There are some projects in higher education that appear deceptively simple. You begin with a clear objective, expect to produce a single document and then move on to the next priority task.
Sometimes though carrying out a seemingly simple task reveals a much bigger issue, that deserves attention. The original task turns out to be a symptom of something deeper, and before long you find yourself addressing a different, yet related, issue from the one you started working on. This was my recent experience when I started to write a job description for an academic role.
My aim was simple. I wanted to strengthen our recruitment process by ensuring that a specific role had a clear, modern and well-written job description. It is a process that many universities undertake whenever a vacancy arises. My assumption was that I would take an existing job description, update it and produce a new job description. Something I have done many times. On this occasion though this led me to question not only the wording of individual job description but the assumptions that sat behind it.
The more I thought about what should appear in a single job description, the more obvious it became that I was trying to answer questions that no individual document could answer. Before long, I had stopped asking what an Associate Professor should do and started asking what an academic career should look like. That subtle change in perspective transformed the entire project … and for the better.
Looking beyond the vacancy
Most job descriptions are written because there is an immediate operational need. A member of staff leaves, a new programme is launched, or student numbers increase, and a recruitment process begins. Naturally, the first question becomes, “What should this person be responsible for?” Indeed, if you ask Human Resources to advertise for a certain role, they will invariably ask for a job description.
The problem is that a job description rarely exists in isolation. Every academic role sits alongside other academic roles, each with different expectations, different levels of responsibility and different opportunities for progression. If those relationships have never been properly considered, individual job descriptions can become inconsistent over time.
Different schools/faculties/departments may emphasise different aspects of academic work, managers may interpret roles differently and documents written years apart will inevitably drift away from one another. Before long, and I have seen it, there are many job descriptions for (essentially) the same role and they do not relate to the many other job descriptions that exist for other roles.
None of this is intentional, but it makes it much harder for staff to understand what is expected of them and how they can progress from one grade to another.
It became increasingly clear to me that I needed to step back and think about the larger picture. Rather than asking what should appear in a particular job description, I first needed to establish an overarching framework that mapped out how an academic progressed, in our case, from Lecturer to Professor, and how responsibilities change as an individual progresses through their academic career.
Start with academic responsibilities
I began with the main academic responsibilities. I came up with ten:
- Teaching and Learning
- Student Success
- Curriculum and Programme Development
- Scholarship and Research
- Quality Assurance and Academic Standards
- Academic Service
- External Engagement and Partnerships
- Digital Innovation and Educational Technology
- Leadership and Management
- Professional Development
For each of these elements, there was also a short paragraph which expanded on each of those to provide further context.
Of course, we can debate these responsibilities, and different people will have different views. None will be right or wrong, it is just what your institution requires and what you, as a leader, feel is right.
Identifying these responsibilities provided an overarching framework for academic work. Each element of that framework would be relevant to any academic role. We could now ask how expectations should change as academics progressed through their careers. Which responsibilities should be expected of everyone? Which should become increasingly important at more senior grades? Where should leadership begin? At what point should external recognition become an expectation rather than an aspiration? These questions proved far more valuable than debating the wording of individual job descriptions.
Progression matrix
For each responsibility, a matrix was developed, with the responsibilities on one axis and the roles on the other. That is, we have a matrix with forty cells, with each cell describing what that responsibility entails for that level.
Job descriptions
Only after I had the framework did I begin drafting job descriptions. The writing process was much easier than it might have been as each role could be positioned within an agreed institutional framework rather than being developed as a standalone document.
Consistency benefits everyone
One of the outcomes of this approach was the consistency it created. Recruitment was the immediate motivation for the project, but it soon became obvious that the framework had applications far beyond appointing new members of staff. New academics could use it to understand what was expected of them, while existing colleagues could use it to identify areas for future development. Managers would have a clearer basis for discussing performance and career progression, and promotion panels could evaluate candidates against expectations that had been articulated consistently across every academic grade.
Perhaps more importantly, the framework provided a common language for discussing academic careers. Too often, promotion expectations exist largely as institutional memory, understood by experienced academics but less visible to those at earlier stages of their careers. Making those expectations explicit creates greater transparency and helps staff understand not only what is expected today but how those expectations are likely to evolve in the future.
The framework also encourages greater consistency between different institutional processes. Recruitment, onboarding, induction, probation, performance review, promotion and professional development are frequently treated as separate activities, each with its own documentation and terminology. A coherent framework helps connect these processes so that they reinforce one another rather than operating independently.
A leadership exercise rather than an HR exercise
Although job descriptions are often viewed as HR documents, deciding what should appear in them is fundamentally a leadership question. It requires an institution to think carefully about the type of academic community it wishes to create and the behaviours it wishes to encourage.
For example, how important should scholarship be for colleagues whose primary responsibilities are teaching? At what stage should academics be expected to lead curriculum development or mentor junior colleagues? How should external engagement be recognised? What balance should exist between individual achievement and institutional contribution? None of these questions can be answered simply by adapting an existing template. They require thoughtful discussion about institutional priorities, culture, long-term direction and how an academic progresses from one grade to another.
Our framework became a way of articulating collective expectations and ensuring that they are understood consistently across the institution.
Frameworks must continue to evolve
Although the framework is now complete, I do not regard it as a finished. Universities operate in an environment that is constantly changing. Artificial intelligence is already reshaping teaching, assessment and research. Open and distance learning continues to evolve, expectations around external engagement are changing and new forms of scholarship continue to emerge. For any framework to remain useful it must evolve alongside the institution it serves.
That is perhaps the most important lesson I took from the experience. Good frameworks provide clarity without becoming rigid. They establish common expectations while allowing institutions to adapt as higher education changes. They should be living documents that encourage conversation, rather than static documents that are consulted only when a vacancy arises.
Final thoughts
When I began this project, I genuinely believed I just needed a new job description. Looking back, that was never the real challenge. The real challenge was ensuring that every academic role formed part of a coherent picture of academic life, with clear expectations, logical progression and a shared understanding of what success looks like at each stage of an academic career.
The individual job descriptions, that emerged are undoubtedly stronger because they sit within a framework. More importantly, the framework itself has become a valuable resource that supports far more than recruitment. It helps shape conversations about development, performance, promotion and leadership, while providing greater transparency for colleagues at every stage of their careers.
Sometimes the document you think you need is simply the starting point. The real value comes from stepping back, asking bigger questions and building the framework that gives every individual document its purpose.
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About the Author
Professor Graham Kendall is Vice-Chancellor of GlobalNxt University, Malaysia, and an Emeritus Professor at the University of Nottingham. He writes about higher education leadership, governance, academic careers and research strategy, drawing on more than 25 years of experience in senior university leadership across the UK and Malaysia.