My company used to allow all employees access to their job descriptions on a lotus notes database. This has now been restricted to HR personnel and myself as the Management Rep. The job description includes a list of duties and responsibilities, required skills and a section that lists what Quality Systems Procedures apply to the position. By restricting access to these job descriptions, am I in danger of being noncompliant to any clauses in 4.1, 4.9 or 4.18? I am not even sure if HR will give an employee a copy of their job description upon request.

It is not necessary for you to give an employee an HR job description.

The point is for you to have a method/system to ensure each employee knows his/her job duties and responsibilities. How is this communicated? It seems rather pitiful to restrict the actual job description but some folks see enemies everywhere.

Often companies have 2 job descriptions. One for HR for hiring with stuff like education preferred or required etc., and another in the area where the employee works. Know that it is not unusual for HR to 'work alone'. Like IS people they take themselves to be mystics and like police they are big into confidentiality (and for good reason).

Want to hear more?

We have recently hired an HR Manager and are starting to write job descriptions for our company. We had not had any documented until now. We are a small steel fabrication shop, (Less than 100 employees).

I am very interested in this topic. Any info or direction would be beneficial to us. I have looked in the forums that I am aware of for information, and have tried to piece together what I have found. There is some info in the Cayman Archives, but it takes awhile to search it out.
Thanks for any help.

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Restricting viewing access to job descriptions is not in "violation" of any of the ISO clauses you mentioned. I feel (and this has been contested)that job descriptions should be controlled documents, and the ability to revise them should be controlled.

Even in a union shop where there has been a history of mistrust between management and union members (where I work), I feel people have the right to see their job descriptions. "Hiding" job descriptions has led to mistrust between management and union workers. A "What are they trying to hide..." mentality has broken out. In this case if your job descriptions are accurate, why should you restrict access. If they are not, then you have bigger problems.

A Blast from the Past - Your comments?

California Labor Code and some other state labor codes require that employees make job descriptions available for the employees. How else can an employer hold an employee accountable for poor or non-performance of duties without the duties having been 1st defined? :bonk:

The "DUH" factor starts kicking in on this one.

I can't think of a good reason to NOT show someone their job description.

Anyone?

I can't think of a good reason to NOT show someone their job description.

Anyone?

Okay, I'll bite.

"I've got a job description for you, but I can't let you see it. If I did, then you would know what your job entailed. Then, you might be able to perform accordingly, and I would have a harder time firing you."

Okay, I'll bite.

"I've got a job description for you, but I can't let you see it. If I did, then you would know what your job entailed. Then, you might be able to perform accordingly, and I would have a harder time firing you."
Catch 22.
Capt. Yossarian

Years ago at Firestone I headed up the manufacturing phase of a new pre-cure facility. It consisted of a 1,000,000 (ev) electron accellerator. The beam of electrons was accelerated and directed to the target rubber goods and in the process (radiation chemistry) pre-cured the rubber goods. Because it was new I was tasked with writing job descriptions for each position including my own. Upon completion I submitted to HR and requested that the final edited versions be made available to me for concurrence and final approval.
HR copped an attitude and I was never permitted to see the very descriptions I penned! :confused:

Years ago at Firestone I headed up the manufacturing phase of a new pre-cure facility. It consisted of a 1,000,000 (ev) electron accellerator. The beam of electrons was accelerated and directed to the target rubber goods and in the process (radiation chemistry) pre-cured the rubber goods. Because it was new I was tasked with writing job descriptions for each position including my own. Upon completion I submitted to HR and requested that the final edited versions be made available to me for concurrence and final approval.
HR copped an attitude and I was never permitted to see the very descriptions I penned! :confused:Kind of defeated the purpose of the normal approval process for documents to be released for use in their final form, didn't it?

When we encounter such roadblocks to efficiency, we often wonder whether the "policy" is real or whether the employee charged with interpreting and implementing the policy received sufficient training to do the job adequately.

I have dozens of anecdotal tales in every occupation where the individual making the "wrong" decision was unable to produce "documentation" for his/her interpretation. The problem is compounded by "fear" on the part of the wrongdoer of being detected as incompetent and so "copping an attitude" is a defense mechanism to distract from the detection process.

Lay this at the door of management without a periodic review of processes and procedures to determine they follow the original plan or if changes ought to be made to the original plan.

Kind of defeated the purpose of the normal approval process for documents to be released for use in their final form, didn't it?

When we encounter such roadblocks to efficiency, we often wonder whether the "policy" is real or whether the employee charged with interpreting and implementing the policy received sufficient training to do the job adequately.

I have dozens of anecdotal tales in every occupation where the individual making the "wrong" decision was unable to produce "documentation" for his/her interpretation. The problem is compounded by "fear" on the part of the wrongdoer of being detected as incompetent and so "copping an attitude" is a defense mechanism to distract from the detection process.

Lay this at the door of management without a periodic review of processes and procedures to determine they follow the original plan or if changes ought to be made to the original plan.

Quite an interesting viewpoint. I always thought it might have had something to do with the proprietary nature of the process and the need to control all documents that referenced it.

This belief came to me as I received a phone call one day from a government investigator asking me questions about what I did on the program and about the process. He particularly zoomed in on the word "accellerator". Don't know why, did not get a chance to ask as the phone call was interupted by Firestone Legal.

They explained that they would take care of it and I could return to me regular duties and to forget the call ever took place.(this was circa 1970's)

Pretty amazing as I have never forgotten it! It kind of reminded me of when I had secret clearance in the US Navy and the FBI visited my Mom and Pop.
I will give credit to Firestone Legal for being aware of the call. They must have been monitoring all calls to the department. :mg: