Who is writing job descriptions in your organization ?

Do the people who are writing job descriptions in your organization, follow these guidelines.

1. The job description is a text required to fill in the job advertisements space.
2. Job description is a set of few requirements prepared by HR to just fill a vacant position.
3. Job descriptions are what written by the manager, given to the HR department, who modifies them and publish them.
4. Job descriptions does include some (25%) of the stuff that employees perform in 40 hours of the week's time.
5. The job descriptions are to let candidates know, what are the requirements of the position we wanted to fill in.
6. The job descriptions go in the offer letter and then you bury them. Those are never discussed later, during the employment period and during performance appraisals.

If this is what happening in your organization then you are at serious risk.

Here are a few rules to fix this mess

1. The core of the job descriptions of the key positions in the organizations need to be written by higher Management.

2. Most of the job descriptions need to need to be written by Respective Managers, HR, the staff who is already working in the organization. However, these job descriptions must be simply validated by some of the senior people in the organizations. Whenever, higher management is going to run diagnostic check, they will start from the job descriptions of the people. So, it is better to spend time on the job descriptions early than late, when you are in big troubles.

One of the organization's, I worked with, wanted to achieve a specific (Security) certification in the next coming year. But, surprisingly they never mentioned it when they were hiring people, never mentioned it in openly, never discussed it in performance appraisals, and management was still thinking they will be able to achieve it.

Another, on-line web company's success was dependent on the user experience of their Product. They never mentioned it in the job descriptions of the development managers, project managers, programmers and other staff. Still, they were put a high number for users acquisition in their plans.

what happened in above cases. Organizations did not achieved their goals. Who is responsible and who should fix it. The answer higher management, managers, HR, people already working all should contribute to job descriptions.

Following is the detail who should contribute.

3. What each one in the team contributes.

- Higher management makes sure that the job descriptions are aligned with the core values, competencies of the organization.They should make sure what are the competencies required to achieve their current year plan. make sure those skills and competencies are in the job descriptions, if you want to achieve them.
- Managers should make sure that they include 99% of the work in needed to be one in the job description. It should put emphasis on the 20% of the core work that generates 80% of the output in the organization. Managers should never miss the core work that the employees need to put in, to stop bad hires in the team.
- HR make sure that the job descriptions are complete enough to pursue right candidates and retain them. HR should make sure, Job descriptions are presentable,so that best candidates get attracted towards the organization.
- People who are already working in the organization will put the nifty,gritty details in the job descriptions. Ask from them what need to be improved in terms of the core skills. Involving them will reduce the rick to ignore any skill in the job description, that is absolutely essential for you current and future plans.


Once, you have involved all the key people in writing and validating the right job descriptions, your first step to hiring great people in your organization is on your way..

New serices of posts. Path to Successful Organizations

I am starting to write a series of posts to improve an organization's fundamental strengths. Almost every organization try to do it best with its resources, but fixing the fundamentals early, asap is one of the important step.

The organization in my mind are the startups, counting companies like google as startup, keeping in mind that any organization that wanted to succeed need to be working in a startup style with a quick agile delivery model

The first few topics are improving the core strength i.e. people. From hiring people to getting people deliver up to the expectations.

TED fellows program magic explained in 6 minutes.

Esther K. Chae, Juliana Machado Ferreira , Kyra Gaunt, Sheila Ochugboju , Taghi Amirani, Yatin Sethi, 6 of the 40 TED 2009 fellows, explaining the magic of TED Fellows Program in 6 minutes.

This short video conveys the intense, potentially life-changing experience of becoming a TED Fellow, through interviews with some of the TED2009 Long Beach Fellows and with TED's Community Director, Tom Rielly.
For more information about how individuals may apply for a TEDIndia Fellowship, please visit http://www.ted.com/fellows/apply. TED Fellows may apply or be nominated by another individual. To nominate a candidate, email the full name of the candidate and their contact information to fellows@ted.com.

Last date to apply for TED Fellowship is 15th June,2009.

Best place to be in the world for inspiration. Once in a life time opportunity..

TED Conferences are one of the best places to be, and sometimes it comes out to be a life time opportunity. On a journey of spreading ideas and going global TED Long Beach Conference ( TED 2009, The Great Unveiling) is followed by TED Global 2009 July 21-24, 2009 (The Substance of things not seen) in Oxford UK, and TED India (The Future Beckons) November 4-7, 2009.

TED fellows program under the leadership of Tom Reilly is focused on getting together the world's future leaders to get inspiration from current leaders of the world. The TED Fellows program is designed to bring together young world-changers and trailblazers who have shown unusual accomplishment and exceptional courage.

TED India's focus is to get more and more candidates from Asia. So help spreading this word to as many brilliant doers in this region.

