How To Define Roles Within Your Small Business
Ok, so we’ve sold you on the idea that you really should be clearly defining the roles and responsibilities of your organization: hooray! Our work here is…just getting started 🙂 In our experience a lot of organizations fail to take this crucial step when it comes to outlining the internal workings of their business. So, we want to give you a few pointers to get a jump on the task if you’re up for it. If you’re still having a hard time after you read this, make sure to check out our Growth Model offerings for more in-depth guidance in our Roots to Revenue program.
Here are some roles and responsibility pointers:
1. Assess Your Business Needs
Start by listing the tasks and functions required to operate your business. Consider areas like operations, marketing, customer service, finance, and sales. This helps you understand what roles are absolutely necessary for your business to function.
2. Identify Key Roles
Group similar tasks into broader categories to form distinct roles. For example, managing social media and email campaigns might fall under a "Marketing Manager.” Or your operations guru and your finance brain might end being the same person working under “Operations Manager” and those responsibilities can be clearly articulated under that umbrella. Which brings us to…
3. Write Clear Job Descriptions
For each role, outline:
Key tasks and responsibilities
Required skills or qualifications
Expected outcomes or performance goals
Keep these descriptions clear, concise and focused. The more vague, fluid and gray these are, the more confusion there is bound to be.
4. Review and Adjust as Needed
Roles may evolve as your business grows. Regularly revisit responsibilities to ensure they remain relevant and effective for executing your mission and vision.
Here’s the bonus tip from people who have worked closely and collaboratively with others for many years: it’s really important to allow time for yourself and your team to mentally adjust to whatever new roles and expectations you end up defining. It will take time and repetitions to adjust to the new accountability standards. Expect that balls will be fumbled and that’s ok as long as the team syncs up and gets clear about what happened, why and how to fix it moving forward.
Be clear, be concise and be kind to each other as you all collaborate to find what it takes for the business to become a well oiled machine!
