A job description that no longer matches the job is not a paperwork problem; it is a quiet liability document. This is the Paper-to-Work Test: nine gaps between what the paper says and what the person actually does, each routed to its consequence.
This tool provides general risk-awareness scoring. It is not legal advice; classification questions and accommodation decisions flagged here need individualized review before action.
Job descriptions get used at exactly the wrong moments to be wrong: in an ADA interactive process (what are the essential functions?), in a classification dispute (what does this person actually do?), in a termination (what standard did they fail?), and in hiring (what are we actually recruiting for?). Drift is invisible until one of those moments, and then it testifies against you.
Duties, essential functions, physical demands, schedule, authority, tools, performance standards, exemption support, and accommodation-readiness. Each gap routes to a different consequence: exemption doubt routes to classification review, physical-demand mismatch routes to ADA and workers' comp readiness, authority mismatch routes to role design.
Paper matches work; paper is behind the work; paper protects the wrong job; paper may create operational or legal risk. The tiers describe what the document would do for you, or to you, if it were exhibit A tomorrow.
Annually is the standard answer; the better answer is at every trigger event: role change, reorganization, new supervisor, classification review, or the first sign of an accommodation or performance issue. The review takes thirty minutes; the drift costs more.
Both, with the incumbent's input. Manager-only descriptions describe the job as imagined; incumbent-only descriptions describe it as preferred. The useful document is the negotiated truth, and the negotiation itself often surfaces the authority and standards mismatches this tool scores.
Yes. If everything is essential, nothing is, and the document is useless in an ADA analysis, which is precisely where essential functions matter most. Essential functions are the reasons the job exists, not the full task list.
Description first, because it defines what you are pricing; then classification, because duties determine exemption; then pay, because now you know what the market rate is for the actual job. Fixing pay against the wrong job description just prices the fiction.
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