22 July 2022 (issue 377)

Please circulate to other managers in your school/division asking them to disseminate information as appropriate. You may also wish to bookmark this site for future reference.

 

Subjects featured in this edition are:

• New Job Description Template

 

New Job Description Template

A new simplified job description template to use for new roles and re-evaluations in Professional Services both in Divisions and Faculties/Schools has been launched. The new template has been developed in response to manager feedback and the revised template will encourage more concise job descriptions which we know will be important for the candidate experience.   

Other enhancements to the template include:

• greater transparency and simplicity in the person-specification and assessment criteria and provide clarity on how these will be assessed. This is partly in response to internal candidate feedback as part of the Professional Services Career Development Programme.
• No more than 10-12 statements of responsibility in keeping with best practice.
• A revised approach to writing the work examples for job evaluation.

The updated guidance can be found here, as well as links to the job description templates for new roles and re-evaluations. The Professional and Administrative grade role descriptors are still available and valid but should be used as a guidance document only.

We are now asking that with immediate effect all new roles and roles for re-evaluation be written in the new format and HR Business Partners (HRBP’s) will be able to advise you as needed so please seek early support. Existing job descriptions can begin to be moved across to the new template although it is appreciated that this is a longer-term piece of work. We urge you to discuss this with your HR Business Partners along with preferred timescales. The HR Business Partners will support you with this work as it is important to note that in simplifying the content, the essence of the role and therefore the grade must be preserved. Oversimplification could lead to unintended grade changes. You should already be in dialogue with the HR Business Partners regarding the annual update of your local Further Particulars document which has not changed in format.

We will also be updating our existing suite of generic job descriptions as well as developing new ones where appropriate and making these available to view to hiring managers.

HR Business Partner teams will be able to run local workshops on the new job description template if required and we will also be developing some resources and central workshops for managers in the Autumn.