Hr Management, Job Description

Optional homework 1

HRM, class 2

Student’s name: Lelde Kļaviņa

Job description

According to Noe et all, (2008, Human Resource Management. Gaining the competitive knowledge, p.159.), job description is one of the most useful information for job analysis, since it includes list of the tasks, duties ad responsibilities.

In the discussion below, I will try to use two of my working experiences (past and current) to answer the question why job analysis is needed as such.

First of all, let me provide you with basic facts of two companies discussed later. One company is Baltic representative of large FMCG producer; at the time I was pursuing career in this company, there were approximately 60 people working in Riga office. Another one is very small advertising agency consisting of 2 people: me and my subordinate. However the agency is part of holding group which includes 9 independent offices that daily cooperate a lot between each other. These two companies will be discussed to see the differences between them, as well as to see the importance of the job descriptions.

The only job description I had was while working in the FMCG Company which globally has defined all the work-flows and operational things. Job descriptions were standardized and put in a written format, not exceeding half of A4 in length. It included almost all the responsibilities, and duties; however it was not very detailed and was not split into more concrete list of tasks. Due to several reasons, it seemed that the job descriptions played the role of unnecessary formality in this company. First of all, sometimes it was given to employee only after he or she left the company, as HR department needed to make all the documentation in order when finalizing employee’s folder. Secondly, as already mentioned it was very much standardized, and did not include many things employee had to do anyway. Thirdly, performance appraisal was not linked to job description specifically,...