HR's Job Descriptions - Should Employees be able to see them?

[Wes Bucey]

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!

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.

 

[Jim Howe]

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: