Code of Good Practice on the Integration of Employment Equity into Human Resource Policies and Practices.

We saw last week that employer’s can no longer get away with not providing the employee with a job description.

Some employers do not provide job descriptions because they mistakenly believe that in the absence of a job description, the employee is obliged to do anything he is told to do.

Not so any longer – to those employers, there is only one message – the gravy train has run out of steam!!

Further, there are many employers out there who employ people even when the employer does not know why he is employing that person, and in fact does not even have a specific vacancy or a specific job for that person to do.

Unbelievable ? Certainly – but quite true.

These employers are those who employ a person, and then tell that person to write his own job description – that tells me clearly that this employer has employed a person in the hope that the employer may be able to find something for the employee to do, whereas in fact the employer does not have a clue what work the employee is to do, and he has not the faintest idea why this newly employed person has been employed .

So he says to the employee: “Look, I don’t know why you have been employed. Please write up a list and tell me what you are going to do around here.”

Those employers will now have to wake up, put up or shut up. Their days are numbered.

The Code states further that the job description must clearly state the essential or inherent requirements of the job, meaning that the minimum requirements that the employee needs to know is clearly communicated to that employee.

This requirement means that job descriptions must be clear, concise, and employers must make certain that the requirements have been clearly communicated to and are understood by the employee. If this is not done, it will greatly impact on the issue of Incapacity – Poor Work Performance.

The requirement specifically mentions that the minimum requirements should not be overstated – in other words, only the minimum that is required to perform the function effectively.

To summarise:

[a] All employers are required to provide a job description to every employee.

[b] Employers may not tell an employee to “write your own job description.”

[c] The job description must clearly state the essential or inherent requirements of the job, namely the minimum requirements that an employee needs in order to be able to function effectively in that job.

[d] The tasks or duties that are stated in the job description must be only those that are essential to be able to perform the job, and should not be overstated.

[e] The job description must be free of jargon and be clearly written.

[f] The competency specification must include only those criteria essential to perform the duties.

[g] Criteria must not disadvantage employees from designated groups.

[h] The job description must not contain criteria that are not relevant to the job. For example, the VERY POPULAR “do anything” clause is now outlawed. The job description may not contain a clause stating “plus any other duties that may be allocated from time to time.”

Such a clause is non-specific, is open to interpretation, and is too general to apply to any job in particular.

It is clear that employers must now embark on what will prove to be a big task – namely to profile all the jobs within the company in order to compile proper job descriptions, formulated in terms of these requirements, to be handed to existing employees and to be available on file for future employees.

A spin off of this exercise is that the job description – or job profile – will greatly assist in helping the employer to define what qualifications and experience, and what further training is required, in seeking suitable candidates for employment.

Next week we will be looking at recruitment and selection in terms of the Code requirements.