“Other Duties as Assigned”: How Far Can Those Four Words Really Go?

You’ve probably seen them near the bottom of a job posting or job description:

“…and other duties as assigned.”

Four little words. Harmless enough.

Until one day your manager asks you to organize the holiday party. Find a restaurant for 40 people. Coordinate an office move. Take over a project that seems to have very little to do with the job you were originally hired to do.

And suddenly, those four words start carrying a lot more weight.

So, how far can “other duties as assigned” actually go?

Does this clause give an employer carte blanche to assign virtually any task?

And on the flip side, can an employee simply say, “That’s not in my job description” and refuse?

As is often the case with employment law, the answer falls somewhere in between.

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A job description isn’t an exhaustive list of everything you’ll ever do

Let’s start by clearing up a common misconception.

A job description generally isn’t meant to document every single task an employee might perform over the course of their employment.

Businesses evolve. Teams change. People go on vacation. New projects come up. Priorities shift. Roles naturally evolve along with them.

That’s one reason phrases such as “other duties as assigned” appear so frequently in job descriptions.

Some organizations even specifically recommend against trying to list every possible responsibility in a job description, using broader language to preserve reasonable flexibility.

So yes, employers do have some room to adjust responsibilities as business needs change.

But there’s an important distinction:

Flexibility does not mean unlimited authority.

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“Other duties as assigned” doesn’t mean “anything we ask you to do”

In Quebec, the Civil Code establishes some of the fundamental obligations associated with an employment contract.

Section 2087 provides, among other things, that an employer must allow the performance of the “work agreed upon,” pay the agreed remuneration, and take appropriate measures to protect the employee’s health, safety and dignity.

That concept of agreed-upon work matters.

An employer obviously has managerial authority and may ask an employee to perform tasks that aren’t spelled out word for word in a job description.

But adding “other duties as assigned” to the bottom of an employment agreement doesn’t erase the fundamental nature of the position.

Imagine an accountant who is occasionally asked to help prepare documents for an important client meeting.

Probably not very controversial.

Now imagine that same accountant gradually being expected to spend half of every week making cold sales calls.

Same four words in the employment agreement.

Very different situation.

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So what exactly qualifies as an “other duty”?

This is where things become less mathematical.

There’s no universal rule that says:

"A task stops being reasonably related to your job once it takes up 12.7% of your workweek."

That would certainly make things easier.

But workplaces rarely operate like spreadsheets.

Instead, context matters.

You might need to consider the nature of the position, the responsibilities normally associated with it, how often the new task is being performed, how significant it is, whether the change is temporary or permanent, the employee’s level of responsibility and the employment conditions that were originally agreed upon.

The Government of Canada provides useful guidance when discussing significant changes in work duties.

It notes that employees are generally entitled to expect employers to respect the terms of their employment contract or collective agreement rather than unilaterally making significant changes to their original duties without appropriate consultation or compensation.

Factors that may be relevant include:

• the extent of the changes;
• how long they are expected to last;
• whether they were imposed or accepted;
• whether they are reasonable;
• their impact on compensation; and
• how significantly they alter the nature of the work.

In other words:

The context surrounding those four words matters much more than the four words themselves.

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A few examples make the distinction easier

Consider someone working in Human Resources.

They’re occasionally asked to help organize an employee event.

That could quite reasonably fall within the broader scope of an HR role.

Then they’re asked to coordinate registrations, communicate with attendees and follow up with a few vendors.

Again, probably not particularly surprising.

Now imagine that same HR professional being assigned responsibility for maintaining the company’s production equipment every week.

The connection becomes considerably harder to see.

Or take a Marketing Director.

Asking them to prepare a presentation for an important client meeting? Makes sense.

Asking them to occasionally lend a hand at a company event? Probably reasonable too.

Permanently transferring responsibilities normally handled by the Director of Operations without revisiting their role, compensation or working conditions?

Now we’re having a different conversation.

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Can you refuse an “other duty”?

This is probably the question employees care about most.

And the short answer is:

Not simply because the task doesn’t appear word for word in your job description.

Government of Canada guidance indicates that additional or modified responsibilities that are not excessive don’t necessarily justify leaving a job simply because the employee finds the new duties difficult, unpleasant or undesirable.

It also recognizes that an employer may have greater flexibility when the duties of a less specialized position haven’t been explicitly defined in an employment contract or collective agreement.

So:

“It’s not in my job description” isn’t automatically a veto.

But the reverse is also true.

“Other duties as assigned” isn’t automatically unlimited managerial authority.

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When does it go too far?

