"SO what do you for a living?"

"I don't know. Ask HR." Irish workers better get used to not knowing what they do for a living as job descriptions and specifications gradually become a thing of the past.

Spearheaded by the information technology sector, the traditional personnel and industrial relations approach to management is being slowly subsumed by flexible, rolebased appointments in human resources (HR).

Job descriptions are getting less and less important all the time according to Philip Maguire, who is group HR manager for one of Ireland's largest technology companies, Horizon.

"I can only really speak for what is going on in here, but from our perspective, we are working in a very quick and dynamic sector. Consumers' needs change very quickly and everything else changes accordingly. The official job description is only a snapshot of what an employee is doing, " he said. However, the lessening in importance of job specifications is not just confined to the technology sector. The human resource model brought here from large multi-national companies is taking on a greater level of importance.

"There is an increasing necessity to incorporate flexibility in human resource management (HRM), " according to Kevin O'Leary, who lectures in the subject at the Dublin Institute of Technology. "Job boundaries are antagonistic to the concept of HRM. There is a general ethic of flexibility embedded into HRM now. That was the model brought here by foreign direct-investment companies and is the main model now. Just look at how dependent we are on them. It's the growing pattern, " he said.

The principle difference between the old approach and the new one is that management of a company is seen as more of a nurturer of their employees and not as a controller, and conflict handling is done through partnership rather then reaching temporary truces.

"In 10 years working in technology, I have never heard anyone use the phrase, 'that's not in my job description', " said Maguire. "I would have heard that a lot when I used to work in factories. We always work in partnership with employees to get things done. They get well paid and there is no exploitation, " he said. Even in growth areas that are heavily unionised, such as banking, the range of duties an employee is undertaking has changed dramatically in recent years.

Union representatives are expressing concern over the trend. "Staff in the financial services are being asked to undertake more tasks compared to 10 years ago, " according to Larry Broderick of the Irish Bank Officials Association. "There is still a ranked (employment) structure in banking, and this is an area that IBOA are increasingly looking at as the advances in technology entail greater flexibility of duties and diversity of working patterns, " he said.

However they said it was an area they were closely monitoring from an equality point of view. While they recognise that employees can benefit from more flexible job descriptions, it can leave them vulnerable to "unscrupulous employers on a cost-cutting exercise".

"We are concerned that changes to job structures may lead to far more onerous duties for less pay, " said Broderick.

"While there may be advantages to structural changes with enhanced responsibilities for staff, it is important that these are developmental opportunities and not the exploitation of staff, " he said.

One body who intend to resist the trend is the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.

Their legislation officer, Esther Lynch, said that unclear job descriptions are what many employers are looking for nowadays. "It's completely in their interests to keep job specs as vague as possible. We look for specific and detailed job descriptions." They feel this does not have to come at the cost of a flexible and dynamic workforce as job descriptions can be changed easily when necessary. "The problem employers have is that sometimes a change in job description means you are moving an employee onto what should be a higher salary.

That's something they don't want, " she concluded.