The Reason Your Job Description in No Way Describes Your Job

[shanendoah]

I am about to beat my head against the wall over here. Ya'll get to listen to me vent. Aren't you excited. 


I am working on creating a new position. We wrote up a job description. We searched our existing payroll titles and found a few we thought might be options and then sent it off to our Dean's Office HR department.
Like us, the Dean's Office HR wasn't certain which official payroll title to use, so they sent it up to Campus HR. Campus HR came back with a job title we hadn't considered (but was in the same line that we'd been looking at). However, my Dean's Office HR had some concerns about the authority of the position in certain situations, so we added the phrase "under the direction of the administrator" to one of the sections.

Great. This was prelim, so once I got that back, I officially submitted the job requisition through systems. After a few weeks, I hadn't heard anything so I reached out to find out where we were.

I got a response from Campus HR. The title that I had been told to submit it under, per Campus HR, was Secretary Supervisor. This person reviewing it had the following problems:
Supervisors must supervise at least 1.0 FTE of staff. (This position would be supervising 2 student employees whose FTEs added together comes to .9.)
The duties weren't secretarial enough for the secretary title.

We talked about some other options. One that seemed like it might work also had "supervisor" in the title, so I couldn't use that. Another that might work still had secretary in the title, so that wouldn't work. Once we start going to other titles that might work, we get to a pay scale so low that I KNOW I won't be able to hire someone of the caliber I need to do this job (50% of which includes working directly with my faculty). I expressed this concern, and then went away for three days for my grandfather's funeral.

Checking on it again this week, I ask Campus HR could we make this position an Admin Assistant A (yes, here Admins and Secretaries are 2 different jobs). The response I got back from HR was that typically, and Admin would have MORE delegated authority than this position has. But also, they had an inquiry in to my Dean's Office HR, and so we should wait for that.

This morning, Dean's Office HR contacts me. Per Dean's Office HR, this person still has too much responsibility to be an Admin. Oh, and that even once I removed authority, the duties might be too secretarial/administrative to have Campus HR approve and Administrative Assistant title. 

I've written back to my Dean's Office HR. I have said quite honestly that I am confused. She is telling me the position has too much authority. Campus HR is telling me it doesn't have enough. She is telling me the duties are too secretarial to be anything other than "secretary", Campus HR is telling me they aren't secretarial enough. Oh, and how can a job have too many administrative duties to be an Administrative Assistant?


So now, I have to go in and tweak my job description and try to find a way to make both my Dean's Office HR and Campus HR happy. I'm actually tempted to see if I can move the job title out of the lines we'd been previously looking at and see if I can get it through that way.

But next time you wonder why your job description and your actual job don't match up, know that it's because while the people who hired you knew EXACTLY what they wanted you to do, HR wouldn't actually let them hire for that job.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

My boss said it drives him nuts trying to condense a lab position into 5-6 bullet points.   What he needs/wants can change with the project but he has to be VERY  specific or HR gets pissy.

[Tennesseer]

Office coordinator?

[shanendoah]

Tennesseer - I'm going to try and push us to Program Coordinator and see if that works. The problem is, with the job titles that are basic "office" without "supervisor" in the title pay way too little.

50% of this person's time will be spend directly supporting our faculty. If I pay too little, I am not going to get the caliber of person I need to do the level of work the faculty are expecting. I absolutely cannot hire someone to be a faculty assistant and then have the faculty not be willing to work with them.

[Tennesseer]

Dec 18, 2014 15:01:48 GMT -5 shanendoah said:

Tennesseer - I'm going to try and push us to Program Coordinator and see if that works. The problem is, with the job titles that are basic "office" without "supervisor" in the title pay way too little.

50% of this person's time will be spend directly supporting our faculty. If I pay too little, I am not going to get the caliber of person I need to do the level of work the faculty are expecting. I absolutely cannot hire someone to be a faculty assistant and then have the faculty not be willing to work with them.

A coordinator job title covers a number of sins as does "and other duties as assigned'.

[Deleted]

Ask HR for the official job description for all titles Administrative. Then pick close match.

[marvholly]

Job descriptions are generally a PITA because they are written by the idiot sitting in his carpeted, window office at corp HQ who has NO CLUE what the actual, hands on work requires. Been there. Done (or been subjected to) that.

[shanendoah]

Dec 19, 2014 3:30:45 GMT -5 @taliare said:

Ask HR for the official job description for all titles Administrative. Then pick close match.

This is basically what we did from the start. We have access to all the official job descriptions, went through them and came up with the couple we thought were the best fit, but didn't know for sure, because this is a "mixed use" job. I sent it on to my Dean's Office HR and said- hey, which one do you think is best? They said- we're not certain, let's send it to campus HR and see what they say. Campus HR came back with an answer.

I officially submitted the job with the title that Campus HR came back to us with. And that's when they then back tracked and said "no" because the position didn't meet either the "secretarial" or the "supervisor" definitions, so even though a few weeks ago we told you secretary supervisor, we're now saying no.

[ArchietheDragon]

Dec 19, 2014 6:48:45 GMT -5 marvholly said:

Job descriptions are generally a PITA because they are written by the idiot sitting in his carpeted, window office at corp HQ who has NO CLUE what the actual, hands on work requires. Been there. Done (or been subjected to) that.

When shit hits the fan, though, the first thing the lawyers ask for is the official job description. 

[tskeeter]

Employee  --  works under the direction of XXXX

Done

[Deleted]

Maybe HR1 and HR2 can have lunch and get back to you with what they agreed on?  

[muttleynfelix]

Dec 19, 2014 12:45:35 GMT -5 @workingshasta said:

Maybe HR1 and HR2 can have lunch and get back to you with what they agreed on?  

They didn't get the memo.