The Web Job Description

See my forthcoming Web Job Description Toolkit that covers many more topics in greater depth!

It is hard to believe that the Web was only invented in the early 90’s. Over that time it has dramatically altered how organizations communicate with their customers, clients and members as well as created new, web-based, services. As web operations begin to mature after the early efforts, many organization have started to formalize web-related roles and responsibilities. This leads inevitably to the crafting of job descriptions. Starting from a blank page this can often be a challenging exercise and few resources exist specifically for drafting web job descriptions.

This article will provide a starting point for executives designing positions that will support an enterprise web site. The major areas of responsibility that are generally needed to support a web site are reviewed below. Executives can adapt the sample text supplied here as they craft job descriptions that will support the unique needs of their organization.

Areas of Responsibility

The sections below identify 5 major areas of responsibility for web positions: content management, design, online community, administration, and strategy and planning. These areas must be covered either through staffing or outsourcing in order to develop and maintain a web site.

Content Management

Content management covers activities required to generate new content and maintain existing content on the organization’s web site. While all the areas are important, content management is likely to take up the largest chunk of an organization’s staff resources in developing and maintaining its web site.

Lead the planning and implementation of Web content and design for organization’s web sites including the development and oversight of the team’s project management methodology.
Maintenance of content on the organization web site, including copyediting.
Working with staff to develop and maintain information on the Web.
Design and implement the information architecture of the organization’s web site ensuring ease of navigation for visitors.
Working creatively with staff from other organization publications to create unique opportunities for interaction between the Web and the other communication vehicles.
Work with organization staff to identify, index, and make available knowledge resources.
Continually develop and maintain organization’s thesaurus (keywords) for use in indexing content.
Ensure that organization’s web sites are designed and deployed in a manner that is as accessible and user-friendly as possible.
Develop and implement the editorial calendar for the home pages and other areas of the site.
Represent the web staff to other units on issues related to content management.
Serve as expert consultant to staff on the development of Web content in support of organization’s objectives.

Design

Design encompasses the creation of graphics and html templates for the organization’s web site as well as multimedia.

Oversee the design of the organization web site, making sure that a consistent look and feel is maintained.
Serve as art director for the visual and multimedia content of organization’s web sites. Develop and maintain the overall look and feel of organization’s web sites.
Manage and design the creative aspect of web projects, including serving as an expert resource to organization staff involved in specific projects.
Design HTML templates and supporting graphics that are consistent with organization’s design standards.
Develop and maintain visual design guidelines for the web site ensuring that outside advertisements to placed on the web site meet organization standards.
Design graphical user interfaces for web-based applications on organization’s web sites.

Online Community

Online community covers any activity related to connecting members, customers or clients electronically. The most common activities are online forums and e-mail listserves. Online communities require hands-on attention by staff in order to really flourish.

Monitor and maintain online forums on a daily basis, including topic pruning, archiving, creating new forums and moving topics.
Notify appropriate staff about online discussions or inquiries that should receive a response from the organization.
Schedule and prepare special speakers and participants for online events.
Provide ongoing technical support to customers, clients or members using the organization web site.

Administration

The technical administration of web servers and software ensures that the web site is operating efficiently and meets performance requirements for availability.

Develop monthly activity reports on activity in the online community and on organization’s professional site.
Maintains network and data security including controlling user access, insuring OS security patches are tested and applied promptly, data backups, Internet firewall configuration and virus and worm prevention and elimination.
Monitors web site performance and makes necessary adjustments to insure maximum availability and performance including web site capacity planning.
Performs technology needs assessments, evaluates new technology to determine whether it could be beneficial for the organization web sites, and installs, configures, and tests hardware and software.
Maintains synchronization of production and development web servers.

Strategy and Planning

The elements in this section are intended to make sure that your web efforts are aligned with overall organizational goals and to emphasize the planning required to develop complex systems.

Lead the development of knowledge management tools and infrastructure that will provide access to organization’s knowledge resources to customers and staff.
Lead the development and implementation of a strategic plan for organization’s web sites. Includes consulting with staff and leadership to assess needs and develop plans.
Develop functional specifications for Web related projects. Manage RFP process, vendor selection and management for these projects.
Ensure that Web site content and online communities are developed and supported according to organization’s strategic objectives.
Liaison with all staff units in order to effectively plan and support web-based services related to their goals and objectives.
Market the Web site to customers and relevant segments of the public.

Titles

Job titles for web positions vary quite a bit across organizations. The same title might have significantly different responsibilities in different organizations. Given that, it is most important for titles to have meaning internally to staff and externally to potential employees. A title that clearly conveys the position’s major responsibility to other staff will reduce confusion about what they do. The title should also make sense outside the organization so that you will attract the best qualified candidates when you are filling the position.

Conclusion

Hopefully the sample language above will help executives as they get started on the sometimes daunting task of writing an organization web job description.

About C. David Gammel, CAE

David is president of High Context Consulting, LLC. David specializes in helping organizations to use the web and web-based technologies more effectively. Contact David at david@highcontext.com or 240 535 4545 to discuss how he can help you to formalize your web operations.

High Context Consulting, LLC