He also used it as a carrot/stick – if you took excessive breaks, suddenly your “other duties” included sweeping up all workstations, not just your own. But mostly, he used it to make sure his department’s responsibilities were fulfilled. BTW – he was a decent manager, and rewarded his group appropriately. He took credit for what his group did, but let everyone in and outside of his group know that it was a group accomplishment.

You’re right that the need for such protections means that there’s something fundamentally wrong in a company. Unfortunately, there’s something fundamentally wrong in most companies: a basic, structural imbalance of power. We need job descriptions for the same reason we need unions, or defense attorneys when we’re accused of crime: there’s an adversarial relationship built into wage employment in most cases. Until the various forms of state intervention are eliminated that reduce the bargaining power of labor and put employers in the dominant position, we need all the means of self-defense we can get.

Typically we find that an employee accepts a position with a company based upon the understanding that they will be doing x,y and z. If upon commencement of employment the bad manager starts pulling the ole switcheroo ‘we’d like to you do a,b,c and some x’ to ‘grow you into the position’ and ‘prove to us you can do the job’, I have you to tell you the job description becomes an excellent tool for HR to start action against a manager when the employee complains (usually upon exit).

The value inherient in JD’s becomes apparent when they are viewed as a type of contract between the employee and the employer.

Thanks – it’s been useful and interesting reading the other comments.

And thanks for the compliment – I’m really glad you like the blog.

15 months ago, New management was brought in from larger organizations and all old managers reassigned to non-management positions.

First task: Write job descriptions for everyone. New management and new managers did (do) not know how to manage people, only how to manage faceless resources in fixed positions.

Job descriptions are also thought to be an enabler for outsourcing as a specific position is much easier to fill by a consulting firm or external resource than replacing a person with unique skills.

Thanks for a great blog!