Is there a job which is NOT needed?

[Jux]

I mean, does anyone know of an actual existing post in any firm, company, organisation, where the employers' believe that they don't need to pay someone to do that work, but it's just nice to have someone there and to pay them for the privilege? That they could sack that person, not fill the vacancy adn there would be no effect on anything except their payroll is a bit less?

I take minutes. I think they should just record meetings and keep the recordings

Meters and greeters at stores like dunelm/curry’s/some supermarkets come to mind.

Meeters (fat finger syndrome).

Any Equality, Diversity & Inclusion person who spends 90% of their time focusing on just 1 of the protected characteristics?

I work for a local authority and I always think the communications person who produces the internal newsletter every week and a longer one every month could probably be made redundant and no one would notice. I suspect most people like me just delete the emails as soon as they arrive in my inbox.

You mean in the sense of making people redundant so the role no longer exists? Sometimes a whole department is closed down so the company decides to stop doing that particular function, and everyone is made redundant. Or maybe if two departments are merged and therefore some roles are combined (where there used to be two people doing it they can now just have one).

Marketing execs

Gosh there are lots. DH thinks his job is superfluous, but is waiting to get to retirement age (and hoping they might make him redundant at some point).

Definitely the meeters and greeters or people who hand out baskets as you go into Superdrug. Just get on the till and serve people.

Controversial but school governors (not a paid role). I was one for eight years and am not sure what we actually achieved. Leave the teachers to get on with things, they know what they are doing.

People who write click bait articles etc on the web/Facebook etc.

It's probably just an add on to their job though.

Telephone sanitisers.

The layers and layers of managers in the NHS. That’s where the money that should be paying nurses and clinicians is going.
I am an admin worker and above me there are about 6 layers of managers just for admin.
it’s absolutely ridiculous and a huge waste of funds that could be used better elsewhere in the NHS.

Isn’t that park of a cleaners job? Not a specifically separate role?!? (But - yes could be done by the telephone user before/after use!)

People who are external providers of INSETs in an educational setting.

King.

Lol You win! @MyrtleTheTurtleQueen

Daily Mail journalists, especially the junior ones that just lift threads from here

😂🤣
Are you really sure that is a good idea? I can foresee one or two problems…

Re: School governors - at my independent school, they are an important group who hold the headmaster accountable. Plus, when we were successfully inspected they directed/authorised him to pay us all a bonus!
Also at my school there was a post which was deemed unnecessary so a person was hired to do it and another major role. After a year, a new person was promoted to the post which had been conflated. It was, in fact, necessary.

@Twospaniels in complete sincerity, not at all meaning to be snarky, genuinely curious, could you combine the admin of the next level up or down with your work?

I think greeters can be a good thing. They can offer a warm welcome and quick support (directions, etc) freeing other staff to get on with their roles. Also, they give retirees an income.

I think greeters are probably mainly there to spot drunks, shoplifters and large packs of schoolkids (latter because they might not spend much but clog up the store) and alert management...

Hitchhikers? Or am I making that up?

The internal HR woman we had at my last place.

She was employed 16 hours a week - two hours per person employed at the company.

In spite of her ridiculously low workload, she effed up repeatedly. The policies she made weren't bespoke to our company. Most of them had to be thrown out when she left. She firmly resisted doing anything on her own, and we had to get external HR in anyway when anything actually happened!

She quit, and I gladly crossed the expense off the list.

The 2 midwives walking round our maternity hospital ante natal clinic on Monday all day asking pregnant woman if they’d had the flu & covid jabs. Couldn’t we just be asked during our appointment? Surely they could’ve been better used elsewhere.

The people who put the indicators on Audi cars.

Agree with the PP who said the layers of managers in the NHS. Spoke to a famous surgeon who resigned from NHS for this reason. He said the NHS has too much funding (contrary to what we often hear) but it is spent on pen pushers, paper movers and interferers instead of nurses and doctors.