Job descriptions: what's missing.

With corporate downsizing and the resultant redistribution of work across the organization's human resource base, job descriptions have taken on increased utility. With organizations today constantly undergoing change in what, and how, work is done, the job description has emerged as a powerful

The job description is the blueprint of the design of a job. It should accurately and completely show how the organization expects the person doing the job to spend his/her time in the organization. It should clearly state the kinds of "things" the employee is expected to do (or not to do) as a member of the organization. The job description is not a document stating rules, procedures, or work objectives. It is not a performance evaluation instrument. It is not a statement of desired abilities, personal attributes (these are not dimensions of the job), or behaviors.

It is, primarily, a statement of what functions (duties and responsibilities) the employee is expected to accomplish. It may include desired performance outcomes and/or general means for achieving those outcomes, in order to clarify how one is to use one's time in the organization; but the focus is on what the employee does, not on how - and not on how accomplishment will be measured.

It is important for the job description to be prepared well because it is the "base" document for almost all human resource administrative activity that occurs in an organization. If it is not a valid document - accurately and completely reflecting the design of the job - its value as a tool for guiding such critical human resource management functions as job and organizational design, reward system design, employee staffing and training, and performance evaluation and control is suspect.

Many employees complain that their job descriptions do not accurately reflect the expectations management has of them. In a recent study, 200 non-managerial employees, both permanent and temporary, were surveyed in 60 different organizations. Eighty-five percent of them said their job descriptions were quite deficient as a tool for helping them learn what they were supposed to do for the organization. Most said their job descriptions were incomplete, vague, or both. About 70 percent said that key elements of their jobs were left out of their job descriptions.

Intrigued by this widespread revelation that job descriptions do not tell what employers really want their employees to do, the study group followed up its initial survey with the same 60 organizations in an effort to learn just what is missing from job descriptions. In addition to revealing some of the general types of expectations that are frequently missing from job descriptions or related documents, this subsequent investigation made it clear that management often neglects to communicate many of these expectations to employees by any other means (many managers said they just assume that employees already know them). In other words, many employers simply do not explicitly communicate to their employees key "things" they expect them to do, or to avoid doing, for the organization.

Six categories of organizational expectations that were found to be frequently missing from the job descriptions of operative employees will be identified and discussed below.

Planning, communication, and control responsibilities

Planning and control responsibilities are frequently absent from the job descriptions of operative employees. Business literature and actual practice have traditionally emphasized these as management functions. Managers plan work and control performance; operative employees do what the managers plan. Thus, you find planning and control responsibilities depicted in managerial job descriptions but not in those of operative workers.

However, many non-managerial (operative) personnel find that they too must engage in work planning and performance control activity, in some cases a substantial amount of the time. Certain professional employees, for example, may not be managers, but they operate with considerable independence and have to engage in extensive planning of their work and control of the progress, quality, and cost of their work. These people are expected to formalize work plans (often involving the writing of their own job descriptions), prepare reports, and self-initiate communication of the results of their efforts; yet such responsibilities are not evident from reading their job descriptions. Even many non-professional operative workers are expected to engage in much preparatory work planning activity and to keep records on progress, quality, or cost. These workers are also expected to periodically report results to management or other employees. But such responsibility is not presented in their job descriptions.

Objective setting is a specific type of planning in which many organizations want their employees to engage. Organizations frequently want operative people, as well as managers, to set various types of work-related goals for themselves on a regular basis. They want employees not only to set short-run cost, quality, and quantity goals, but to also set longer term "improvement-type" and "new venture-type" goals. They want employees to constantly strive for higher productivity by looking for new areas, new directions, or new initiatives to pursue. Though many organizations want such activity (attention to process) from their employees, they fail to make clear in job descriptions that these are required functions.

Most managers expect their employees to keep their eyes and ears open for problems that need solving - problems relative to their own jobs as well as problems elsewhere in the organization. Managers want employees to be sensitive to the existence of problems and to communicate detected problems to appropriate authorities.

Managers invariably desire employees to provide suggestions for innovation or improving productivity. They usually want their employees to monitor the quality of the designs of their jobs and to suggest changes for upgrading job designs and associated job descriptions. But while performance of such functions by employees is extremely desirable, organizations routinely fail to make this activity part of a set of formal responsibilities.

Performance evaluation of other employees is one control-type responsibility in which a number of companies want employees to participate. Broad-based participation in this kind of activity can be extremely worthwhile to the organization by assuring valid assessment of employee contributions. Certainly it is critical for employees doing performance evaluations to execute this responsibility well and to be held accountable for their efforts in this area. But even when employees are expected to do this kind of work on an ongoing basis, the responsibility is often not found in the job description.

