Job Description

Meaning and Concept

- Describing the job in terms of its title, location, duties, responsibilities, working conditions, hazards and relations with other jobs.
- The description of the various responsibilities of each position can usually be found within the "job description" or "job specification" that is typically put together by business owners or managers.

- Job descriptions and specifications usually include

o known duties and responsibilities,
o required levels of education and work experience,
o salary and benefits provided to employees in exchange for their labor, and
o information regarding the work environment.
o also may include helpful details addressing other work-related issues, such as the position's travel obligations, normal work schedule, physical location where duties of position will be carried out, union status, supervisory relationships, bonuses, and any other information directly pertinent to the execution of any and all responsibilities associated with the job.

- Effective job descriptions let employees know what is expected of them: "If people are going to perform their assigned task, then they obviously have to know what it is, how to do it, and how to measure the results. Either someone has to explain it all to them or they have to figure it out themselves.
- Job descriptions are potentially one of the most powerful tools available to help managers improve employee performance and productivity.
- They have great utility for every phase of human resource administration. From designing jobs and reward systems, through staffing and training to performance evaluation and control, the job description is literally indispensible if the human resource is to be managed properly.

Contents of job description

- Job identification: Job title, code, department
- Job summary
- Duties and responsibilities
- Working conditions
- Social Environment: size of work group
- Machines: Tools and equipments
- Relations to other jobs

Uses of job description

- Job grading and classification
- Orientation of new employees
- Developing performance standards
- Employee selection
- Organizational change and development

- It provides business owners and supervisors with a useful tool of performance measurement.

- to provide potential job applicants with a sense of the various obligations and rewards of that position,

- to help businesses develop salary grades, and

- to help maintain a recognizable organizational structure.

- to terminate an employee for poor performance have to make sure that they are doing so because of their dissatisfaction with the targeted employee's work on tasks that are discussed in the job description.