Job Description Essays

Job Description Essays Job Description Essay Job Description Essay Job Description Name: Date: The Necessity of Job descriptions. A job description is a broad or general written statement of a particular job. This description bases on the findings of a job analysis carried out for this job. A job description includes the job title, scope, purpose, responsibilities, working conditions, remuneration, and the designation of the person to whom the employee reports. It also includes evaluation criteria, physical location, and qualifications for the position. A job description helps an employee to get the right candidates for a job, provide a guideline for compensation and serves as a basis for outlining performance expectation, job evaluation, and career advancement. It helps an employee identify his/her scope of work and know to whom he/she reports. It also ensures legal compliance to labor laws. There are two types of job descriptions. These are specific and general job description. A specific job description gives elaborate information about a job. Details in a specific job description include skills and abilities of the employee, detailed scope of work, detailed job definition and employee responsibilities. It tells both the employee and employee how different the particular job is from other positions. For example if a company has several secretaries, a specific job description will outline the duties of each secretary. This will show the difference in their scope of work. A general job description gives basic information on a position. It informs on the type of job and outlines the responsibilities of the position. Lack of a job description can have some on both the employer and to the employees. To begin with, there would lack a sense of organization. Due to lack of a job description for each employee, no one will know his or her role in the organization. There would therefore be confusion and there would be no achievement. Secondly, there would occur poor results as wok will be done but not necessarily the by the qualified professional. Thirdly, there would lack a proper hierarchical structure in line with functions. The flow of information would suffer as a result. This will lead to poor or no reaction to existing work demands which will ultimately lead to poor quality of work or no work at all. There would also lack clarity on issues like remunerations and working conditions. This may lead to over or underpayment for less or more responsibility respectively. Reference: . Nkomo, S. M., Fottler, M. D., McAfee, R. B. (2011). Human resource management applications. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning. Prien, Erich P., Goodstein, Leonard D., Goodstein, Jeanette, Gamble, Louis G., Jr. (2009). A Practical Guide to Job Analysis: Epub Edition. John Wiley Sons Inc. Revising of a job description. Secretaries are an essential part of an organization. Traditionally in most organizations, a secretary is a person whose responsibility is to keep records, make appointments and assists with correspondence in their offices. This has limited the scope of work of secretaries to records and phone calls. Secretaries can be of more benefit to companies if their scope of work broadened. Limiting their scope of work between records and phone calls deprives them the opportunity to contribute ideas in technical areas other than the traditional administrative areas. They also report to bosses who are engineers or doctors, or sales people. While other professionals have heads with titles such as chief engineer, senior doctor, or even senior magistrate, secretaries do not have such heads. Some of the improvements that would be beneficial to this job include widening the scope of work of secretaries and creating a central management system for them. This would require the formation of an independent department for secretaries in as much as they work with various people. This department will give a channel through which secretaries’ issues get address. It will increase professionalism. Bosses will not shout down secretaries as it traditionally happens rather will have a formal channel of dealing with their grievances. A department for secretaries will also enable the organization to manage recruitment and training. It will reduce the costs involved in recruitment and training as this department will organize for a general recruitment for secretaries other than recruiting when one quits and train many at a go. Traditionally the job description of secretaries oscillates between records and the phone. This has lowered the qualifications for this position. Most secretaries get jobs based on having knowledge on computer operations and ability to communicate in a particular language. Increasing the general requirements for entry to professional secretarial papers will encourage the need to acquire this accreditation. This will in turn increase professionalism and ensure maximum delivery based on an increased scope of work derived from training. Having attained this qualification, secretaries will attain a wage corresponding to this profession. They will also not suffer the burdened of workload, as the scope of their job would be determined. In addition to these, their scope of work widens from the traditional roles to new roles including bookkeeping, managing budgets, maintaining company websites and making travel arrangements. References Storey, J. (2007). Human resource management: A critical text. London: Thomson. Shaw, D. G. (1995). Performance