Primary Job Responsibilities (PJRs) articulate and describe your core job responsibilities in a concise and manageable format. They are not intended to replace a job description, but rather to make a job description more manageable. Unlike a job description that gets into the nitty-gritty detail of the activities for which a person is responsible, PJRs consist of a brief statement of the responsibility and a clarifying description/standard.
PJRs should be stated more broadly than a job description and should start with a verb. Ideally, an employee should have between four and eight PJRs. Here’s a sample list of primary job responsibilities for a Product Development Director:
- Develop and enhance product lines
- Support sales and customer service efforts
- Manage direct reports to achieve their goals
- Suggest process improvement solutions
- Test, evaluate and benchmark products to create competitive marketing data
Notice that the list is not as detailed as a job description – it’s not meant to be. It only answers the basic question, “What is this employee responsible for?” Managing employees, setting departmental direction, reaching departmental goals, managing the confidential information of employees, overseeing the efficient operations of the production department – these are primary job responsibilities. In contrast, conducting month-end financial closings, scheduling employee work shifts, completing sales reports and meeting with vendors on a weekly basis are all job description items because they are more detailed.
The wisdom from this blog post came from KeyneLink’s strategy-execution manual. The KeyneLink system helps senior leadership deliver faster, better decisions, while building a world-class execution capability throughout their company. More to come!
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Gary Tomlinson
www.gary-tomlinson.com
(919) 847-6235
