It’s not unusual for your job description to change over time. However, it’s essential to have a clear understanding of your role and what exactly is required of you.
This can help avoid any misunderstandings at work as well as also help make your case if you’re overworked or need an increment in payment.
So how do you write an email to your Boss to request your job description? We’ve simplified the job for you as this article provides some templates you can modify for the purpose.
Additionally, we’ve also included some tips to help you write effective emails to your Boss. But before that, let’s take a look at why it’s necessary to have a well-defined job description.
Importance Of Clearly Defined Job Description
A well-defined job description does not only benefit employees but the employer as well. It can help promote a healthy working environment while also improving overall performance. Let’s take a look at some additional benefits.
Requirement Clarity
Employees have a clear understanding of their responsibilities at the workplace. This ensures that there’s no misunderstanding at the workplace.
Employees will have an understanding of what is expected of them and they also know whom to go to for any particular task.
Improved Performance
Employees who know their responsibilities know what to expect especially since they’re specialized in those fields. They won’t force themselves to do something simply because it was mistakenly assigned to them.
You don’t want an employee to spend all day trying to accomplish a task when there are more qualified employees who can easily get the job done in a short period.
Employees who know their responsibilities at the workplace can allocate resources towards making them more efficient in the administration of their duties.
Improved Communication
Employees have a better understanding of what’s expected of them and can better communicate with the employer and among themselves.
Every employee understands their responsibilities which helps reduce disagreements thereby increasing overall productivity.
Legal Defense
Having a clear job description provides legal justification for employers to fire employees who underperform at the workplace. After all, the employer is justified in firing an employee who isn’t performing their assigned responsibilities.
Tips For Emailing Your Boss
While tools like Slack and Teams are leveraged for easier communication across organizations worldwide, emails continue to be used in these organizations, especially when communicating with a supervisor over formal correspondence.
Decide On Your Reason For Writing The Email
Workplaces are professional settings and Bosses expect any emails to be professional. This means the email should not deviate from the original purpose. Any relevant information that would present your case should be included in the email.
Clear Subject Line
While you would not be able to include all relevant information in the subject line of the email, it should present the general purpose of the email within a few words.
This helps your boss or supervisor locate the email, understand the possible content even before reading the full message and finally ascertain the importance and urgency of the email.
After all, your boss would most likely have a busy schedule. A clear subject line would help them identify the urgency of the email especially when they have a boatload of work to get done.
Examples:
Job Description Clarification
Request for Written Job Description
Use Proper Name
Coming down to the body of the email, you should identify the name your boss wishes for you or the general employee body to call them.
If they prefer to be addressed by their first names, you should address them as such. On the other hand, if you aren’t sure how they want to be addressed, you can either ask your colleagues or simply use your boss’ surname.
Keep in mind your workplace culture at this point. Some workplaces encourage informal communication between all members of the organization.
For informal workplaces, you start with:
Good {{morning/afternoon/evening}} {{Boss’ firstname}}
In the case of a very formal workplace where you aren’t sure of the best way to address your boss, you can simply start with:
Dear {{Mr. /Mrs /Ms. Surname}}
Hello {{Mr. /Mrs /Ms. Surname}}
State Your Reason
Following the salutation, your email’s opening paragraph should explain its purpose. Opening the email by explaining your reasoning keeps the email concise and clear.
Try and make your request as positive as you possibly can.
You can start with something like this:
I wanted to reach out to you to ask for clarification on some of my job responsibilities. I believe that having a clear understanding of my roles and responsibilities would help make me more efficient in the administration of my duties.
Provide An Explanation
Now that your first sentence has presented your reason for the email, you need to provide details. Refrain from including any unnecessary content which does not help clarify your email. Only include relevant content.
Maybe your job responsibilities have evolved since you joined the company. You can include that there.
Set Tone
Maybe something happened at the workplace that you didn’t like or there’s something you find annoying. You should mind your tone in the email.
It doesn’t matter whether the company’s doing something you’re unhappy with, you should mind your tone. If you sound angry, your Boss is less likely to mind your request or email finish reading your email.
You can start by mentioning something positive that you love about your work or the workplace.
Advice Actions To Be Taken
If you need your boss to take some form of action, you should include information on the necessary actions. For example, if you’d like your boss to approve a deadline change, you should include information on any task that your boss needs to complete upon receiving and reviewing the email.
