Legal Job Description Requirements

It is important that employers subject to U.S. labor law understand and comply with the five main laws related to job descriptions. For compliance, clarity and inclusion. Well, you`re unlikely to include age-related derogatory comments in your job descriptions, but unintended age signals can sometimes slip through. You want to avoid phrases that emphasize the youth of your employees, such as “young team” or “group of digital natives.” While it`s not obvious, language that focuses on teens can signal age-related attitudes and deter some job seekers. (Conversely, you don`t want to inflate your work, which can lead to a lack of trust, as is the case with the actions of financial analysts.) Besides the legal reasons for job descriptions, there are strong practical reasons for this. For example, job descriptions can be useful communication tools for telling employees exactly what tasks you expect from them. Job descriptions may also refer to the quality or quantity of performance standards, or even the work rules that apply to a particular position. Without such clear communication, employees may not meet your expectations. What is omitted from the job description? Here are some of the key points Kennedy omitted from job descriptions: Once these duties have been identified, the employer and the person with a disability can engage in an interactive dialogue about arrangements that can help the person perform these tasks without causing undue hardship to the employer or creating a direct threat to the person or others. A job description can also be helpful for seeking advice from professionals such as doctors, chiropractors, counselors, or rehabilitation therapists about whether the person can actually do a particular job. Like section 1981 of the CRA 1886, Title VII seeks to prevent discrimination on the basis of race, but expands things a bit. For job descriptions, this means avoiding more than race-based language.

Requiring or suggesting that a candidate has a certain sex, religion, colour, national origin or sexual orientation is also prohibited. If a job requires specific certification, such as a commercial driver`s license, diploma, or job title, indicate this in a job description. If a negative drug test is required before starting or continuing work, this should be stated in the job description. Although a person with a disability is not exempt from performing the essential duties of a job, a written job description should clearly state all duties that the employer considers essential. However, if an employee is unable to perform essential duties with reasonable accommodation on their own, the law does not require the employer to retain the person in that position. An essential task is any task that an employee must perform regularly or that occupies a significant part of the workday. Similarly, for employees you wish to qualify as exempt under the “administrative” exemption, the job description should state that the employee “regularly exercises independent judgment and discretion on important matters” or equivalent words. Again, it would be helpful to describe obligations that involve such independent judgment and discretion, such as “negotiate” or “decide.” A number of federal laws and regulations come into play when you fill out and work with your job descriptions, Kennedy says, including: Since there are different requirements and regulations associated with writing a legal job description, we thought it would be useful to explore this topic a little further for HR professionals who want to be secure and compliant. In addition to job descriptions, interview questions can cause trouble for an employer or interviewer. Make sure you understand the questions you can`t ask in an interview or the preferences you can`t include in a job posting. This may include questions about age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious or political beliefs, disability, or race.

While an employer may choose not to hire a candidate who does not have the primary competencies listed in the job description, they cannot do so if the person does not have the secondary competencies. Because an employer must be able to prove why particular experience is needed to perform the job, a job description can only list the skills a person needs to perform the job. The same applies to training and licensing requirements. An employer should list the minimum qualifications and references required to perform the work.