Organisations nowadays are complex, diverse and everchanging. Within this working environment intranet managers need to define their place in the organisation.

One way to help establish where the intranet manager fits in an organisation is a position description. Position descriptions describe the key or major duties and responsibilities of the position. The intranet manager may inherit a position description with the role or more often intranet managers need to create both the role and a position description.

Generally there is a great deal of relevant information on position descriptions available in resources such as books, websites or the human resources department. This article outlines some of the specifics that apply to an intranet manager.

Why have one?

A position description has two audiences to fulfil, the intranet manager and the organisation.
Each organisation needs to accurately describe duties and responsibilities to ensure they have the right person for the role, determine any training needs and pay the intranet manager fairly.

On the other hand the biggest benefit for the intranet manager is to put some boundaries around the scope of the activities they undertake on a day to day basis. A position description can be even more crucial for the intranet manager role, as:

• generally the position is not understood
• intranet teams are often moved between departments and need to “break in” new senior managers
• most intranet managers have a broad degree of responsibility, in many areas of the business and need to be recognised for this

[February KM Column written by Catherine Grenfell, read the full article]