3 Steps to Define Roles and Responsibilities in a Small Business

Roles, responsibilities, and hiring–oh my! The hiring process can be an eventful journey. But here are some words of wisdom: You need to know what you’re looking for. 🔎

It’s easy to get swept away by HR jargon, especially if you’re copying and pasting random job titles from Google. 

But what happens when you slap a title onto a job description without knowing what you actually need to support your company? 

🔥 Unrealistic expectations

🔥 Confusion with work duties

🔥 Hiccups with the workflow

🔥 Pressure on your staff

🔥 High turnover rates

🔥 Costly consequences 

And the list goes on… 

Simple solution? Define the roles and responsibilities in your small business. 

After making this work mistake, Layla developed a three-step strategy to help you clarify key positions and hire the right people for your team. 

Watch the video or keep reading to learn how to define roles and responsibilities with a small business organizational chart!  

Step 1: Outline Your Business Process

Before recruiting new employees, explore your internal systems and processes. 

📝FAQ: A process includes stepping stones that lead to a specific result, while systems are a combination of processes and procedures in a small business.

For example, let’s say you want to post a YouTube video. Your process may include:

✅ Brainstorming topics

✅ Writing a script

✅ Recording the video

✅ Editing it

✅ Adding special graphics

✅ Uploading the final result

If you need help mapping out your business process, use our Process Org Chart™ from our free training, The Blueprint. You’ll thank us later! 🙏 

Each process involves areas of responsibility, like acquiring new clients or writing industry-related articles. When you put all the moving parts of your business under a microscope, you can better understand where you require support. 

After gathering the details, it’s time to initiate the next phase in the strategy: Pairing your processes with your roles. 

Step 2: Match the Process to the Role

Circle the roles on your Process Org Chart™ that match the pain(s) you must resolve. For instance, if you’re hiring a video editor, you’ll circle tasks related to the position, such as splicing video clips and updating tutorials for your employee training course.

Connecting the dots between your processes and roles ensures that:

✅ Tasks won’t fall between the cracks. 

✅ You’ll hire the right candidate for the right reasons.

✅ Everyone will have a job to do.

✅ The burden won’t fall on your shoulders.

Once you complete this step, group your roles and job responsibilities like a memory-matching game. By this point, your work chart should be pretty marked up. 📑

Now, you may feel like your work is done. After all, you’ve identified the specific processes you need help with and understand how team members play a role in them.  But we have one more recommendation to help clarify your roles and responsibilities. Check it out! 👇

Step 3: Maintain a Job Role and Job Title Org Chart

Distinguishing between job titles and job roles can be a little confusing, so let’s break these terms down. 

A job title refers to a professional name used to identify an employee. For example, a content writer, marketing coordinator, or community manager.  

A job role includes a set of responsibilities and tasks a team member completes. For instance, a content writer’s role may cover outlining, researching, writing, and editing. 

💡 Need more context? Read this article to learn more about the difference between job titles and job roles. 

In addition to the Process Org Chart™, you can take things up a notch with a Job Role Org Chart and Job Title Org Chart.

We’re starting to get more specific, but stick with us. These small business organizational charts are a game changer. 

Job Role Org Chart

For this work chart, all you have to do is reformat your original process chart. Yes, the one with the circles and markups. 🎨

Create a separate diagram of job roles, aka the responsibilities in your small business. You can also identify who these roles will report to. 

🎬 If you want an example, watch the video to see our Job Role Org Chart. Feel free to use it as inspiration and customize it to reflect your team. 

Job Title Org Chart

The Job Title Org Chart is like a simple HR roadmap. Rather than showcasing employees in several branches of your business, each worker will appear under one job title. Their position on the work chart will depend on their hierarchical relationship to the organization. 

📝 Quick note: The Job Title Org Chart may be more useful in traditional corporations. However, small businesses can utilize this visual aid to demonstrate who reports to whom. For example, a content writer may report to the content production assistant and marketing coordinator. 

While this small business organizational chart simplifies things, it may not clearly define your roles and responsibilities. Why? Because one job title may not accurately exemplify the list of duties involved. 

That’s why we recommend using all three outlines to help you see the ins and outs of your small business.  

Define Roles and Responsibilities in Small Business and Recruit Away

Now, we’re not experts in hiring by any means, but we wanted to share a few golden nuggets with our community. A little organization can go a long way–we speak from experience! 😉

💡 Bonus tip: If you’re unsure who to hire next, compare your job roles to your job titles. Then, check in with your team about their least favorite tasks and workload. From there, split up the work and delegate. 

Learned something new? Keep the ball rolling with our signature program, ProcessDriven Foundations™. Navigating your work management system doesn’t have to leave you scratching your head. Instead, use our proven frameworks to help you establish processes that support your team. 

Thanks for reading, and be sure to check out our free training, The Blueprint, which features the Process Org Chart™!

Ready to turn chaos into process?