Human Resource management consultant Elena Goran and partner, Byron Wood, were contacted by a public-sector union for assistance on a job evaluation issue they were having with a large employer, also in the public sector.

The employer had initiated a review of all positions and the results were unacceptable to the union. A large consulting firm had managed the project and used their "system" to assess the duties and job levels. The results were chaotic. In some cases, senior positions were downgraded significantly, while others were raised 2 or 3 levels above their current classification.

Many employees were quite upset, and the union was furious.

Elena and Byron reviewed the process involved and met with a group of the employees to review job description documents. As expected, the basic job description documents from the previous consulting firm were very comprehensive. That was, however, the extent of job data input provided. Employees had been given written instructions on how to complete the job description document, but no actual guidance on doing so. This task was new to most. The result was that some employees wrote volumes about their duties, while others, many in senior positions, condensed their role in a page or less. No discussion had taken place to verify the job duties.

The consulting firm had then independently analyzed the documents and made their recommendations. There had been no discussions with the employees to clarify duties, or with supervisors and managers to verify the accuracy of the job descriptions. Consequently, the consultant report recommended many changes that contradicted the existing position structures and organization chart.

In one case, Elena reviewed what appeared to be an extremely senior job, and asked the incumbent, "How many layers of management are above you?" The answer was four. While the author of the job description was quite articulate, the actual levels of responsibility and decision making were relatively junior. One the other hand, as noted above, some quite senior roles had very brief job descriptions.

Elena and Byron met with the union and pointed out a more effective process. While one initial source of job information is the incumbent, input from the supervising manager was needed for both accuracy and verification. Also, once completed, a review discussion on each job analysis questionnaire was needed for clarifications and explorations of relevant details. In addition, where groups of employees shared the same role, focus group discussions could be extremely helpful in achieving better accuracy.

These were standard practices that had not been followed, and the results were not surprising.

Address the three questions below (base your answers on course material AND on your personal experiences and sensibilities about workplaces):

1. In addition to the sources of information the first consultant firm used, what other sources of job data should be accessed?
2. How would consultant interviews with the incumbent and supervisor aid in ensuring the accuracy of relevant job data?
3. What is the impact of incorrect job data being used for decision making?