Role Documentation

An important foundation of the Valuing Work @ Wellesley College program is the understanding and documentation of our roles at work. While specific duties change frequently our roles are designed around some basic purposes and elements. It is these that we aim to capture in the role documentation process.

Purposes of Role Documentation

There are 5 important outcomes of role documentation at Wellesley College:

• First, a role document provides a clear statement of accountabilities, skills and expectations for work to be done in various areas of the College. It provides basic information for the employee and his/her manager.
• Second, role documentation is a key tool in effective performance planning and performance management. The collaborative process between manager and employee in completing the role document sets the stage for defining expectations of skill and in articulating appropriate goals, as well as evaluating progress.
• Third, the role document details information needed to classify a role into the appropriate level of Wellesley's Role Classification System. The role document asks for information in categories that match closely with the competencies or compensable factors found in the classification model such as Accountability/Responsibility, Communication, and Service to Constituents.
• Fourth, accurate role documentation allows Human Resources to match a role to similar roles in comparable organizations in Wellesley's competitive marketplace. This process ensures Wellesley's ability to maintain competitive rates of pay through the use of salary surveys.
• Finally, the role document serves as a source of recruiting information for Human Resources as well as for candidates in understanding a position.

Job vs. Role: What is the Difference?

The role documentation process at Wellesley College is concerned with the collection of information on "roles" rather than "jobs". This distinction is not simply one of jargon. In Valuing Work @ Wellesley:

A job is concerned with a group of tasks and specific results, and tends to be somewhat unique for each different person performing the job. Each new or changed task, indeed, each new job holder, will change this collection of activities. Every individual needs to describe his/her job differently, and so this type of job description frequently becomes outdated and inaccurate. A job description, by its very nature, tends to overlook the similarities between various jobs.

A role is concerned with elements such as which groups or areas the position serves, the end accountabilities of the role and the overall skills and abilities required for the specific type of work. When viewed from this perspective, a number of jobs can usually be grouped into a role because, while tasks and specific goals may differ, the overall purpose, elements, and skills or competencies required are very similar.

For example, each Admissions Counselor at Wellesley covers a distinct geographical territory (prospective students and their families) but in all other respects each Admissions Counselor performs the same role. At Wellesley, we would develop one role document to describe the Admissions Counselor instead of a job description for each Admission Counselor. This streamlines the documentation process because fewer documents are required and the concentration on role similarities, rather than job differences, provides more flexibility. Employees can take on new assignments and tasks within the same role, or move into similar roles in different areas of the college.

Tools Used in Role Documentation

The tools provided to Wellesley employees in the Role Documentation process are:

The Role Documentation Questionnaire-

Download PC version of the Role Documentation Questionnaire
Download Mac version of the Role Documentation Questionnaire

This questionnaire is designed to collect meaningful information about role content, performance requirements and the employee's required skills.

Each section deals with a different aspect of the role being described, including:

• General identifying information
• Role summary
• Primary responsibilities
• Performance expectations

Open-ended and multiple choice questions are designed to collect information about competencies that have been identified as those critical to success at Wellesley, including:

• Service to Constituents
• Expertise
• Leadership
• Accountability/Responsibility
• Collaboration
• Communication
• Innovation &Problem Solving, Critical Thinking
• Development of Self & Others

Complete and accurate documentation of a role is extremely important for classification, performance planning and performance management, and accurate salary comparison with similar jobs across the college and in the competitive marketplace.

The Role Documentation Completion Guide

The Role Documentation Completion Guide (download this PDF file) is a step-by-step instruction manual to assist managers and employees in the documentation process. Each section of the Role Documentation Questionnaire is described in more detail and examples are provided for clarification purposes. It is recommended that you read the Completion Guide carefully before beginning to fill out the Questionnaire, and refer to it regularly during the documentation process.

When to Complete a New Role Document

A new Role Documentation Questionnaire should be completed when:

• The role is newly created at Wellesley
• The role has changed significantly enough to require new documentation

Managers should consult with their peers, Human Resources and their own managers when considering creation or revision of a role document. For further information about role re-classification, please see your Human Resources Representative.

The reclassification process and the classification review request form can be found by following the links below.

Reclassification Process (Local Only)
Reclassification Form (MS Word)
Reclassification Form (Adobe Acrobat)