Job Descriptions

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

Comments

  • 16 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • The most successful approaches to developing job descriptions that I've participated in do include a questionnaire partially filled out by the employee and partially by the supervisor of the position; one that forces responses to specific questions and items.

    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.
  • Can you tell me where to find a good job description form for managers to work from? If you have one would you be willing to share?

    Thanks!
  • You will find that asking employee input ahead of time is a regular part of upgrading job descriptions. The most intensive time for this task is prior to a salary survey so that apples can be compared to apples. The consultants and consulting groups that specialize in this area use a PDQ (Position Description Questionnaire) or similar survey form which is completed by the employee, then approved (or not) by the supervisor. If not, a meeting takes place to resolve the differences. This is all based on the idea that the employee best knows what he or she does, and as Don says, the process reduces the amount of work that you do.
  • When I worked for a consulting firm and for a state government office we used a Position Description Questionnaire (PDQ) to gather information from employees about the tasks they perform and the equipments, physical stamina, etc needed to perform the job. The PDQ asks for facts - no opinions. I used it for production line workers, janitors, drivers, office staff, professionals, managers and VPs. By no means did the employees think they were writing the job description but they did provide a lot of valuable information. Everything from "Oh, we forgot that Bobby handled petty cash." to "Sally does accounts payables most of her day rather than straight data entry."

    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.
  • Thank you all for your input. I do totally agree that we need to get input from the employees, they are doing the job not us. My concern is with giving them a completely blank which states Job Description for Personnel Use only.

    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.
  • Correct, a blank form is not a questionnaire. The questionnaire should be designed so that it asks specific questions about job duties, the amount of time spent doing stuff, their opinion about how much experience is required etc. etc. etc. so that the job description can be easily written from the information that is provided. Supervisor review is also a critical part.
  • Gillian is right, of course. And the cover memo that you give the employee will set the stage for his honesty and thoughtful analysis. Especially when you say things like, "In order for Human Resources to arrive at thorough, accurate and definitive position descriptions and establish fair and competitive compensation ranges, your input is needed."

    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.
  • tpace: I was trained to start with a JOB TASK ANALYSIS, which includes physical endurance words to effect the successful accomplishment of the task and wrapped up with a time element which identifys the standard for speed and accuracy in the accomplishment of the task for one (1) tasking event. The Job Task Analysis starts with the person sitting in the current position listing the physical things that one does and gives some time elements for their task and the physical nature of the task. 'The act of retaining and organizing the storage of time cards is simple on a day to day basis, but ones collected into a box they become very heavy and there is an element of strength required to accomplish the task, without assistance.'

    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


  • As a quickstart, we purchased a job descriptions package from HRN Management Group (hrnonline.com), and we found it very helpful to have a starting point and to just modify to fit our positions. I would never have the time to start from scratch!
  • CAMIC: I agree, however, to pay for a soft-ware program, when any one of us on-line with this forum can e-mail a sample that we use and the forum member can use ours and we don't charge for our products. Don't start from scratch just clear your icon to receive e-mail messages onto which we can attach working copies of any HR product.

    PORK
  • How do you clear your icon to receive email messages for attachments? It would be wonderful if responses could include attachments that everyone could view.


  • I have tried to get employee input (from a blank sheet and found that they didn't know what to do and were not given good instructions by their supervisors.) They felt like it was an "assignment" and they could do something wrong and were scared.
    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 doing a new job description, I would sit down with the individual and go over what all their tasks are and what the essential functions of the job are.

    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.
  • Would anyone be willing to share a PDQ or tell me where I could find one. If it doesn't fit our environment, I might be able to adapt it. We are a group of medical clinics and I mainly work with the receptionist, billing clerks and maintenance people.

    Thanks in advance!

    jfp
  • PDQ? Does that mean Pretty D### Quick?
  • Position Descrption Questionaire. Duh.
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