The Future for Job Descriptions

Why is it that the way we have always written job descriptions so often feels less useful in growing companies than we expect it to be

At some point I began to realise that the issue was never really the document itself. It was that the business had already started to evolve more quickly, while the role on the page was still describing an earlier version of the company

It took me longer than it should have to see that, and it came from a moment I still remember well. A moment early on in building one of my businesses when I realised that a single recruitment decision had caused more damage than I had first understood

At the time we were busy, which felt like success. Work was coming in and the team was beginning to feel stretched, so the obvious answer seemed to be recruitment. We needed another pair of hands, someone who could relieve the pressure and help the organisation keep moving forward. The hire was made quickly. On paper it looked sensible enough, yet the process behind it had been shaped more by urgency than by design. A few months later that person left

At first I assumed the cost had been limited to time and inconvenience. Recruitment mistakes happen in growing businesses and it seemed like part of the learning process. What I had not recognised immediately was the effect the decision had already had on the wider team

Not long after that departure, one of the longer-standing members of the organisation also resigned. I remember the conversation clearly. Their explanation was calm and thoughtful, they described how the environment had begun to feel slightly different, how expectations had become less clear, and how something about the culture no longer felt quite the same. Nothing dramatic had happened, yet they still felt the atmosphere of the organisation had changed

Listening to them, I realised that what I had assumed was a simple hiring misstep had revealed something deeper about the way I was leading. My recruitment had been reactive

We had been busy, so we recruited. The role was defined quickly because pressure demanded it. Expectations remained unclear because the organisation itself was still evolving. In reality I had placed someone into a system that had not yet decided what it needed them to become

Looking back now, I can see that this moment revealed a wider pattern that many directors experience. In the early stages of building a company there is an entrepreneurial seesaw that most of us recognise. Time is spent generating work and then delivering it. Marketing creates opportunity, delivery consumes attention, and the balance between the two becomes a constant negotiation. As the business grows, another seesaw appears alongside it

When the organisation becomes busy, recruitment begins to feel inevitable. The team is stretched, customers are waiting, and bringing someone new into the company seems like the natural next step. Recruitment introduces a new pressure because every new salary requires the business to sustain the revenue that supports it. Busy leads to recruitment, recruitment increases the need for revenue, revenue growth creates further pressure, and eventually recruitment appears again as the next response. This is recruitment by demand.

Initially it feels like growth, but its limitations soon become noticeable because roles are created quickly in response to the work that exists today. Job descriptions attempt to capture responsibilities that are already changing. Expectations remain fluid because the organisation itself is still finding its shape. People are hired into roles that describe the present while the business continues evolving toward the next version of itself. Gradually the cost of this approach becomes clearer, and it begins to influence culture.

When roles are unclear, standards drift. When expectations change without being articulated, capable people begin to feel uncertain about where they stand. When recruitment decisions are made under pressure rather than through design, the organisation absorbs instability that spreads through the team.

As I look back, I can see that my thinking began to change when I realised the problem was not recruitment itself, it was the way roles were being defined.

Traditional job descriptions usually describe the work that currently exists inside an organisation. They capture responsibilities, reporting lines and tasks that the company needs someone to perform today. In stable organisations this can function well enough, but in growing organisations that approach is simply unsustainable.

Roles begin evolving almost as soon as they are written, particularly in areas shaped by changing technology. Responsibilities expand as people gain experience. New opportunities appear which require broader judgement and deeper capability. The organisation itself becomes more complex as systems, clients and partnerships develop. In that environment a static job description quickly becomes outdated.

I remember another moment that helped me understand how quickly roles can evolve beyond the words written in a job description. In the early years of the business, information moved around the office in spreadsheets attached to emails – yes I know… we all remember those days. Someone would complete a piece of work, send the document to a colleague, who would update it and send another version on. It worked well enough because the pace of work allowed it.

Then shared online workspaces began appearing in organisations like ours. Instead of sending spreadsheets backwards and forwards, several people could now open the same document at the same time. Changes appeared instantly and questions that might previously have waited for the next email attachment were now resolved in minutes. The technology changed, and the function of the role changed with it. Instead of producing information for others to use later, people were now shaping information collaboratively in real time. Visibility increased, decisions accelerated, and the expectations of the role expanded beyond what the original job description had imagined.

Experiences like this gradually changed how I thought about job descriptions. Instead of asking what a role needed to deliver today, I began asking what the next version of that role might need to become. That meant that conversations around performance also began to change. Rather than reviewing how someone had performed within the boundaries of their current job description, we explored how the role itself had evolved over the previous year. People often described responsibilities that had grown naturally beyond the original description. Decisions they now made confidently that had once required approval. Relationships with customers or colleagues that had expanded in ways that had never been written down.

Those observations became the starting point for a different conversation. If the role has already grown, what should the next version of the role look like? What capabilities would allow the next person in this role to succeed more quickly? What experience should someone begin developing now if they are to take the next step in the organisation later?

As those questions gained traction, the job description stopped feeling like a static document and began to resemble a description of the organisation’s direction of travel. This thinking eventually formed a simple progression that I later described using the acronym RICES.

Recruit. Induction. Competence. Excellence. Succession.

Recruitment brings someone into the organisation. Induction allows them to understand the environment they are entering. Competence develops as they learn to perform the role as it has been defined.

Excellence appears as the role begins to stretch beyond its original description. The individual starts improving systems, refining processes, strengthening relationships and expanding responsibility.

Succession becomes inevitable when the role has evolved far enough that someone else can begin preparing to grow into it.

Seen this way, a role becomes part of the wider development of the organisation itself. When job descriptions begin reflecting that evolution, recruitment changes character because the organisation begins designing roles for the next stage of growth, with people entering them more clearly aware of where the company is heading and how their contribution may grow alongside it.

This reaches far beyond recruitment alone. It shapes how leadership develops, how responsibility expands through experience, and how succession begins to form inside the everyday life of the organisation. Job descriptions, then, begin to carry a different kind of weight. They describe the work in front of us, and they also reveal something of the company that is still emerging.

I suspect many organisations would recognise, if they stopped to look closely, that some of their roles have already begun evolving in this way, often before the document itself has caught up.

Mark Jarvis