End Formally
At this point, you can thank your boss for taking the time to review your request and then reiterate any relevant information before signing off.
Example:
Thank you for your time and consideration
Signature
Official emails to your boss should be signed off with your official signature which includes your full name, job title, department if applicable, and contact details when available.
This can be easy if you’ve already created your signature template for your company email. The system would automatically include your signature in every email.
If you haven’t created a signature template for your email, you should manually include this in your email to your boss.
It can be something like this:
Sincerely,
{{Fullname}}
{{Department if applicable}}
{{Job role/title}}
{{Contact details (optional)}}
Use Work Email
Refrain from contacting your boss through your personal email. Most organizations implement some form of spam filter that may flag personal emails as spam.
The last thing anyone wants is to send an urgent message to their boss only to find out days later that they never got the email. Emails that come through the company emails are whitelisted ensuring that your boss receives them inside their inbox.
This is why most organizations provide their employees with company emails for communication within the company as well as correspondence with external companies.
Keep It Concise
Your boss probably receives loads of emails daily. The last thing they want to do is to spend precious time reading through a long email to determine its content.
No matter how important your email may be, your boss is not likely to spend 30 minutes trying to understand its content. It’s advisable to use short and clear wording to easily convey the content of your message.
Proofread
No one likes reading terrible grammar, especially in a professional setting. It’s advisable to proofread your email to identify any grammatical errors before sending it to your boss.
Tools like Grammarly are readily available to help identify errors in your writing. Keep in mind that these tools aren’t perfect. So manually proofreading your email can further enhance your message.
Easy To Understand
Your boss most likely receives tens of emails daily, especially in the case of larger organizations. Ensure that your email is easy to under within the shortest amount of time.
To determine this, you can ask a colleague to skim through the email to test whether it’s easy to understand and adequately presents the necessary information.
Sample Email To Boss About Job Description
Template 1: Request for Written Job Description
Email Subject
Request for Written Job Description
Body
Dear {{Surname}},
I hope this email finds you well. I wanted to touch base with you regarding my job responsibilities. I believe that having a written job description would be beneficial for both myself and the company. It would help me understand my roles and responsibilities more clearly, and it would also help to prevent any confusion or misunderstandings.
I would greatly appreciate it if you could provide me with a written job description as soon as possible. Please let me know if there is any additional information you need from me in order to create one. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
{{Full name}}
{{Department name if applicable}}
{{Job tile}}Template 2: Requesting Job Description Update
Email Subject
Request for Review and Update of Job Description
Body
Dear {{Surname}},
I hope this email finds you well. I wanted to bring to your attention that my job responsibilities have evolved since I joined the company and I believe that my current job description no longer accurately reflects my roles and responsibilities.
I would greatly appreciate it if you could review and update my job description to ensure that it accurately reflects my current duties. This would help me to understand my roles and responsibilities more clearly, and it would also help to prevent any confusion or misunderstandings.
I would like to schedule a meeting with you to discuss this further, please let me know when would be convenient for you. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
{{Full name}}
{{Department name if applicable}}
{{Job tile}}Template 3: Job Description Clarification
Email Subject
Job Description Clarification
Body
Dear {{Surname}},
hope this email finds you well. I wanted to reach out to you to ask for clarification on some of my job responsibilities. I believe that having a clear understanding of my roles and responsibilities would help me to perform my job more effectively and efficiently.
I would greatly appreciate it if you could provide me with more information or clarification on the following responsibilities: {{List of responsibilities}}. Please let me know if there is any additional information you need from me in order to help me understand my duties better.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
{{Full name}}
{{Department name if applicable}}
{{Job tile}}Template 4: Requesting Meeting To Discuss Job Description
Email Subject
Request for Meeting to Discuss Job Description
Body
Dear {{Surname}},
I hope this email finds you in good health. I wanted to reach out to you to request a meeting to discuss my job description. My responsibilities have evolved since I joined the company and I believe that my current job description no longer accurately reflects my roles and responsibilities.
I would greatly appreciate it if we could schedule a meeting to discuss my job description, and to make sure that it accurately reflects my current duties. Please let me know when would be convenient for you.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Best regards,
{{Full name}}
{{Department name if applicable}}
{{Job tile}}
