In today’s business landscape, many businesses are evolving to keep up with modern day demands.
This is resulting in an environment where job roles and responsibilities are ever-changing. Many businesses assume employees will embrace these changes and new expectations, however, if staff are not consulted properly before changes to a role it can have a major impact on job satisfaction and morale.
Here are three ways to improve role clarity for employees:
Clear processes
Having clear reporting lines and communication channels in place help to avoid ambiguous role clarity. Workers need to know who they report to and for what to avoid confusion and stress. If possible, limit reporting to only one supervisor as more chains of command usually increase the risk of delayed or inconsistent communication. Make sure procedures to communicate with supervisors are uncomplicated and as brief as possible.
Consistency
Avoid assigning roles to workers that conflict with their job responsibilities and accountability. Increasing demands without changing job titles or salaries is an easy way to create tension among your staff. Although it may be useful to change job positions or responsibilities around to eliminate job overlap or other inefficiencies, it will most likely result in disgruntled employees. Instead, approach workers with an increase or change in job responsibilities first and then negotiate to meet in the middle.
Competency
Workers need to be confident in their ability to take on new tasks and so on. This may mean staff need further training and/or support to complete their role effectively. Managers would be wise to chat with staff members about changes to their role by using a review process to demonstrate why they have been selected to conduct the new task and/or responsibilities and so forth. Workers also need to be encouraged to talk to managers about their concerns and difficulties with the changes to their job.