Is it practical to specify standards and procedures in the body of the job description, or should these be kept separate? Based on her review of the stores, Jennifer concluded that one of the first matters she had to attend to involved developing job descriptions for her store managers.

AsJennifer tells it, her lessons regarding job descrip-tions in her business management and HR management courses wereinsufficient to convince her of the pivotal role job descriptions actually play in the smooth func-tioning of an organization. During herfirst few weeks on the job, Jennifer found herself asking one of her store managers why he was violating what she knew to be recommended company policies and procedures.

Repeatedly, the answers were either Because I didnt know it was myjob or Because I didnt know that wasthe way we were supposed to do it. Jennifer knew that ajob description, along with a set of standards and procedures that specified what wasto be done and how to do it, would go a long way toward alleviating this problem