Job Descriptions That Reduce Organizational Risk
Job descriptions are at the foundation of many HR processes and decisions. They establish the minimum qualifications for entry into a job, document responsibilities and physical requirements, and provide information on reporting relationships. Job descriptions are used to create ads for open jobs, evaluate job levels, determine FLSA status and a competitive level of compensation, and identify career ladders.
Inaccurate or out-of-date job descriptions can increase organizational risks in a number of areas:
Legal Risk
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Incorrectly categorizing a job as Exempt rather than Nonexempt
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Increased exposure to a claim of discrimination or a failure to provide reasonable accommodations
Turnover Risk
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Increased turnover due to a misalignment between job responsibilities in the job description and actual responsibilities (resulting in compensation gaps)
Reputational Risk
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Employees and candidates viewing the organization negatively due to grossly out-of-date job descriptions
Clear, accurate and up-to-date job descriptions effectively support HR processes and reduce organizational risk.
Best practice job descriptions typically include the sections identified below. Including this information can ensure your job descriptions are effective.
ACCURATE JOB TITLE
Strong titles are descriptive, gender free and simple. The title describes the nature and level of work performed so that it depicts the function (administrative, lending, accounting, etc.) and the level (assistant, specialist, coordinator, analyst, etc.).
REPORTING RELATIONSHIPS
Including the title of the supervisor of the job and the titles of any jobs that the job supervises ensures the reader understands the organizational hierarchy.
JOB SUMMARY
The job summary explains, in clear and simple language, why the job exists. Ideally, the job summary is brief: two to four sentences in length.
ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS
This section is arguably one of the most important sections of a job description. It provides a description of the essential functions that incumbents are responsible for performing.
It is the foundation for:
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Developing interview questions
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Determining required knowledge and skills
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Selecting the strongest candidate
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Establishing performance goals
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Creating individual development plans
Strong essential function statements are succinctly written and include enough detail so that someone not familiar with the job can understand what the job does. Effective essential function statements generally start with an action verb that describes what the incumbent does. The vast majority of jobs can be summarized into ten or fewer essential functions.
Language that doesn’t describe the essential function and level of work should not be included. For instance, it is assumed that all tasks are done in a timely manner and with a high level of accuracy. Therefore, the need for accuracy and timely work does not need to be stated in the job description.
A best practice is to only include essential functions that account for at least 5% of the incumbent’s time. Anything less than 5% can typically be covered under a disclaimer statement at the end such as “Other duties as assigned to meet the needs of the organization.” This disclaimer statement addresses the issue of employees asking that every individual task be placed in the job description and allows flexibility for management. There is no need to include a percentage of time to this disclaimer statement.