measurement, management, and appraisal sourcebook. Amherst, Mass: Human Resource Development Press. Mathis, R. L., Jackson, J. H. (2010). Human resource management. Mason Impacts of job description revision on decision-making About recruitment, the human resources department is able to have a clear definition of what the organization needs. This enables them to hire the most qualified candidate who will ensure high returns. The human resource department will also find it less costly to train such individuals, as they will have quite some knowledge on the job. Job evaluation enables the company to link job requirements and pay for the job. This ensures that the company spends an amount that is equal to the responsibility hence the output. It also enables the employers to determine the jobs that need lees or more workers that are skilled and thus enabling it to hire the corresponding amount of labor to work available. Through this process, as well the company is able to plan its labor force. In case of salary and wage grievances, job description evaluation can be a handy tool for settling this type of grievances. It also eliminates salary inequalities by categorizing jobs with almost similar responsibilities under the same salary range. It thus serves to equate the wage structure. With job description evaluation, the relative and actual worthy of jobs is determined. In this, jobs are classified using criteria like education, levels of experience, amount of responsibility, hazards involved and priced accordingly. This serves to eliminate unfair payment on the part of employees and reduce salary and wage disputes. Sample job description for a lecturer JOB TITLE: Lecturer of Business management FACULTY: Arts and Social Sciences SCHOOL: School of Business Studies DEPARTMENT: Business Management SOURCES: Faculty of Salary Analysis JOB ANALYST: Salaries and Remuneration committee of Irving University Job Description Lecturer of Business management works under the supervision of the head of Department of Business management and the Dean of Faculty school of Business Studies: He is responsible for teaching, assessment, monitoring, evaluation, and research within the school. Purpose: To contribute to teaching activities in the field of Business Management and engage actively in research and income generating activities with a focus on business management. Job Duties and responsibilities Be responsible for organization, preparation, and delivery of teaching, learning in both Higher Education and Further Education. Prepare, implement, monitor, and evaluate test material for assessing student progress. Plan assessment dates, organize assessment material, issue assessment, subsequently view, and review student performance. To contribute to wider student experience through involving them in employability ventures and personal tutoring. To monitor on own teaching practice, reviewing content from time to time, and continually update on delivery content Plan departmental courses together with other faculty Lecturers. Organize field trips fro students as a mean of external learning. Publish in professional and academic journals. To participate actively in research through working on both internally and externally funded projects, contributing to group researches and assisting in bid writing for seeking external funding. To demonstrate good teaching practices using current i nformation, current methods of assessment and appropriate pedagogy. To develop both national and international partnerships both learned friends and professional associations To undertake professional development in relevant area of teaching and research. To work harmoniously with fellow professionals of the faculty and the university at large. Give feed back to educational boards concerning arising students’ needs. Requirements: Proven organization skills including time and material management. Proven three-year lecturing and research experience in the same field. Proven proposal-writing skills with at least four funded projects. A minimum of a master’s degree from an accredited institution. Analytical and interpreting skills leadership and motivational ability Good oral and written communication skills References Mathis, R. L., Jackson, J. H. (2010). Human resource management. Mason, OH: Thomson/South-western. , OH: Thomson/South-western. Compton, R. L., Morrissey, W. J., Nankervis, A. R. (2009). Effective recruitment selection practices. North Ryde, N.S.W: CCH Australia. Mader-Clark, M. (2013). The job description handbook. Berkeley, CA: Nolo Conclusion Job description is an important practice to both employers and employees. To employers matters that affect the performance of their business reflects from their recruitment that depends immensely on the effective job analysis. Without these, an employer is set to suffer the fate of less and poor production, high expenditure on maintenances, compensation of customers and correctional processes. The Employee as well needs to know their job description in order to avoid exploitation by employers. Knowing ones job description and scope of work increases efficiency, reduces confusion, enhances work related communication, and subsequently fosters a vibrant working environment. It is mandatory for employers to develop elaborate job description for their positions that appraisals can reflect true productivity of workers. Equally, it is mandatory for employees to meet changing job description by furthering their knowledge in the fields of interest and practicing flexibility.