To prove each worker was given their job description, hand it to them in writing, read it through with them, and have them sign and date a line as proof they received it. You keep all those lines on one page, one line per person, and that page is the sign-off record. It works the way signing for a delivery does. With the signature you prove that the description reached the person, not that they understood all of it or do the job well.
If you already have a written description of each job and a list of who holds each one, the record takes one afternoon. If you do not, write the description of each job first, because each person will be signing for theirs.
A job description filed in a drawer is no proof that the person ever saw it. Say the milker skips washing the bulk tank one morning and tells you nobody said that was his job. You take out the description, and the bulk tank is on it. But you have nothing to show he was ever handed it. With no signature and no date, it is your word against his.
Why is a filed job description not proof the person knew?
Because a worker learns what you expect from a job description only once they have it in hand. The farm workforce program at Cornell University, which advises farm employers, says the first step in great leadership is communicating expectations clearly. Job descriptions, it adds, are a tool to help employees understand exactly what they are supposed to be doing at work. A description in your drawer has not reached the worker yet. For one you handed over without a signature, you have nothing to show later.
Richard Stup wrote a guide to job descriptions for Penn State Extension, the farm advisory service of Pennsylvania State University. He writes that the primary objective of a job description is to help employees and supervisors reach a mutual understanding about important details of a job in order to avoid future problems. For two people to understand each other, both need to have read the same page. Reading the description through together is where you reach that understanding. On the signed line you keep the part you can prove later: that the worker got the page, and on what date.
Jeffrey Keown and a co-author wrote a University of Nebraska-Lincoln guide to job descriptions on dairy farms. They write that it is important to let the employee know what is expected before starting employment, so that if any problem arises over work responsibilities the herd owner can quickly refer to the job description. That is the morning of the bulk tank. On that morning, pointing to the description helps you only if the milker signed for it.
Why write the version and the date next to the signature?
Because job descriptions change, and a signature is only useful if you know which version it was for. Stup writes that job descriptions should never be considered final and should be reviewed at least once per year by both employee and supervisor. At each review, a task can be added to a job or taken off it. Say you add the fuel log to the foreman’s job in March. If he signed in January, his signature covers the January description, not the one you now expect him to follow.
So the lines that need your attention are the ones with no signature and the ones signed for an old version. If someone signed version 1 and the description is now at version 3, that old signature is easier to misread than a blank line. With a blank line you at least see that someone still has to sign. With an old signature you think you are covered when you are not. Mark both kinds of line, and get a signature on the current version for each one.
What does a signature have to do with people treating their tasks as their own?
A person who cannot see where their job begins and ends is less likely to treat its tasks as their own. On a farm, that could be the milker who leaves the bulk tank unwashed because he is not sure it is his job.
Mengfen Lan and two colleagues, who studied frontline staff at 13 hotels in China, point out that missing information about what a job expects can discourage employees from taking ownership of their work tasks; that was said of hotel work, not farm work.
Still, a worker who received the description of their job, read it through with you and signed it has at least seen where the job begins and ends.
Telling someone their job only out loud has the same weakness as keeping any farm information only in memory: what you told the worker lives only in your memory and theirs. A signed line is written down, where someone else can check it.
What goes in each column of the sign-off record?
The record has one line per person and five columns. You copy the names and jobs for the first column from your list of who holds each job. What you write in the last column, “up to date or not”, is the first thing to go out of date: after a year of changes, the version a person signed may no longer be the one in use.
| Column | What goes there | If it is blank |
|---|---|---|
| The person and the job | The name of whoever holds the job, and the job | Anyone left out of this column has no line, so nobody asks them to sign; copy every name from your list of who holds each job |
| The version received | Which version of the job description the person was given | You cannot tell whether they signed for the current description or an old one |
| The date received | When the person got the description | You cannot tell whether they got it before or after the last change to the job |
| The signature | The person’s signature, as proof they received that version | You have only your word that you ever gave them the description |
| Up to date or not | Whether the signed version is the one in use today | You may miss that the description changed after the person signed |
Keep the record with the job descriptions and your list of who holds each job, where your manager or foreman can find it when you are away. With the three together, you can see what each job covers, who does it, and whether that person signed for the current version. More on hiring, training and reviewing farm workers is in the people section of this library.
When can you misread the sign-off record?
When you take a signature as proof that the person understood the job, or does it well. With a signature you can show only that the person received the description on a given date. You cannot show they understood every line, or that the work gets done. How well someone does the job is a separate question, one you answer by writing down, before the review period, how you will judge the work. Another question is whether each task leaves a paper record of its own, such as a fuel log or a milking record; that one is covered in whether each job leaves a record.
The record is not a legal document. Whether a signed line counts as evidence in a labor dispute, and what your country’s law requires before a worker counts as informed of their duties, depends on where you farm, so ask your lawyer. With the record, you have your own written proof that you handed the description over. You use it in the everyday disagreement on the farm, long before anything turns into a legal case.
This signature is only for the job description. If your farm also has written conduct rules, the person signs those separately, on a page of their own. And a line with no signature is a gap in your paperwork, not a judgment of the person: the record is about who received which description, not about how good anyone is at the job.
Where to start
You need one afternoon, the written description of each job, your list of who holds each job, and a pen. No software.
Writing the job descriptions is the hard part. Getting them signed takes an afternoon, and it is the part you need on the morning someone says a task was news to them. On that morning, what you need to show is that the person was told. Keeping on paper, not only in your memory, who was told what is one small part of farm management, and one you can finish this week.