A job description is beneficial for every employee in a company. It is essential for establishing what the job is, the purpose, tasks assigned to the job, and the type of conditions that an employee may face at the job. It would be very challenging for an employee to understand their role’s expectations without a written explanation. In the article “Job Worth Doing: Update Descriptions,” an HR generalist suggests that job descriptions are highly important in multiple functions of human resources and they should at least be updated annually (Taylor, 2013). Without a job description, an employer may find it difficult to perform reviews, hire replacements, and understand training needs. However, updating job descriptions doesn’t seem to occur that often in my experience.
Throughout my employment experience, I have only ever had a job description change once while I was in the position. At the time of the job description update, the hospital had just made a leadership shift and our department was undergoing a restructuring. It was determined after a job analysis, that our staff needed to be separated by years of service and competencies. The outcome required each staff member to complete a performance review and an analysis of KSAO’s to be placed into a I, II, or III tier. The job design was then shifted based on the tier in an efficiency approach that turned higher tiers into specializations.
Ultimately, the updated job descriptions added to how the department operated in efficiency and training staff. A lead in recruitment outsourcing explained that maintaining job descriptions means to anticipate possible updates and open communication between employees and supervisors to help understand how and why job functions change (Taylor, 2013) Maintaining the job descriptions whenever there was a significant change in the department or a performance review showed that employees were doing additional tasks, allowed staff to see how the next tier was within reach and how to achieve it.
Tyler,K. (2013) Job worth doing: Update descriptions. https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/hr-magazine/job-worth-update-descriptions
