Job Descriptions
tpace
31 Posts
My company needs to update all of our job descriptions.
I have been to the SHRM site, and various others and have found great starts for all of our positions; however, another VP has now submitted a 6 page blank form that she wants to supply to all staff members to ask for their assistance in preparing their job descriptions.
I personally feel this is not a wise decision because I feel it is our responsibility to prepare the job descriptions. I do not feel that employees can objectively write their own job description.
I do feel strongly that once management has the job descriptions completed, that we meet with each individual to go over their job description and edit as needed based on responsibilities they may or may not be doing.
Have any of your companies allowed this? Do you customize job descriptions based on individuals?
Any input would be appreciated.
Thank you, Tina
I have been to the SHRM site, and various others and have found great starts for all of our positions; however, another VP has now submitted a 6 page blank form that she wants to supply to all staff members to ask for their assistance in preparing their job descriptions.
I personally feel this is not a wise decision because I feel it is our responsibility to prepare the job descriptions. I do not feel that employees can objectively write their own job description.
I do feel strongly that once management has the job descriptions completed, that we meet with each individual to go over their job description and edit as needed based on responsibilities they may or may not be doing.
Have any of your companies allowed this? Do you customize job descriptions based on individuals?
Any input would be appreciated.
Thank you, Tina
Comments
Not only does it work well from the standpoint of getting the information from those with the most intimate knowledge of it, but it removes the immediate burden of having several people in HR pour over the task for hours and days without thoroughly knowing the content of every job.
Just my thought.
Thanks!
When I met with employees to review and edit the written job description it was usually a quicker, less confrontational meeting because I used some of their phrases and terminology so the document was more acceptable to them.
One caveat - I have personally only used this technique in companies with less than 200 employees (or a limited pool in larger companies). The number of Questionnaires to review becomes burdensome at a certain point.
I simply want to give each person a written basis of what their job description is and ask them to review and provide feedback as to additional responsibilities that they may be doing, or may not be doing.
I do not think they should be completing a blank form which asks if the position is exempt or non-exempt, what percentage of time should be spent on each task and what percentage of time is actually spent on the tasks. I think management needs to complete the form to a degree.
Thanks again, I value your input.
The employee is not, in this case, dreaming up his own job description or crafting it deceitfully. The questionnaire forces certain answers; it's not a discussion form with a huge blank space. And the supervisor who should know the position as well as the encumbent, goes over the instrument with a careful comb before passing it to HR.
95% of employees will provide real useful information. Then there's the occasional jerk who will write across the form something like, "Hey, YOU are asking ME what my job is? YOU should KNOW." That one is providing you with some useful information about herself as well.
From these JOB TASK ANALYSIS one can put the words together to satisfy the development and written JOB DESCRIPTION.
Where someone has an additional duty which is greater than 25% of the total time in a day or week, one should fully develop that task as a part of the JOB DESCRIPTION. Anything less than 25% is taken into consideration as: "Other duties as assigned", which should also have physical abilities assigned, if that is necessary.
By all means help the manager to further define the blank sheets in order to get some real value from the exercise. Not only allow but demand the ees be involved. Make the managers sort through each of their departments individual sheets and to judge the value before they ever give it to HR.
Where you have old descriptions, you may want to include a copy for the ees to use in providing new, and more current information for new descriptions, evaluations, EXEMPT AND NON-EXEMPT CLASSIFICATIONS, which to me is the most important reason for the development of new job descriptions.
PORK
PORK
So, I took the "blank sheet" questionnaire and sat down with them and walked them through it. (I just picked several in each job to do this with) and wrote it up from there along with Supv. input. Then after I got this much done, I distibuted it more widely for additional input. I think this worked better than just handing out a blank sheet or questionnaire to everyone.
Good luck. This is a time consuming process and many managers will want to disagree with you on strange parts of the description.
E Wart
If you are updating job descriptions, I'd just give each employee a copy of the old description and ask them for any changes that might have been incorporated since the last jd update.
Thanks in advance!
jfp