Job Descriptions Gone Wrong!

Job descriptions are among the most prosaic tools
in the HR toolbox. They’re a basic of every HR program, the blueprint of who
does what, when and where, and how it all fits together in your
organization.

That’s why we were so surprised lately to find an
article on job descriptions end with the phrase, “eliminate job descriptions.”
Just what was author and consultant Susan Heathfield, who writes the human
resources column for About.com, up to?

Heathfield had discovered a side of job
descriptions you seldom read about … what the consequences are if they’re done
wrong. Consequences so serious that they fully justify the admonition to not do
them at all, if you can’t do them correctly.

These consequences included:

For job descriptions done for you and done right,
turn to BLR’s Job Descriptions Encyclopedia. Click
to read more or to try it for 30 days at no risk.

— Obsolescence. Today’s business
environment doesn’t stand still. Technology and market experience, and the
ever-present threat of increasing competition, make it mandatory for every
organization to constantly reinvent itself. That means you need to regularly
re-evaluate jobs and make changes to their descriptions as often as needed.
Heathfield also suggests a quarterly or, preferably, a monthly goal-setting
process that, in effect, continuously updates job descriptions and keeps them
true to the work being done.

–Inflexibility. The same issues
that force obsolescence also can inhibit creativity. Solutions to business and
operational problems don’t usually spring up fully-formed on the first try.
That means the job description must be flexible enough for workers to enlarge
the initial snapshot of their jobs. Heathfield suggests descriptions that
include cross-training, helping others with their tasks, and allowing workers to
make appropriate decisions to serve customers better.

Try BLR’s Job Descriptions Encyclopedia
at no risk for 30 days. Click
here.

–Illegality. Job descriptions
may turn into legal documents if they’re used as evidence in a discrimination or
wrongful termination lawsuit. Did you write anything in the description that
showed illegal bias in hiring or promotion? Did you scrupulously follow the
requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to separate essential
job functions from those less important, so that job candidates with
disabilities could qualify? Did you ask employees to do other than the
description said and then fire them when they didn’t? That can happen when, as
Heathfield describes it, descriptions are “vague, unmeasurable, untimely, and
unused.”

–Wastefulness. Done right, each
description must be researched, drafted, reviewed (often by several layers of
management,), and legally checked by company counsel. There may be dozens of
descriptions, even in a smaller organization, often making it a costly and
time-consuming process.

This becomes a wasteful process if the
descriptions are then simply filed and seldom looked at again. That’s especially
true when compared to the potential result of properly using the descriptions: a
leaner, more focused workforce in which each individual knows his or her part
and how that part fits the larger goal.

In tomorrow’s conclusion of this two-part feature,
we’ll provide equal time for what’s right about descriptions and preview a tool
that takes the pain from the process without removing the gain
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For job descriptions done for you and done right,
turn to BLR’s Job Descriptions Encyclopedia. Click
to read more or to try it for 30 days at no risk.