04 June 2004	Friday	15 Rabi-us-Saani 1425

ISLAMABAD, June 3: The establishment division has directed all ministries, divisions, attached departments and autonomous organizations to prepare the job descriptions (JDs) for the positions in their organizations to improve the performance of employees, official sources said.

In a letter, a copy of which was made available to Dawn, the secretary establishment division, Syed Tariq Ali Bokhari, asked all ministries, divisions and autonomous organization to formulate job descriptions for all the officers and officials from BS-1 to BS-20.

The sources said recognizing the utility of the format of the CBR generic job descriptions, establishment division had already commenced the task of developing JDs in respect of the division, which would be followed by the attached departments, offices and the autonomous bodies.

It may be mentioned here that some time ago, the CBR had concluded a massive exercise of developing generic JDs for all revenue and support positions in its headquarters and the income tax, customs, sales tax, central excise departments.

Subsequently, the generic JDs were customized for each employee in grade 1 to grade 20 across Pakistan, leading to signing of over 24, 000 specific JD's. The supervising officers also countersigned each of the JD.

When contacted, CBR member human resource and management Zafar Aziz Osmani told Dawn that CBR JD's were unique in three ways. Firstly, they broadened the focus of the main purpose of the job, by including taxpayer/customer focus, in addition to the primary purpose of revenue and service value addition.

Additional emphasis was also laid on efforts for institutional development and employee motivation, he added. Secondly, CBR JD's brought a clear classification of the changing roles of the officers from junior to senior levels. At junior positions, the main focus was on operational responsibilities. At middle level, the role changes to operational cum management responsibilities.

For senior positions, the value addition transforms to strategic planning and leadership role, which was significantly different from the conventional focus of revenue/service approach, he said, and added the JD's, therefore, brought a new paradigm for the CBR officers at all levels.

Thirdly, Mr Osmani said, the CBR job description had introduced a unique section, identifying various tasks associated with each position and elaborately specified measurable performance standards, which made the performance review process objective and transparent.