ONE PAGE of A4

Section 3.2: Organisation Chart(s)

Section 3.3: Additional Statistical or other relevant information

Section 3.4: Relevant Physical and Environmental Information

Describe any physical and environmental information which is not covered elsewhere e.g. relevant information about physical effort or working conditions.

Section 3.5: Key Contacts

Identify up to 5 most significant internal and external relationships that the role has outside of the line management chain, and the overall purpose of the contact.