Deficient Role Descriptions are Costing Your Organization
Why this is and how to fix it
Deficient role descriptions—whether outdated, overly generic, or misaligned—can quietly undermine hiring, development, performance, and workforce planning. This article explores the hidden costs of poorly defined roles, how they impact organizational capability, and what a high-quality role description should include to drive workforce capability and performance.
From Job Descriptions to Role Descriptions
A literature review of research on job descriptions describes their contents and evolution from a document focused purely on tasks to a more nuanced description of the tasks with some indication of seniority or level of proficiency. This enables some identification of the technical skills needed to perform successfully.
More recently many have hailed the End of the Job Description and called for a new approach centred on non job roles – or as described in the I/O Pychology literature extra role behaviours. These cover the social and meta competencies that are need for successful job performance.
Others such as the Havard Business Review article – A new approach to writing Job Descriptions advocates for a focus on dynamic guidance, outcomes, teams, and inovation in the modern environment of changing technologies and more project based work.
All of this has influenced organizations to pay less attention to the quality of their job descriptions. Whether they are called Job Descriptions or Role Descriptions.
Are my role descriptions deficient?
A deficient role description is one that does not quickly and clearly provide purpose, context, accountabilities and capability requirements. That is
- how it contributes to organizational objectives
- where it sits within the organizational structure including career pathways
- the relationships it has with others internally and externally
- what is expected in terms of outcomes
- the capabilities needed to deliver on that
It can’t be pages and pages long, and it can’t be full of technical language.
Quality Role Descriptions - critical foundation
Quality role descriptions are the foundation for all people management processes. After all people are employed for a particular role and that is the basis for their contract – legal and pschological with your organization.
An Article in Forbes explains that although it is a challenge to communicate what is required in a role in a couple of pages it does matter.
The basis of my interest in role descriptions is a piece of work I was asked to do for a healthcare organization who were losing a high proportion of new hires within a few months. The reason – the role description they were gien during the hiring process bore no resemblance to the actual job.
The hidden costs of deficient role descriptions
Poor Hiring Outcomes
If the content of the role description does not accurately reflect the role then the whole hiring process is compromised. You will hire the wrong person with the wrong skill set. This is disastrous when hiring costs are up to 30% of salary and the real costs even more than the annual salary.
Cost Impact
- Longer time to productivity
- Early staff turnover
- Excessive hiring costs
- Risk of legal actions for unjustified dismissal
Ineffective Competency Models
Role descriptions created without job analysis may have the wrong skill definitions. Vague job descriptions lead to generic training prescriptions. So for onboarding and staff development purposes the training is likely to be irrelevant.
Cost Impact:
- Wasted L & D budget
- Low adoption of competency models
- Misaligned assessments and development plans
Ineffective Performance Management
When employees don’t have a clear understanding of what success in their role looks like, performance becomes inconsistent and difficult to measure. Managers struggle to evaluate their contribution. The end result;
• Frustrated employees and managers
• Unclear goals and accountability
• Vague or subjective feedback
• Reduced employee engagement and trust
• Weak links between performance and development planning
Cost Impact:
• Increased performance management overhead
• Missed KPIs due to confusion over role outcomes
• Poor retention of high performers
• Inequitable advancement decisions
Ineffective Career Pathways and Internal Hiring
Deficient role descriptions also affect the internal hiring and mobility processes. When role structures and job families are not clear, staff have difficulty seeing opportunities to advance. Management cannot assess staff readiness for other positions.
Cost Impact
- Increased external hiring costs
- Talent stagnation and disengagement
Ineffective Workforce Planning
Deficient role descriptions imapct strategic planning. Role Capability Requirement analysis – current and future is not systematic. Capability gaps cannot be accurately identified. This is especially the case in larger organizations with multiple locations and divisions.
Cost Impact
• Inability to plan workforce transformation – reskilling – effectively
• Risk during quality audits, compliance reviews, or restructuring
The case for Quality Role Descriptions
Clear, structured, role definitions are not a bureaucratic exercise — they are a business imperative. Organizations that invest in this foundation reap benefits across every aspect of talent and performance.
Creating a well structured role and capability architecture based on work analysis ensures
• Role clarity and accountability
• Competency-based hiring and development
• Targeted upskilling and internal mobility
• Reliable succession and readiness data
How to correct Deficient Role definitions
- Ensure your high level functional architecture is clear and supports organizational objectives
- Ensure clear job families – by functional area for larger organizations
- Role descriptions show how the role contributes
- There are clear accountabilities and overlaps are avoided
- The description of expectations is clear and succint
- Context is provided in terms of relationships with other entities and people
- Capabilities needed to deliver the accountabilities are identified
- Career pathways are identified
Effective roles are:
- Outcome-based, not just task lists
- Aligned with capability frameworks
- Linked to performance and development goals
They give managers confidence, employees clarity, and HR the structure to drive growth.