Role design and job descriptions for Lending institutions: drawing clear lines between sourcing, credit and recovery
When sourcing, appraisal and recovery roles blur, files are approved by the wrong person and bad accounts have no owner. Written roles with clear limits protect both the book and the people in it.
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Share your requirementsWhy role design and job descriptions matters in lending institutions
In a growing lender, job titles outrun job definitions. A branch manager sources, approves and chases dues. A relationship officer also collects. A credit officer is asked to visit customers. It works while the book is small and then fails when an account turns bad and nobody can say who was meant to catch it.
Good role design does not need long documents. For each seat, it states what the person decides, what they pass on, which targets they carry and who they report to. It also marks limits, such as which roles can approve a file of a given size. Once roles are clear, hiring, training and pay can follow them.
How to set it up
1. List the real tasks in each seat
Sit with a sourcing officer, an appraiser and a recovery officer for a day each. Note what they actually do, not what the old description says.
2. Separate sourcing from approval
Decide who brings a file, who judges it and who signs it. Where one person does two of these in a small branch, record it and add a second check.
3. Write decision limits
State what each role may approve, what goes up and to whom. Keep it to one page that managers can read in two minutes.
4. Define the recovery seat
Set the accounts a recovery officer owns, the hand-over from sourcing when a payment is missed and the point at which a case moves to a senior.
5. Link roles to grades and targets
Use the written role to set the grade, the measures and the reporting line. Review the roles once a year, or when a product is added.
Check these first
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These take an afternoon and use your own records.
- Ask three branch managers to list who approves what, and compare the answers.
- Find one bad account and trace which role should have raised it.
- Count roles whose written description no longer matches the work.
- Check whether any person both sources and approves the same file.
GullyHR can do this with you. Read how we approach role design and job descriptions in general, or share your requirements and we will tell you where to start.
Questions owners ask
Yes, though short ones. In a small branch one person often holds several tasks, which makes written limits and a second check more important, not less.
One page: purpose, main tasks, what the person decides, who they report to and the measures. Detail beyond that goes out of date and nobody reads it.
The business head with HR. Managers can suggest changes, but approvals and limits affect the whole book, so one senior owner should sign them off and keep the current version.