A client
recently told me that she’d rather go to the dentist than review and update job
descriptions. I know she’s joined in
that sentiment by thousands of colleagues in HR. Few tasks are more tedious, or more easily
ignored in the face of the dozens of urgent matters that arise each day. The problem is that few tasks are more
important to a well-run, well-protected personnel system. If an employer’s job descriptions are
inaccurate or out of date, there can be consequences far worse than the
unpleasant effort required to get them and keep them accurate.
A great deal has
been written about the importance of job descriptions to the employer-employee
relationship generally. Back in 2005,
for example, Entrepeneur.com described the job description as a “versatile management tool.” Much more recently, PDP’s Scanlan’s Blog
declared the statement “every job must have a clear job description” to be the first
principle of employee engagement. A
January 2013 SHRM
article refers to the job description as the “foundation of nearly every HR
function” and stresses the importance of reviewing and updating each job
description at least once a year, and more often if a job is known to have
changed.
Too burdensome? The alternatives could be worse. It’s hard to justify a bad performance review
based on an employee’s failure to perform tasks that don’t appear in her job
description. It’s hard to refuse a
request for reasonable accommodation – such as no heavy lifting, for example –
if there’s no lifting called for in the job description of the employee making
the request. And it sounds pretty bogus to insist that a task is “critical” to
the performance of a job when the job description classifies the task as
“occasional” or “secondary.” Check here
and here
for recent takes on the downside of outdated or inaccurate job descriptions.
Job
descriptions end up as evidence in almost every employment law dispute, and for
that reason alone they need to be a reliable source of information about the
duties and responsibilities of a position.
Their importance begins long before litigation, however, and if properly
crafted and maintained, job descriptions can be part of an employer’s strategy
to prevent such disputes from occurring. We strongly recommend that you visit
your dentist and review your job
descriptions at least once a year.
Posted by: Judy Langevin and Kate Bischoff
