Where Do You Get Started With Creating a New Role at Work?

There comes a point in every organization’s growth, where it has to reflect on the chaotic jobs it provides and consider the benefit of creating new roles to reorganize resources. When an organization grows from a start-up or small business to one that’s larger and more diversified, it begins to recruit more workers to get things done. When this occurs without creating new roles at the company, employees are forced to play multiple characters in the workplace, jumping from task to new task without a break. This system works well enough initially, but over time, the employee has no choice but to quit and find a job where they are allowed to do the job they are qualified for. 

Knowing when to create roles within the organization requires a keen understanding of the workforce and how they are faring. It also requires employers to look toward the future of their organization and start preparing for jobs and roles that will be necessary in the upcoming months.

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Creating a New Role Does Not Have to Be Hard

Regularly creating new roles at an organization is not something that employers actively think about. Most often, when workloads become unbearable and employers sense that productivity is suffering, the recruitment team begins to hire additional candidates for the same role. This familiar strategy is all that is necessary when the type of work remains unchanged, however, such strategies do not work all the time. 

In most cases, jobs evolve and grow to become multifaceted, which is a sign of progress in the organization. Over time, some of these expansive job roles do need to be cut down into two and shared by others more suited for the role. This gives the original employee some breathing room to do their jobs and also ensures the additional personnel you hire are specifically equipped to handle that particular role. 

Creating a new role at a company means the establishment of a new position within the organization. It requires the company to find someone specifically qualified to handle the new role. Employers have the tough task of defining the new role guidelines and creating space within teams to accommodate that position, and despite the laborious process, it is well worth it in the end.

Wondering When to Create a New Role at Your Company?

Creating new roles is not something that can be done too frequently or frivolously at work. Pitching a new position involves extensive research and investigation into the need for such a position. It also means that an entirely new structure will have to be set up to accommodate the role. Finding a spot for them to sit in the office is the easy part, but determining their pay scale, defining their daily tasks and long-term goals, establishing who will onboard and train them, etc. take up a lot of resources.

With all of these factors considered, it’s clear that knowing when to create a new role is as important as creating the role itself. Some situations where it may be useful to set up a new role in the company include:

• When the employees are regularly forced to complete tasks outside of their original job description, causing their work to suffer
• When the workforce is regularly overwhelmed by their responsibilities and falling short of their target despite providing additional support
• When the company is expanding in a new direction and could benefit from more relevant expertise
• When specific tasks go from being occasional to a daily/weekly occurrence and you’re forced to hire freelancers each time
• When you want to promote an employee who has a wider area of expertise than any one role at your organization 
• When the industry is creating room for the new role and you see its relevance to your business 
• When departments are merging or separating and you require specific roles once the process is complete

Some Simple Guidelines for Setting up a New Role at Your Company

With all of these elements considered, you might have a better understanding of when to create a job role and get started with the process of filling up the position, but this can be an elaborate process that does not conclude overnight. Sometimes it takes months of planning to determine what the organization needs before you can even start with finding the right person for the role. Even after these steps are complete, the position will require consistent changes to ensure it fits and flourishes at the organization. As you get started with creating a new job role, here are some tips to keep in mind.

Ensure a New Role Is Necessary at the Company

Carefully evaluate whether the reason for setting up a new role is a temporary problem or a long-term one. If you create a new role at the company during a time of crisis over one project, once that task is over, your new employee will have nothing to do and will be laden with unrelated tasks that other employees do not want to do.

Review Your Industry to Understand How Competitors Are Structuring the Role

Assessing the industry standard is a big part of setting up the new roles’ guidelines and requirements and what they will be required to do. This might give you an understanding of the job title, the qualifications for such a role, what their job description should involve, approximate salary ranges, etc. Talk to industry experts about pitching the new position to your team and discuss the pros and cons of the move with them.

Set Up Clear Guidelines For the New Role

Before you tell a potential candidate what their new role will involve, you need to understand the role well enough yourself. Map out the specific details of the new role at the company such as:

• Their daily tasks
• Weekly goals or long-term purpose
• Which teams will be most relevant to them
• What resources they will need
• Who will help with successful onboarding
• Who the new employee will report to and will they have a mentor available
• What technical skills are relevant to the role as well as the soft skills recruiters need to look out for
• The pay and benefits you are willing to offer
• The future expansion of their role and what career progression they can expect
• What feedback systems you will enforce to help establish their role better
• The structural changes that might be necessary to accommodate the role

Before You Begin Hiring, Look for Internal Candidates

While creating a new role, organizations often rush to hire external candidates for the position but many candidates within the organization are well-suited to take it up. Employees are already familiar with the ins and outs of the organization and maybe more equipped to help you expand the new role more smoothly. 

Be More Flexible While Hiring

If the new role at the company is a particularly unique one, you might find it hard to hire the perfect candidate who fits every aspect of the role description. It might be helpful to be more flexible and hire someone who is qualified and enthusiastic about the position so you can work with them to establish a new component of your organization.

Schedule Check-Ins With the Newly Hired Employee

With other hires, it might be easy enough to leave the rest to the managers and team members once the candidate is hired, but creating a new role requires some additional follow-up. Work with the employees to understand what they need and what they might want to try to experiment with for the benefit of the company. Explore their ideas and give them the resources and support they need to do their job. 

Creating a new role at an organization is not a simple process but if it is approached with patience, it can be easy. Check in with your workforce regularly so you can pick up on the early signs and determine when it is time to create a new role. Giving yourself time to plan ahead is a much better strategy compared to rushing to do it last minute when your team is already overwhelmed. 

The post Where Do You Get Started With Creating a New Role at Work? appeared first on The HR Digest.

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