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, and the University’s policy for the should be followed.
General advice about using the job description template
- Follow the section by section guidance below to complete the template.
- The job description template exists for the dual purposes of grading and recruitment, and where possible the sections are common to both purposes, with the exception of information which is only applicable for recruitment such as grade and salary range.
- Managers should be aware that the job description is indicative of the requirements of the role, and should where appropriate provide staff appointed to the role with a more detailed list of specific duties.
- Use plain English to describe the role, explain any necessary acronyms, and avoid assumptions that the reader will understand the process or technique being referred to.
- For roles undertaken by more than one person (known as a generic job description), to ensure that the job description is written to cover the typical responsibilities and work examples for all role-holders.
- Use a font size of 11 or more so that the document is easy to read.
- Avoid use of web-links since all information must be contained in the job description.
- Ensure that no grades, names or the gender of any current, past or future role-holders are included in the job description when submitting for job evaluation.
The following sections need to be completed:
The Job Title
This can be a broad job title covering several jobholders if the job description covers a group of staff. If the submission is a re-evaluation you may wish to take the opportunity to revise the current job title, please get consensus from the role holder(s).
Section 1: Job Description
- Faculty/School/Professional Services Division: Name of the Faculty, School or Division where the role is based.
- Faculty/School or Division Address: State the full address of where the role is based.
Complete the following information once the role has been graded and is ready to be submitted for recruitment.
- Job Family/Grade: Professional/Administrative or Operational Services or Technical Services
- Grade: Grades A-M
- Salary range: The University's Starting Pay Policy is that the starting salary for any appointment must be within the service increment range for the grade(s) at which the role has been evaluated and advertised.If an appointment needs to be made above the lowest point of the salary within the range, then a business case needs to be made to HR before offering the salary to the candidate. The business case needs to justify the basis for appointment above the bottom of the scale and this should be based on extent of knowledge, skills and experience as relevant to the role. Consideration should be given to equality issues and internal comparators.
- Hours of work: Number of contracted hours per week
- Contract type: Open-ended or fixed term (state length of contract if fixed term).
- Work pattern: Full or part time (if part time specify days to be worked, for example 5 mornings a week, 2 ½ days per week). Indicate if job share is available.
- Vacancy Reference Number: HR will complete this box.
Section 1.1: Main Job Purpose
The main job purpose outlines the overall contribution the job makes, or alternatively “why” the role exists.
- Job Purpose = what is done (verb); to what or whom (area of impact) and with what result.
- The statement should be succinct and no more than one paragraph.
- Consider what is it that the job is intended to achieve, what would not get done if the job did not exist, what is the particular contribution that the job makes.
- The main job purpose should not be a list of how the job is done.
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:
- A set of Professional and Administrative Grade Descriptors exist to help identify the level of role required. The Descriptors should be used when developing responsibility statements. The Descriptors provide typical responsibilities for each level of Professional/Administrative role, from grades D to M but should not be directly duplicated.
- The ‘statements of responsibilities’ section of the Descriptors illustrates typical examples of what is expected at the relevant grade for Professional/Administrative roles.
- Provide more than one statement against each sub-heading, where applicable.
- Delete any sub-headings which are not relevant, add any key responsibilities not covered by these sub-headings.
- Re-order the sub-headings in order of importance, and re-order the responsibility statements under these sub-headings, if more appropriate to the role.
- Although some responsibility statements could fit against more than one sub-heading, avoid duplicating the statements under the different sub-headings, instead choose the most appropriate sub-heading according to the focus of the work.
For all roles
- Consider the overall purpose of the job and the key areas in which results must be achieved to fulfil that purpose
- Each responsibility should be distinct, and describe an important aspect of the role in which results must be achieved with the focus on what is required and not how the role is fulfilled.
- Where the role is not Professional/Administrative in its focus, use of the sub-headings on the job description template are optional, and if not relevant should be deleted.
- Where the role is not Professional/Administrative in its focus, please ensure that no more than 12 responsibility statements are submitted, as this will result in the job description being returned for re-drafting.
- The statements should be listed in order of importance.
- In line with the Equality Act 2010, the statement of responsibilities must outline any potential Job Hazards Information for Job Descriptions (PDF, 367kB), particularly when specific health checks are required due to the nature of the role.
Section 1.3: Relationships
- Line manager, Line manager to (where appropriate)
- Please complete the job title of the line manager and, if the role-holder line manages staff, the titles of their roles; do not include names.
Section 1.4: Organisation Chart(s)
Provide an organisation chart, showing the whole School/Division in broad outline to indicate where the role sits in the larger structure. If it is not possible to show the more immediate team on the organisation chart, provide a second chart showing the more immediate team(s) and reporting structures as they impact on the role.
Additional considerations:
- The organisation charts should show the formal reporting relationships relevant to the role.
- The organisation charts should include job titles.
- Clarify which role is being considered for job evaluation by inserting the word ‘role-holder’ after the job title.
- Reporting lines must be clear.
- Solid lines on organisation charts should be used to indicate formal reporting lines, and where necessary dotted lines can be used to show other activity e.g. service provision.
- If there are any particular aspects of your chart(s) that require explanation, such as where the role operates across a functional area, please clarify in a short paragraph.
- Do not include names of individuals or grades.
