Do I need to have job descriptions?
As someone who worked in a large organisation for some time with lets face it a lot of very out of date job descriptions am I an advocate? In short yes I am.
They are perhaps the most basic but valuable tool to ensure your people practices are appropriate across a range of HR topics.
Ask yourself:
How do your measure someone’s performance if neither of you know what is expected of them?
How do you fairly place some roles at risk of redundancy and not other ones if the jobs specifications aren’t laid out?
How does your employee know what they need to do to develop themselves to reach the next level if you don’t have it written down for them to assess themselves against?
Yes there are other ways - competency models, appraisal forms and objectives and arguably custom and practice. However wouldn’t life be easier if it was just written down and kept up to date. So do it now, and involve your employees. They are far more likely to be on board and engaged if you use this as an opportunity to discuss their contribution to the company.