Maintaining_Job_Descriptions

InAndOut, Inc is a small company that provides warehousing and fulfillments services. Supply and demand along with technology changes has the company moving forward and growing fast. The general manger found his self in a situation where the company has started expanding, and more growth is expected, and the job descriptions for the current employees are outdated, and some don’t have job descriptions at all. However he has to discuss any initiatives or ideas with the owner of the company before he can make any decisions. Knowing this he hires a part-time HR intern to help him. The intern’s duty is to prepare a proposal to present to the owner of the company to justify his ideas of the importance of updating and maintaining the job descriptions, and creating new job descriptions, and the hiring of new employees. Examine the reasons why it is important to update and write new job descriptions. Job descriptions are written statements that describe the: duties, responsibilities, most important contributions and outcomes needed from a position, required qualifications of candidates, and reporting relationship and coworkers of a particular job.It is important to update and write new jobs descriptions, because jobs are the building blocks of an organization. They are explicitly designed and aligned in ways to enhance the production of the organization’s good and services. Jobs are constantly evolving, they are born out of organizational need, grow in scope and responsibility and the needs grow, and sometimes, die when the needs change. Example as with the case Maintaining Job Descriptions the general manager found that the descriptions had not been revised in several years, and some of the employees were working without job descriptions. Every job has its own set of extrinsic and intrinsic rewards. Developing Job Descriptions is an essential part of managing organizations from an HR perspective. Job Descriptions are needed to benchmark your organization's jobs to those in the external labor market. Developing strong Job Descriptions and keeping them up to date is time well spent. Creating your organization's Job Description ahead of time can lead to success down the road. (Doug Sayed founder and principal of Applied HR Strategies, Inc., 1999) Outline a process that will yield a set of thorough, current job descriptions. The jobs descriptions for an organization come directly from the organization's mission and structure. A job description is a basic HR management tool that can help to increase individual and organizational effectiveness. If your job descriptions are out of date, the first task is to conduct a job analysis. Job analysis is a process for systematically collecting information to help you fully understand and describe the duties and responsibilities of a position as well as the knowledge, skills and abilities required to do the job. The types of information collected during job analysis will be specific to each organization. However, typical kinds of information that are gathered are: Summary of duties • Details of most common duties • Supervisory responsibilities • Educational requirements • Special qualification • Experience • Equipment/tools used • Frequency of supervision I. Job Matrix A. Identify and record the job requirements II. Task Dimensions B. Identify a set of task this includes the job’s entire major task and excludes no relevant or trivial task. III Job Description A. Establish the tasks or functions that need to be done B. Group the tasks into meaningful and challenging jobs C. Determine the experience, knowledge, skills and other characteristics that are required D. Determine any special working conditions or physical requirements E. Write or update the job description Recommend a process to be used in the future for periodically reviewing and updating the new job descriptions. All job descriptions should be periodically reviewed and employees should be asked at times if any changes have taken place in there position that would require a re-write of their job descriptions, make note of any added duties, and or stopped duties from the employee. A process that could be use in the future for periodically updating the new job descriptions is, first review the current job description that requires updating. Make reference to any changes; determine what changes have taken place since the job description was originally created. Develop a task list to keep track of changes and times and dates when the changes were made, this list should also include task that are no-longer needed, in order for theses task to be removed from the job description. As the task list is being formed consider what is needed to perform the job in the current state, and compare it too what changes need to be made, whether it more duties, or duties are being removed. Get information from the employee that is actually performing the job, their input could help determine what changes are needed to the job descriptions. Compile all of your notes, and edit the job description. This process should be a well thought out process. Once the job description has been updated, get feedback from the HR manager. Any all changes should be discussed with management, because any changes made can cause changes in salary, benefits, knowledge, skills and abilities to perform the job properly.