What are a team member's roles and responsibilities?

Updated 22 March 2023

For an organisation to be successful, it's beneficial to have well-defined roles and responsibilities for individual team members. While department structures may vary, many businesses organise their teams similarly to maximise their productivity, efficiency and collaboration. By ensuring that each team member understands their role, responsibilities and what they're accountable for, a business can achieve success in its long-term objectives. In this article, we explore what team members' roles and responsibilities are, alongside how a business can set expectations around responsibilities and implement that within its structure.

What are a team member's roles and responsibilities?

A team member's roles and responsibilities refer to their position within a group and the assigned tasks they have within that team. A role is the title or position they hold in a team and what they're accountable for. Responsibilities refer to the specific duties an individual has, what tasks they manage and the accountability they can expect within their role. It's crucial for an employee to understand their role and duties so that they can better complete tasks and contribute to the success of the entire company.

What are the benefits of establishing clearly defined roles?

By establishing clear roles and expectations within a team, a business can experience specific benefits that allow them to operate in an effective, efficient manner. The key benefits of defined roles and expectations in a team include:

Accountability

When each individual employee understands the role they play in a team and the expectations around the role, they're more likely to complete tasks to the best of their ability. This accountability ensures the team doesn't miss any critical tasks and the business can meet deadlines while collaborating effectively. A team leader typically establishes who is accountable for what during the application process or over time as the team develops work processes. This creates a more motivated, positive work environment and helps a company achieve business objectives.

Motivation

A team with clear guidelines and expectations around each individual role is typically more motivated. An effective team structure may highlight specific targets for each role and how their responsibilities feed into those targets and provide a clear path for progression and success. By having clear goals and processes in place, individuals are typically more motivated, as they can see progress in their work and achieve regular milestones. As a team builds success, they can also take advantage of the momentum that provides to hit goals and future business objectives.

Team success

If a team builds set schedules and expectations around their tasks, they're more likely to succeed as a unit. Staff members that have clear responsibilities, deadlines and accountability have everything they require to achieve optimal success, especially in teams that rely on each other to make progress across a project. Achieving milestone successes as a team also helps create a positive working environment, which benefits the business in terms of brand awareness and employee experience.

Career development

By establishing set roles with specific responsibilities, a business can define a logical career progression for specific individuals. With these plans in place, a company can share with new employees the potential for advancement, alongside the skills they can expect to learn and help them further their careers. Defining career development is a key aspect of recruitment and employee retention, ensuring that businesses build solid teams that help them achieve long-term business objectives.

How to establish the roles and responsibilities of team members

A fundamental understanding of a company's goals and objectives is a common practice when defining the roles and responsibilities of a team. Building these goals alongside a mission statement and defined values helps unify a team towards one objective. When a team understands their key progression milestones and end goal, they're more likely to be productive, efficient and effective, producing much higher quality output. Here are the key ways to establish team member roles and responsibilities:

1. Identify business needs

It's vital for a business to understand what it wants to achieve before outlining key roles and responsibilities. Look at future objectives and past performance to identify potential projects to help you achieve these targets. Once you've outlined the tasks that you want to complete, start recruiting and establishing set roles within a team, all of which have their own responsibilities and accountability. Make note of what worked and what didn't, as this can help inform the success of future projects.

2. Define each person's strengths and weaknesses

If you don't yet have a plan of projects or business objectives, use the strengths and weaknesses of the team to establish the roles you require and the responsibilities those roles might manage. Whether the business is hiring to fit specific niches in the business structure or restructuring the current workforce to better suit their individual strengths, this is a common way of building an effective team with defined roles and responsibilities. Team members that work to their individual strengths are more likely to provide an efficient service and build confidence within that role.

3. Examine each team member's job description

When you're setting responsibilities, you might examine a team member's job description and CV to establish the reasoning for hiring them. By understanding their skill set, qualifications and interests, you're ready to put them in the best possible situation for success. Having a better understanding of how they work, their job description and their personality can help you delegate more effectively. In larger teams with more fluid roles, this approach may allow you to re-evaluate a team structure and move employees better suited to different roles.

4. Use employee feedback

Employee feedback can provide more personalised insights into how a team operates and where members feel more comfortable. Aside from providing useful information that can help you define the business strategy, this approach also shows that you're listening to your team members and care about their opinions. This fosters better communication between a team and a company while also allowing you to set expectations and improve productivity and motivation. Regular reviews and feedback sessions can help you build this bank of information, ready for application into the business structure.

5. Encourage training and development

As a team evolves, so do the requirements and opportunities of a business. While it's a good idea to build around a team's strengths and weaknesses, it's useful to encourage constant development to expand a team member's skill sets. If you're presenting incentives to succeed, such as promotions or salary increases, consider the unique skills an individual might require before they achieve that promotion. This can help you create a more knowledgeable team, provide personal development for employees and ultimately improve the output of a team.

Team member responsibilities

While a team member's responsibilities may vary depending on their specific role or employer, there are fundamental responsibilities each team member has that ensure they're a useful and collaborative member of a team. The typical responsibilities of a team member in a business include:

Participation

Participation and collaboration are useful for furthering the success of the entire team. It's the responsibility of the team member to take part in both professional and social situations within a team, contributing to business objectives and the wider company culture. Participation may include contributing to team meetings, providing input into team or business challenges, attending team socials or team-building events and actively being a part of the overall culture. This helps a team build trust with one another and actively leads to higher productivity and motivation.

Active listening

A major part of a team member's responsibilities is actively listening to colleagues and utilising this in their natural workflows. Whether a team is practising knowledge-sharing sessions or collaborating on long-term projects, it's critical that each team member feels heard, trusted and respected. Active listening can help a team member provide this experience and contribute to the success of a project.

Task completion

Completing tasks to the best of their ability and in a timely manner is a core responsibility for a team member. While these responsibilities may differ from employee to employee, it's an expectation that they meet deadlines, provide high-quality work and collaborate on any team projects with their colleagues. While a team member may be responsible for a certain task, collaboration is critical for the completion of a project and helps a team operate efficiently.

Collaboration

Being a team player is useful for each team member to work well with colleagues. While individuals may find success, collaboration is usually much more beneficial and helps a team build long-term success across various projects. Collaboration may include brainstorming sessions, knowledge sharing sessions and working on projects together, utilising different mediums and channels to find success. These skills help a team develop new ideas, build their individual knowledge and help build a positive employee experience.

What are a team member's roles and responsibilities?