Section 1.5: 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
Relevant Experience, Skills, Knowledge, Qualifications, Communication and Interpersonal Skills and Additional Criteria
Section 2.1, 2.2, 2.3
Detail the experience, skills and knowledge, relevant qualifications, communication and interpersonal skills, that are essential to the effective performance of the job. The requirement for these should be reflected elsewhere in the job description, for example if the role requires a professional qualification it should be clear from the work examples and statements of responsibilities that the role is operating at that level.
For Professional/Administrative staff roles only:
- When completing this section refer to the set of Professional and Administrative Grade Descriptors, ‘Qualifications, knowledge skills and experience’ section of the relevant descriptor, and provide any knowledge, skills and/or experience which is essential or desirable for the role.
For all roles:
- Provide what is required for recruitment purposes, avoiding provision of the attributes of any current/past/future job holder(s).
- Include details of the nature and context of each type of experience required, remembering that experience does not necessarily have to be gained in an identical environment.
- Avoid specifying a required length of experience. Using such a requirement, particularly where it is for a lengthy period, could potentially be seen to be discriminatory against both younger workers and women who have taken career breaks when having children and therefore in breach of the Equality Act. Instead, focus on what type of experience you are looking for rather than an arbitrary duration, which is unlikely to be a good indicator of performance in any case. For instance, "Significant experience of providing a service in a busy, customer-focused environment" rather than "Three years customer service experience".
- Indicate if there is a job requirement to maintain professional accreditation through appropriate updating of skills and knowledge.
- The level of skill or knowledge required may in some cases be indicated by reference to particular qualifications or types of training. If quoting specific qualifications or training accreditations, such as a degree, append with ‘or equivalent’.
- Do not include age-related criteria in job and person specifications, selection criteria and advert wording. Avoid words like "young", "recently qualified" and "mature", as these could potentially be seen to be discriminatory to older or younger workers and therefore in breach of the Equality Act.
- There can be a tendency to overstate formal qualification requirements, so think carefully about whether having specific knowledge or skills, proven through experience, is more important.
Section 2.4 Additional criteria
- Include any additional criteria that are not covered by the other categories but are a relevant requirement for the job. Do not include additional criteria unless it is absolutely necessary, for example if the job involves travel do not automatically specify car ownership or possession of a driving license, as this may exclude suitable candidates who would use other forms of transport.
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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: Work Examples
Provide 3-5 work examples relating to the key and representative responsibilities of the role. Provide a paragraph per example, and a maximum of ONE AND A HALF PAGES of A4.
- Explain how the role-holder will be required to fulfil the responsibilities of the role.
- Explain the steps that are involved, who else is involved and how qualifications, skills, knowledge and experience are used.
- Clarify the nature and scope of planning and organising. Consider typical planning decisions made by the role-holder, typical planning and organising timescales (daily, weekly, monthly etc), the role-holder’s contribution to the planning process and others’ contribution (e.g. line manager), to identify the level of autonomy in the role or ‘where the buck stops’.
- Clarify the level of decision-making. Consider typical decisions made by the role-holder, the role-holder’s contribution to decision-making and others’ contribution (e.g. line manager), to identify the level of autonomy in the role or ‘where the buck stops’.
- Clarify the nature of problem-solving. Problem-solving considerations include the typical problems/issues encountered in the role, the role-holder’s contribution to problem-solving and others’ contribution (e.g. line manager), to identify the level of autonomy in the role or ‘where the buck stops’.
- In some cases it may be appropriate to use an example to illustrate a part of the job that would otherwise be obvious only to a specialist.
- These examples should not be occasional or one-off elements to the role.
Section 3.2: Additional Statistical
- Provide any relevant statistics that can give a fuller understanding of the job. These can relate to the operational (e.g., service provision, number of customers and/or students), financial (e.g., budgets, grants and contracts) or staffing (e.g., number of employees supervised) aspects of the job.
- This can also include any other relevant contextual or specific School/Department/Team information that may help for job evaluation purposes
Examples of statistical information are found below:
Operational:
- Range and type of service provided.
- Number of research grants and contracts.
- Number of customers and/or students the role affects directly or indirectly.
- Number of rooms/offices serviced.
Financial:
- Recurrent budget, grants and contracts, discretionary funds.
Staff:
- Number and profile of staff supervised.
- Number of staff the role affects directly or indirectly, other than through direct supervision.
Section 3.3: Relevant Physical and Environmental Information
Describe any physical and environmental information which is not covered elsewhere which is beyond a typical office environment, but is essential for a proper understanding of the role.
- Provide any relevant information about physical effort and/or strain and working environment not already included in the other sections.
- Provide the frequency / duration / intensity of the activity and/or working environment.
- Do not include additional information unless absolutely necessary.
- Do not include contextual information in this section, please put this into the Additional Statistical Information section.
Section 3.4: Key Contacts
Identify only the most significant internal and external relationships that the role has, and the overall purpose of the relationship, e.g.:
Line Manager - Monthly one to one meetings to discuss overall progress of the project, exchange information, and reach agreement on issues requiring escalation
- Take into account relationships with senior and junior colleagues as well as with more immediate colleagues.
- Describe the purpose of the relationship (for example, exchanging information, negotiating, motivating, keeping up to date with best practice, reaching agreement on
