Changing essential duties

My employer wants to change someone's duties.

This person works as HR Generalist.
They want to farm out some of this person's administrative duties, such as entering new hires, absence tracking, etc. and then give the person accounting duties, such as analyzing operating expenses.

This is a small company and the owner feels there is not enough work to keep the generalist busy for 8 hours a day. This is their reasoning for having the generalist acquire new duties.

My concern is the generalist does not have an accounting background and this change in duties may be setting them up for failure.

Any thoughts on 1) is it within the guidelines of the law and 2) is it wise to move forward with this change in duties?

Comments

  • 2 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • Would this person be willing and/or able to perform the new functions with training or additional education?
  • Within the guidelines of which law?

    I always have a bullet point on each job description that says "...other duties as assigned..."

    Even if you don't have that, what is wrong with just telling the generalist that he/she does not have enough to do? This is just straight-forward, honest communication.

    As to the wisdom of moving forward, lots of accounting duties can be done by anyone with basic math skills and common sense. That does not mean it fits your person, but it also means it is not unusual. Analyzing operating expenses can be fairly involved, depending on the complexity of your operation.

    So to answer question 2, I think it wise to fully utilize your staff. But it depends on the skill set of this person as to whether or not they can handle the additional duties.

    I would try it, keeping in mind that some training might be in order. I would also insist on some spreadsheet skills because lots of this sort of work requires the manipulation of the data.
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