System-wide responsibilities

Another area where organizations are typically remiss is in specifying what they want employees to do for the organization as a whole. The typical job description isolates a set of responsibilities pertaining to a limited functional domain without indicating any responsibility beyond these immediate boundaries. But most organizations want their employees to contribute in various ways to the operation of the aggregate system. They expect employees to vault classical task boundaries along a number of dimensions and to relate to others both inside and outside the organization. The omission of these expectations from the job description excessively narrows the employee's arena of activity.

For example, all organizations want their employees (both operative and managerial) to spend some of their time and effort contributing to the general morale of the work force. Exhibiting a positive attitude and helping to build high employee job satisfaction are generally recognized as extremely important activities. Employees who engage in this type of positive behavior are valuable assets; while those who detract from morale are worth less, all other factors being equal.

Organizations also expect their employees to be team builders and team players. They want employees to share essential information with one another, to help one another meet work overload situations, to be emotionally supportive of one another, and to monitor various group process variables. They also want employees to attend to the needs of internal customers and suppliers - to manage job interfaces. Yet, while morale building and a high order of teamwork are extremely valuable to any organization, one does not find "contributing to teamwork" stated as an obligation in most job descriptions - particularly those of operative workers. It is interesting to note, however, that employees are often evaluated on how well they do these things.

Further, organizations frequently expect their employees to help in marketing the organization - to help in answering customer questions and in selling products and services, even though they do not bear primary responsibility for this. Some of the best organizations recognize that every employee is a "salesperson" for the company and that every time an employee speaks about the company outside the "walls" of the organization, he is representing it to the public - in fact, he is engaging in public relations. Companies recognize that word-of-mouth reports from employees to the public have a tremendous impact on company success. Yet seldom do employees find any reference in their job descriptions to their organization's expectations of them relative to this matter.

Decision-making responsibilities

Considerable conflict and inefficiency arise in organizations because of a failure to clarify the authority dimension of job design. This dimension includes the rights to access, command, or use company resources, as well as the functional (specific, limited-in-scope) authority one employee may exercise over another. The job description is often most useful for specifying not only to whom the employee reports but also from whom the employee is not supposed to take orders. Lower level employees are frequently intimidated into action by "higher-ups" who violate the chain of command and directly issue requests or place demands on them. It is common for staff specialists, for example, to give orders to employees over whom they have not been delegated authority. Managers without formal functional authority over others sometimes expect "unquestioned" compliance. The job description would be a powerful tool for reducing the widespread confusion among employees in numerous organizations as to just who has direct authority over them relative to what issues. But, in practice, it is seldom used to this advantage.

Another constant source of conflict is a lack of clarity as to who is supposed to make which decisions. When decisionmaking responsibility is not precisely defined, employees make decisions others should be making, make decisions that are duplicated elsewhere and thus may conflict with what others decide, and neglect making decisions they ought to be making. Defining decision-making responsibility in the job description - and carefully identifying decisions an employee is not allowed to make - helps ensure that decisions are made "where" they should be. In this way, organizations avoid problems caused by the overly aggressive who "grab" decision-making opportunities without a real right to do so; and they avoid having employees "pass the buck."

Self-management obligations

All organizations want their employees to engage in self-management activities, but this is another desire that is frequently kept secret. Organizations want employees to be aware of the variables that affect their performance and to initiate corrective action when needed. While many employees do not have to manage others, they are expected to "manage" themselves.

Most medium-sized and large organizations conduct some sort of periodic formal performance evaluation of their employees. These evaluations usually involve face-to-face, sit-down discussions between manager and subordinate. The manager usually prepares for these discussions; sometimes the subordinate does too. But most organizations would like subordinates to always prepare thoroughly for these reviews, in order to be ready for a constructive and thorough dialogue. When an employee has already evaluated his own performance and thought through possible ways of improving it prior to the sit-down performance interview, much more fruitful discussions are likely to occur. But organizations neglect to state this sort of preparation as a formal duty in job descriptions.

Most organizations would also like their employees - operatives as well as managers - to engage in regular self-developmental activities. They want employees to look to the future, anticipate their own skill and knowledge needs, and initiate action to upgrade their skills and knowledge. They want employees who are prepared to discuss self-development plans with their managers, and who can make intelligent choices about which means of development might be best-suited to their individual situations. They expect employees to be "tuned in" to the continuous need for self-development. They do not want people who wait for periodic formal evaluations to address performance upgrade issues. This self-development expectation, however, is seldom specified.

