Job Descriptions Protect Your Bottom Line in Business and at Work

As you finalize your organization’s strategy for the new year, are your job descriptions current?

Now, I’m with you: writing job descriptions is about as exciting as watching paint dry; and reading job descriptions may well be the cure for insomnia.

However, as government agencies continue to aggressively fund their budgets via noncompliance fines even to the smallest of organizations (e.g., 10 employees or fewer), here are three good reasons to update (or, if you have no job descriptions currently, create) your organization’s job descriptions:

  • Audit by the Department of Labor:  if DOL pays you an unannounced visit and you don’t have current / compliant job descriptions, how will you prove which of your jobs are exempt from overtime and which are nonexempt?  In these tight government budget times, DOL’s fines to employers of all sizes are a key funding stream, not to mention the multi-year back-wage repayment requirements if DOL discovers Wage & Hour violations at your workplace.
  • Worker’s Compensation Injury / Liability:  If your employee sustains an injury at work and there is no job description, how will you prove to your Worker’s Comp carrier that you’ve done your diligence in informing your employees about what safe conduct is in your workplace, by stating what the minimum physical requirements are for each job in your organization? Can you afford a big increase in your Worker’s Comp insurance coverage?
  • Unemployment Insurance and Discrimination Claims:  If you don’t have job descriptions, you have no ability to provide acceptable documentary proof of employee performance issues, because you never set the minimum standards of performance via current and compliant job descriptions.  Can your organization afford an unplanned hike in Unemployment Insurance premiums, or worse:  an unplanned discrimination lawsuit settlement totaling thousands of dollars?

Clearly, ensuring that you have current job descriptions for your organization is bottom-line asset protection, in business and at work.

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