Say, how many job descriptions can a company like ours actually have?' By far, this is the most frequently asked question I am asked as a remuneration consultant. And whether, on the basis of this - I admit it straight away: completely unknown to me - prefix, I can estimate the number of profiles I will soon end up with.

Of shame, many an HR Adviser cringes when confessing the number of descriptions his administration now has. Not exceptional if that number compares as two state to three employees. Or even more unfavourable than that. After all, many positions in our profession equals rampant bureaucracy and no modern HRM practitioner wants to be associated with that.

But those who want to bet on a low number of job descriptions will at least need to know what explains this abundance. Is it the bureaucracy that cannot be stopped, the culture that acts as an assassin, or does the 'evil' come from a very different, unsuspected side? Indeed, the latter is the case.

Scientist Kim Timmer knows why. She researched why Beuningen municipality employees objected to their job classification. What she found was this.

It was not poor communication or the system that were the source of the discontent, but a gnawing sense of being undervalued. Not as a function, but as a human being. Purely subjective. Timmer explains this by the phenomenon of distributive justice or organizational justice, concepts that come from Equity Theory.

We seek, says that theory, to justify our income by comparing ourselves to relevant others. Therefore, whenever in doubt, and who does not doubt if their job is generically described, they will demand a customised profile describing their own job duties in detail.

So it is not bureaucracy that is the cause of an ever-expanding mass of job descriptions, but our own selves in need of (distributive) justification. Thanks Kim Timmer for this insight!

Knowing this, you also know that we will not achieve perfect distributive justice until everyone has their own job description. Indeed, the more job descriptions, the better! Indeed, your personal profile may be considered a right that no employee should be denied. Without a fully personalised job description, no job happiness!

Or.

Or you can omit such a profile altogether and give your colleague a personal rating using our role model. That works too, of course. And when I hear our customers talk about it, even better!

Also come to the customer day on 16 November at the Verkadefabriek in Den Bosch. Would be nice to meet you there in person. Register via the customer app or request one with a reply to this mail.