Week 4 – Blog Assignment


I haven’t had any experience with job descriptions other than the lack of one. This last summer I was in a situation where my job description was vague, which caused many problems for me at first. Although It was just an internship, the people I worked for, and the work I did would change periodically. My job description was never the same for more than a month. From what I have learned in this week’s material, my situation can be a bad thing, but for me it wasn’t. I enjoyed meeting new people and challenging myself to complete the variety of tasks needed. This worked out in the end since the company offered me a true position for when I graduate college.

The reason I told that story is to show my personal understanding of the challenges that can arise in the absence of a job description. If I wasn’t an intern, and a company continued to broaden my scope of work, I would bring this matter to human resources. This type of matter can lead to an even bigger problems that involve legal action. Flewelling says in the SHRM article that by not keeping up-to-date job descriptions leaves the door open for employment claims against you. It’s important that every company stays on top of updating job descriptions so situations like this won’t happen. This doesn’t have to be a one person job, in fact it shouldn’t. Everyone within a company should play a role in updating the job description for their position in the company. The HR manager will never know more about a job than the person working it. If this is done routinely, it will create a more clear scope of work, and increase employee productivity. A true job description acts as the script in running a successful company.

Tyler, Kathryn. “Job Worth Doing: Update Descriptions.” SHRM, SHRM, 11 Apr. 2018, https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/Pages/0113-job-descriptions.aspx.

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