Here is the full press release from TED.

TED Fellows Program Accepting Applications for 100 TEDIndia Fellows

Organizers of the TED Conference has announced they would begin the search for 100 TEDIndia Fellows to participate in the TEDIndia Conference in Mysore, India, following upon the successful TED Fellows program launch at TED2009 this past February in Long Beach, California. The TEDIndia Fellows program will accept applications for fellowships from April 20, 2009 through June 15, 2009.

The TEDIndia Fellows program is a part of the larger TED Fellows Program, a new international fellowship program designed to nurture great ideas and help them spread around the world. This year, organizers will select 100 promising individuals from around the world to attend the very first TEDIndia Conference. At the end of the year, organizers will select 20 individuals from a pool of the TED, TEDGlobal, and TEDIndia Fellows to participate in an extended three-year Senior Fellowship, bringing them to six consecutive conferences. The principal goal of the program is to empower the Fellows to effectively communicate their work to the world.

Benefits of the Fellowship include conference admission, round-trip transportation, housing and all meals. Fellows will also participate in a two-day pre-conference with the opportunity to present a short talk for consideration for TED.com, elite skills-building courses taught by world experts, social opportunities and surprise extras.

The TEDIndia Fellows program will have international representation with a distinctly South Asian majority, with approximately 75% of the Fellows representing the South Asian region, and 25% representing other regions of the world. South Asia is defined as including the countries of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Tibet, Myanmar, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka. For the global pool, applications will also be sought from the other five target regions: Africa, Asia/Pacific, the Caribbean, Latin America, and the Middle East, with consideration to the applicants from other countries.

The program seeks remarkable thinkers and doers who have shown unusual accomplishment, exceptional courage, moral imagination and the potential to increase positive change in their respective fields. The program focuses on innovators in technology, entertainment, design, science, film, art, music, entrepreneurship and the NGO community, among other pursuits. Applicants are generally between 21-40 years of age, though anyone over 18 and over 40 may apply. They must also be fluent in English; though moderate fluency will be accepted on a case-by-case basis.

The program was inspired by the TEDAfrica 2007 conference in Arusha, Tanzania, in which 100 fellows participated in a first-of-its kind gathering that featured trailblazing, entrepreneurial individuals vested in creating change on the continent. The TEDAfrica fellows brought with them new perspectives, enormous energy, enthusiasm and ovation-generating talks. Propelled by their energy, TED decided to develop the full-scale TED Fellows program, which debuted at TED2009 in Long Beach, California.

"TED2009 was a transformative experience for me, and several of my peers," said Pragnya Alekal, TED2009 Fellow and now TEDIndia Fellows Coordinator. "For the first time, we were in a supportive community of enthusiastic innovators, all working to make the world better. And after only two months, so many new collaborative ventures and initiatives have come out of it.

"I want to share TED with other people; I want more South Asians to experience what we Fellows experienced. I would like the world to know about the genius brewing in this part of the world, and I look forward to them meeting their counterparts from around the world. I believe this will be an important launch pad for everything that is good for the future of India, South Asia, and the world."

For more information about how individuals may apply for a TEDIndia Fellowship, please visit http://www.ted.com/fellows/apply. TED Fellows may apply or be nominated by another individual. To nominate a candidate, email the full name of the candidate and their contact information to
fellows@ted.com.

About TED

TED is an annual event where some of the world's leading thinkers and doers are invited to share what they are most passionate about. "TED" stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design -- three broad subject areas that are,
collectively, shaping our future. And in fact, the event is broader still, showcasing ideas that matter in any discipline. Attendees have called it "the ultimate brain spa" and "a four-day journey into the future." The diverse
audience -- CEOs, scientists, creatives, philanthropists -- is almost as extraordinary as the speakers, who have included Bill Clinton, Nandan Nilekani, Bill Gates, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Ashraf Ghani, Jane Goodall, Frank Gehry, Bono, Sir Richard Branson, and Stephen Hawking.

TED was first held in Monterey, California, in 1984. In 2001, Chris Anderson's Sapling Foundation acquired TED from its founder, Richard Saul Wurman. In recent years, TED has expanded to include an international conference,
TEDGlobal July 21-24, 2009 in Oxford, UK; media initiatives, including TED Talks and TED.com; and the TED Prize. TED2010, "What the World Needs Now," will be held February 9-13, 2010, in Long Beach, California, with a simulcast
event in Palm Springs, California.

CONTACT: Laura Galloway for TED, +1-213-948-3100 or +1-212-260-3708, laura@gallowaymediagroup.com

SOURCE TED Conferences

Laura Galloway of TED, +1-213-948-3100, +1-212-260-3708,
laura@gallowaymediagroup.com