Why Bother Writing Job Descriptions?

Published May 6, 2008

 

Writing job descriptions for all of the positions in your company may sound like a lot of work, especially when they are not required by any law. But there are plenty of legal reasons why you should have them.

1. Defend against discrimination claims. If an applicant claims that you rejected them because of their gender, race, etc., you can show a court that you rejected them because they did not meet all job qualifications.

You may be lucky enough to have a situation where multiple applicants meet the minimum qualifications for the job. So how do you break the tie? It is perfectly legal to base the decision on unwritten criteria, even a gut feeling. But it's better to base the decision on criteria that's already listed in the job description (which may not have been listed in the job ad).

2. Determine essential functions for Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) purposes. Employees must be able to perform essential job duties, with or without reasonable accommodation, in order to qualify for ADA protection.

3. Classify employees as exempt or non-exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Exempt status is not determined by job title alone; the key is actual job duties.

Having written job descriptions is all well and good — but only if they are accurate. The job description must match the reality of the job, not what management thinks the job entails or the lofty standards management would like it to entail. Requiring a Master's degree when a high school diploma will do may unfairly exclude applicants and lead to discrimination claims. Including a 75-pound lifting requirement when the job only requires lifting 25 won't stop an employee from qualifying for ADA protection. Giving managers the duties of hiring and firing employees on paper, but without giving them actual decision-making power, could qualify them for overtime pay as a non-exempt employee under the FLSA.

The best-written job descriptions include:

Regularly performed job duties. It is more important to list what must be performed and accomplished than how, if there is more than one way to do it. Being too specific on how to accomplish a duty could lead to ADA issues when an employee asks for an accommodation.

Periodic duties. Include frequency and importance. Just because a duty is not performed regularly does not mean it is not essential. For example, you may want your IT personnel to be able to handle a server crashing, even if it doesn't happen very often.

Minimum qualifications for education, experience, etc.

Performance standards (e.g., sales quotas, words per minute).

Working conditions. It is necessary to indicate unusual conditions, such exposure to extreme temperatures or to chemicals.

If you don't want to bother writing job descriptions, AHI has done the work for you. You can find pre-written job descriptions, job ads, interview questions, plus a guide for determining the exemption status for over 200 jobs online.

 

Related Topic(s): Hiring/Job Descriptions