The bigger issue usually arises when we’re no longer talking about an occasional or complementary task, but about a significant transformation of the employee’s role.

Government of Canada guidance recognizes that circumstances such as an unreasonable increase in duties or responsibilities, a substantial reduction in responsibilities, unreasonable demands, or the assignment of unnecessary and degrading work may become significant enough, depending on the circumstances, to raise questions of constructive dismissal.

The concept of constructive dismissal also exists in Quebec when an employer unilaterally and substantially changes an essential condition of employment.

There’s an important caveat here:

Being assigned a task you don’t like is not the same thing as being constructively dismissed.

The threshold is considerably higher, and individual circumstances matter.

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What if the task is unsafe?

That’s a different category altogether.

Quebec occupational health and safety legislation provides workers with a right to refuse work when they have reasonable grounds to believe performing it would expose them, or another person, to a danger to their health, safety, or physical or psychological integrity.

That right comes with specific conditions and procedures.

In other words, simply declaring something “unsafe” doesn’t automatically make it a valid refusal.

But it illustrates why serious situations should be addressed through the applicable workplace rules and legal protections rather than relying solely on:

“That’s not one of my duties.”

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What about the United States?

The phrase “other duties as assigned” is extremely common in American job descriptions.

But it isn’t a magic sentence there either.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has addressed the expression in the context of determining the essential functions of a job.

Its position is particularly interesting.

An employer may use “other duties as assigned” to indicate that a position’s responsibilities could change over time. However, any new responsibility must still be evaluated to determine whether it is actually an essential or marginal function of the job.

Simply putting the phrase in a job description doesn’t automatically turn every future assignment into an essential job function.

The EEOC identifies several factors that can help determine whether a function is truly essential, including how much time is spent performing it, why the position exists, the level of specialization required, how many employees are available to perform the function and the consequences of not performing it.

Of course, employment law in the United States can vary considerably depending on the state, employment agreement, collective bargaining arrangements and circumstances.

But the broader takeaway is still useful:

Even “other duties as assigned” has limits.

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Employers: Four words aren’t a substitute for a good job description

There’s also a lesson here for employers.

A job description so vague that it could describe virtually any position in the company isn’t necessarily very useful.

The EEOC notes that a written job description can serve as evidence of which functions an employer considers essential, although it isn’t the only evidence that matters. What employees actually do in the role can also be relevant.

Some U.S. organizations go even further in their HR guidance.

Case Western Reserve University, for example, generally treats “perform other duties as assigned” as a non-essential or occasional responsibility rather than one of the position’s core functions.

The logic is pretty straightforward:

If a responsibility is important enough to define the job, why not simply put it in the job description?

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What if “other duties” become most of your job?

That may ultimately be one of the simplest ways to think about the issue.

Occasionally helping your team with something outside your normal routine is one thing.

Gradually accumulating responsibilities until your job looks fundamentally different from the one you accepted is another.

And between those two extremes is a very large grey area where communication is often the best place to start.

Government of Canada guidance also points toward reasonable steps such as discussing significant changes with the employer, speaking with a union where applicable, and using remedies available under a collective agreement or employment standards legislation.

Before pulling out the employment contract and pointing dramatically at those four words, a conversation may solve more than you think.

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So, does “other” really mean anything?

Not quite.

The “other duties as assigned” clause gives employers some flexibility. It acknowledges an obvious workplace reality: no job can be documented down to every last task, and organizations’ needs change.

But it doesn’t automatically turn an employment agreement into:

“You’ll do whatever we ask, no matter what.”

At the same time, employees generally can’t refuse every responsibility that doesn’t appear explicitly in their job description.

The more useful question is:

Is the requested task still reasonably consistent with the role and employment conditions that were agreed upon, or has the employer substantially changed the job itself?

As is often the case in HR, the answer depends less on four little words...

and much more on the context surrounding them.

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References

Civil Code of Québec — Section 2087 — Employer obligations and the concept of agreed-upon work.

Government of Canada — Significant changes in work duties — Guidance regarding significant changes to duties, responsibilities and working conditions.

Government of Canada — Working conditions and significant unilateral changes — Guidance concerning significant unilateral changes and unreasonable additions to an employee’s responsibilities.

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — Essential functions and “other duties as assigned” — U.S. guidance specifically addressing the phrase and the distinction between essential and marginal job functions.

Case Western Reserve University — Writing a Job Description — Example of U.S. HR guidance distinguishing essential duties from occasional responsibilities.

This article provides general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Rights and obligations may vary depending on the employment agreement, collective agreement, jurisdiction and circumstances of each situation.