Cleaning Bathrooms
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Question: We have a small office setting with a few bathrooms that are used only by employees. Can we require our employees to take turns cleaning the bathrooms, or are we required to hire a cleaning company to clean them?
Answer:
The decision to revise a job description or add job functions is generally at the employer’s discretion. In an at-will employment environment, where no contract otherwise governs the issue, an employer may change an employee’s job duties when the employer has a legitimate business reason for doing so. Job descriptions should be specific enough to describe a job accurately but flexible enough to include other duties as assigned. Employers should make clear to all employees that when the needs of the company or its customers dictate, their jobs may entail whatever needs to be done that is reasonably assigned by a manager or supervisor and is within an employee’s capacity to deliver.
That said, employers must keep potential employee morale and relations issues in mind. For example, an employee may resent an employer that assigns job duties that the employee was not originally hired to perform and that are completely unrelated to their job. Such resentment may lead to decreased productivity and morale. Employers may also lose valuable employees who seek employment elsewhere.
Additionally, employers must provide a safe and sanitary workplace for their employees. There may be numerous safety and health issues associated with cleaning a restroom, such as personal protective equipment provision, harmful bodily fluids/diseases, and dangerous cleaning chemicals. Employers in industries unrelated to cleaning may be unaware of such issues and expose themselves to potential violations.
Thus, while an employer may generally change an employee’s job duties, the employer should carefully consider whether adding unrelated tasks is a best practice, depending on the specifics of the situation. An employer may consider it more prudent to, for example, hire a cleaning company instead of assigning tasks that bear no relation to an employee’s core job duties.
