Job Posting Confidential

I was recently sent a link to a job posting in a neighbouring community. I recognized it immediately as I have seen this same job posting four different times over the last seven years. I know from my interactions with this business and discussions with individuals who have worked there, that this is a difficult position for them to fill and to retain an employee in this role.

Today I am going to share a casual review of what I saw in the posting and discuss a potential better approach which would empower the company to successfully fill the role and keep the hire engaged.

This posting starts out by combining together what would in a typical workplace be two full time positions. This particular one combines office management and human resources.

In some workplaces due to size or number of staff; or the volume of business, it is at times an advantage to combine duties to deliver a full time position for an employee. In workplaces where the HR workload alone covers full time hours adding additional responsibilities undermines the HR work to be done effectively.

A workplace may be looking for ways to address labour costs and combining job responsibilities can be an effective way to do so. I urge caution when doing this as too many office responsibilities ties the hands of HR and leads to burnout, fatigue and frustration. This is reflected in the frequency this particular position has been posted.

A better approach would be to look at other ways to couple jobs that work well together with the potential of addressing possible job deficiencies.

What came to mind when I was reviewing this posting was to combine the office management duties along with reception and have an office administrator position that manages the office and handles the flow of communications traffic within the company.

This new job pairing would free the HR to devote themselves to HR issues and increase the position for reception which is often underutilized.

The office administrator would oversee day to day operations within the office and direct all incoming communications to the various parties at specified times throughout the day. The company can schedule management staff to take turns being on call for emergency matters; while the office administrator reviews the answering system and office email at specific times forwarding the communications to the appropriate parties. This allows for a more productive use of time , with less interruptions.

The way the current job posting reads an applicant would be applying for an unreasonable amount of job duties and would have to be willing to sit in a single location for long hours at a time. As a working professional I would not be tempted to respond to a job posting that promised me to be overworked and figuratively chained to a desk.

When looking to hire individuals for jobs that seem to need to be reposted frequently, take some time to look into the job work load and environment and see if there is a more practical and well balanced position to offer in its place.

Being aware of workload and the need for employees to have a safe and comfortable work environment can increase can increase candidate response and employee retention when applied to the job description, posting and expectation.

Have you ever encountered a job posting that seemed unrealistic to you?

What do you think of these suggestions?

Please share your thoughts, I would like to hear your perspective.

Thank you and good job hunting!