A few years ago, I read through a job description for an Assistant Professional Organizing position. It seemed too good to be true, assisting clients in organizing, a plethora of training opportunities to grow within the organization, and ultimately a part-time position where I could create my own schedule. I couldn\u2019t have applied quicker. Unfortunately, after a month with the company, it was clear there were several \u2018additional activities\u2019 that were not on the job description and I had little control over my schedule. Not only was there poor communication and unreasonable expectations of their lower-level employees, but the compensation was extremely unjust for the performance that was expected. This left me very frustrated and dissatisfied, resulting in withdrawal behaviors, like being less and less available, and my eventual attrition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From this personal experience, I learned that some activities that are outside of the job description are okay, to an extent. If an organization is expecting their employees to go significantly beyond their job description, there needs to be communication, training, and proper compensation. Otherwise, it will negatively affect job satisfaction and increase their turnover. My experience is a great example of job dissatisfaction through tasks and role demands. I experienced role ambiguity, \u2018when an employee is unclear or uncertain about expectations within a certain role,\u2019 and role overload, \u2018when an individual fulfills multiple roles simultaneously and lacks the resources to perform all of them\u2019 (Swift, 2021). Upon reflection, I noticed how dissatisfaction in one of the four areas also begins to affect other areas. Since I was unsatisfied with roles and pay, I began to view my supervisors in a negative way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When thinking about other challenges with developing and maintaining job descriptions, the HBR article highlighted the importance of \u2018describing the job realistically, ensuring compensation is fair, and demonstrating active support for the employees\u2019 interest\u2019 (2009). I think this is extremely relevant, especially with new hires, because job descriptions set their expectation. Implementing a system for active support could also help to reduce confusion and be used to create more accurate job descriptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Citations-<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tyler, K. (2018, April 11). Job Worth Doing: Update Descriptions. Retrieved from https:\/\/www.shrm.org\/hr-today\/news\/hr-magazine\/Pages\/0113-job-descriptions.aspx<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Swift, Michele. Week 1 Ethics and HRM; Week 2 Lectures Turnover, Job Satisfaction & Managing Employee Engagement and Retention. 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A few years ago, I read through a job description for an Assistant Professional Organizing position. It seemed too good to be true, assisting clients in organizing, a plethora of training opportunities to grow within the organization, and ultimately a part-time position where I could create my own schedule. I couldn\u2019t have applied quicker. Unfortunately,… Continue reading Do Job Descriptions Affect Job Satisfaction?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11745,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/staudtk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/staudtk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/staudtk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/staudtk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11745"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/staudtk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/staudtk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/staudtk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10\/revisions\/14"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/staudtk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/staudtk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/staudtk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}