Hard to Get Started with Job Descriptions? Use Our Questionnaire

Here’s a basic questionnaire (We got it from the SmartJobs CD.) that you can use to begin the job description process (or to review existing job descriptions):

Job Description Questionnaire

Instructions: Distribute copies of this questionnaire to supervisors, human resources staff members, job analysts, and others who may be involved in writing job descriptions. Ask them to record their answers to these questions in writing.

1. What is the job title? ______________________________

2. In what department is the job located?

______________________________

3. What is the title of the supervisor or manager to whom the jobholder must report?

______________________________

4. Does the jobholder supervise other employees? If so, give their job titles and a brief description of their responsibilities:

5. What essential function duties does the jobholder perform regularly? List them in order of importance:

6. Does the jobholder perform other duties periodically or occasionally? If so, please list, indicating frequency.

Try BLR’s remarkable SmartJobs program at no cost, and download the FREE report, 5 Mistakes Everyone Makes with Job Descriptions and How to Avoid Them, today! Click here to learn more.

Job Specs Not Relevant to the Job

A step worse, perhaps, is when the incumbent or incumbents never perform the listed activity. This could be:

• Generalizing. (“Everyone who works in the plant has to be able to lift 40 pounds, operate the fork truck, and reach product from the upper shelves of the storage racks.”) It’s unlikely that every employee has to be able to do all these tasks, and in a large plant, even if it’s occasionally part of someone’s job, there are likely others who can step in on those moments to do that particular task.

• Holdover. There may be other job requirements that were essential in earlier times but are no longer part of the job. For example:

• Used to be required to lift 50 pounds; now there’s a mechanical lifter that does the lifting
• Used to have to exercise judgment (e.g., evaluating a raw log to determine how to cut it in the most profitable way); but now a computer makes that determination, and the incumbent is an operator with little judgment required

How Do You Know?

Here are some questions to help you find problems:

• Are people being hired who are overqualified? They probably won’t last, and if they do, they won’t be very productive.
• Are people being hired who have the wrong skills for the job? Hiring someone who excels at a requirement that isn’t relevant won’t make for a good hire.
• Are these individuals becoming dissatisfied with their jobs?
• Are current job specifications actually being used (in hiring, job evaluation, performance appraisal, etc.)?
• Are current specifications keeping out individuals who might make a valuable contribution to the organization?
• When was the last time that job specifications were reviewed?

More than 700 prewritten, legally reviewed job descriptions are ready to go at the click of your mouse. Try BLR’s remarkable SmartJobs program at no cost, and also receive the FREE report, 5 Mistakes Everyone Makes with Job Descriptions and How to Avoid Them, today! Click here to learn more.

What’s the Harm?

Invalid job specifications end up creating a kind of chaos in the workplace and may end up harming the individual and the organization. Some potential pitfalls are:

• Dissatisfaction. This is likely to set in when overqualified people are hired, and it will inevitably lead to:
• High turnover. Dissatisfied people will leave at the first opportunity, which leads to:
• High training costs,
• Loss of material resources,
• Low productivity, and
• Low morale.
• Legal hassles. Most typically, legal charges and suits will result from denying a person the job on the basis of an outdated or irrelevant requirement. It’s a hard suit to defend when the requirement is there on the job description, and ample evidence exists to show that it is not required for performing the job.

And, of course, there’s the Americans with Disabilities Act to consider. It requires an interactive discussion and consideration of reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities who apply for your job.

In tomorrow’s Advisor, we present a job description checklist plus an introduction to the amazing SmartJobs—your job descriptions already written.