Many companies expect employees to "keep tabs" on their personal levels of job satisfaction and motivation. They would like employees to alert their managers when they are emotionally "down" and to self-initiate action to reverse detected low levels of motivation and satisfaction. Because "top notch" health is essential for high performance, employers want their workers to maintain good physical and emotional health. This essential form of self-management includes both on- and off-the-job activities. Companies expect workers to invest some of their at-work time each day in stretching and other physical movements needed for good health, and they expect workers to invest time each day in stress relief activity such as work breaks that include informal social interaction. But even though organizations know health maintenance is essential for employees to be top performers, they neglect to specify this as a formal obligation.

Temporary work and unplanned assignments

Job descriptions are notorious for being incomplete. Part of the reason for this is that they invariably fail to recognize the temporary task component of most jobs. Job descriptions usually show routine or repetitive tasks quite well. But many jobs incorporate a sizable set of one-time temporary expectations (either added or deleted assignments) or conditional assignments. Not recognizing these expectations in the job description can dramatically distort the true picture of the job design.

Unexpected assignments will almost always have to be given to the typical employee in today's rapidly changing organization. This type of work should be reflected (necessarily after the fact) in a special section of the job description because it may involve use of a considerable amount of the employee's time during the year. Not recognizing this could hamper the execution of various HRM functions, such as performance evaluation and reward system design.

Adding planned temporary work and unplanned work to the job description each year also makes it a dynamic document. It encourages management to get job descriptions out of the file and to keep them current. It communicates to workers a sense of the fuller range of duties that may be thrust upon them during the year, giving employees a much more accurate picture of what is expected of them. Adding a temporary component section and an unexpected assignment section to job description emphasizes the fact that organizations often expect employees to do non-routine things. Many unplanned duties are individual assignments requiring relatively little sharing of responsibility. But managerial employees often find that group work - committee, project team, or task force obligations - consumes a majority of their time. Certainly assignments to groups should be acknowledged in the job description, but this is frequently not done.

To be avoided

Since the real purpose of a job description is to make clear the design of a job, explicitly stating what is involved in doing a job is often not sufficient. Spelling out what one should not do in a job clarifies the boundaries of a work role and helps ensure that employees perform properly. Organizations do not want employees taking on tasks allocated to others or engaging in actions that will likely conflict with what others are trying to do. Therefore, job descriptions should be written so as to limit the scope of a given employee's involvement in the organization. For example, a janitor's job description might specify that he is not to wax floors in the machine rooms. The reason: the machine operators have already been assigned this responsibility.

Organizations may want to use job descriptions to identify dangerous activities, or tasks that should be avoided or left for a specialist who "visits" the company periodically. Certain secret or confidential types of work that an employee is barred from doing should also be identified in the job description. This section is also useful for identifying unacceptable personal interest pursuits. Employees should know, for example, if it is not proper to engage in such activities as the preparation of personal resumes, the writing of personal letters, or the pursuit of personal business interests on company time. Sadly, such expectations are not communicated in job descriptions.

Conclusions

The purpose of job descriptions is to make clear what the organization wants its employees to do. But the results of the studies cited above indicate that the typical job description is lacking in this respect. Those who hold a more narrow concept of what a job description should be might prefer to leave out some of the items suggested above. Others argue that a number of these items may not be appropriate for inclusion in a job description, citing the fact that some are "process" expectations, while many are generic factors pertinent to all jobs. But since all are important types of expectations with respect to job functions that are frequently not communicated by other means, it seems that the job description is an appropriate place to put them.

The job description holds great potential for guiding the execution of key human resource management functions. It packs particular utility in today's organizational world as a powerful tool for aiding in work redistribution during corporate downsizing and in helping with controlled change. But because they commonly ignore the sons of key worker expectations identified here, job descriptions are often of limited utility for aiding with job redesign efforts, establishing equitable reward systems, selecting the right people for jobs, orienting and training workers, and structuring performance evaluation systems. Beefing up the job description by incorporating the sorts of real-world expectations identified by operatives and managers alike would improve the validity of the job description as a blueprint for the design of work and thus add considerably to its value as a tool for managing the human resource.

For further reading

Grant, Philip C., "Job Descriptions Used in Sixty Eastern Maine Businesses," unpublished study, Spring 1994.

Grant, Philip C., Multiple Use Job Descriptions, Quorum Books, 1989.

Phillip C. Grant is a management consultant and chair of the department of business administration at Husson College in Bangor, Maine.