Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Learning Objectives
• Nature of job analysis
• Identifying how job analysis information is used in other HR activities
• Process of job analysis
• Methods by which job analysis is typically completed
• Assessing he impact of behavioral factors on job analysis
• Distinguishing job descriptions and job specifications
• Job analysis changes as organizations change.
Introduction
India being a labor surplus country, jobs are very important to individuals. Jobs help determine
the standards of living, places of residence, status and even one’s sense of self-worth.
Recruitment: Job analysis is used to find out how and when to hire people for future job
openings. An understanding of the skills needed and the positions that are vacant in future helps
managers to plan and hire people in a systematic way. For e.g. a company for its financial
analysis section may be hiring MBAs. An analysis may show that a graduate with an analytical
bent of mind can also serve the purpose. The prospect can result in savings to the company.
Placement and orientation: After selecting people, we have to place them on jobs best
suited to their interests, activities and aptitude. If we are not sure about what needs to be done on
a job, it is not possible to identify the right person suited for the job. Similarly, effective job
orientation cannot be achieved without a proper understanding of the needs of each job. To teach
a new employee how to handle a job, the job has to be clearly defined.
Training: If there is no proper job analysis it will lead to confusion and proper training
cannot be initiated.
Employee safety: A job analysis will indicate unsafe conditions associated with a job.
Performance appraisal: Only on a proper job analysis being made available will it be
possible to assess or compare individuals. It is necessary to compare what individuals should do
(as per performance standards) with what they have actually done (as per job analysis).
Job design and redesign: Once the jobs are understood properly, it is easy to locate
weak spots and undertake remedial steps. Unnecessary movements, simplifying certain steps and
improving the existing steps through continuous monitoring can be followed through a process
of redesign.
Job evaluation: Job analysis helps in finding the relative worth of a job, based on criteria
such as degree of difficulty, type of work done, skills and knowledge needed, etc. This in turn
helps in designing proper wage policies and rewards.
Collection of job analysis data: The step involves the collection of data on the
characteristics of the job, the required behavior and personal qualifications needed to carry out
the job effectively.
Preparation of job description: This step involves describing the contents of the job in
terms of functions, duties, responsibilities, operations, etc.
Preparation of job specification: The step involves conversion of the job description
statements into a specific job. Job specifications is a written statement of personal attributes in
terms of traits, skills, training, experience needed to carry out the job.
Job performance: The job analyst actually performs the job in question thus giving
him/her a
first hand information of the job in terms of physical effort, hazards, emotional pressures, social
demands and mental requirements.
Critical Incidents Technique: CIT is a qualitative approach to job analysis which is used
to obtain specific descriptions of work. These incidents can be dissimilar. For e.g. a waiter being
rude to a customer can result in the loss of this customer for a lifetime.
Individual Interview Method: Meeting with an employee to determine what his / her
job entails but process is time consuming.
Technical Conference Method: A job analysis technique that involves extensive input
from the employee’s supervisor. The method does not allow having the employee’s perception of
the task. This method is also called Panel of Experts Method.
Diary Method: requires employees to record their daily activities but the process is very
extensive with a number of days observations’ to be taken into account making the process
expensive
1. Information Input: Where and how does the employee get the information s/he uses
in performing her/his job?
Examples:
Use of written materials
Near-visual differentiation
2. Mental processes: What reasoning, decision making, planning and information-
processing activities are involved in performing the job?
Examples:
Levels of reasoning in problem solving
Coding/decoding
3. Physical activities: What physical activities does the employee perform and what tools
or devices does s/he use?
Examples:
Use of keyboard devices
Assembling/disassembling
4. Relationship with other people: What relationship with other people is required in
performing the job?
Examples
Instructing
Contacts with public, customers
5. Job context: In what physical and social context is the work performed?
Examples
High temperature
Interpersonal conflict situations
6. Other job characteristics: What activities, conditions or characteristics other than
those described above are relevant to the job?
Examples
Specified work pace
Amount of job structure.
While carrying out a job analysis, managers must take note of certain strong behavioral
responses from the employees. Employees do not always like someone taking a hard look at their
jobs.
Exaggerate the facts: Employees tend to exaggerate the importance and significance of
their jobs during interviews so that their jobs can result in higher pay levels.
Employee anxieties: Most employees fear that job analysis may put them in a ‘Strait-
Jacket’, curbing their initiative and latitude to perform. Another feeling could be that as long as
someone does not know what I’m doing – I’m safe.
Overemphasis on current efforts: Job analysis efforts should not place heavy emphasis
on what the employees are currently doing. Some employees are gifted with unique capabilities
and given a chance they may expand the scope of the job and assume more responsibilities.
Job Description (JD): A written statement of what the jobholder does, how it is done,
under what conditions it is done and why it is done. It should accurately portray job content,
environment and conditions of employment.
Job Description acts as a resource for describing the job to potential candidates, guiding
newly-hired employees in what they are specifically expected to do and providing a platform for
appraisal.
According to Ernest Dale, the following guidelines should be kept in mind while writing job
descriptions:
Job Specification: The minimum acceptable qualifications that an employee must possess
to perform the job successfully. Based on the information acquired through job analysis, the job
specification identifies the knowledge, skills, education, experience, certification and abilities
needed to do the job effectively.
The personal attributes required for a job specification are:
1. Essential attributes: skills, knowledge and abilities (SKAs) a person must possess
2. Desirable attributes: qualifications a person ought to possess
3. Contra-indicators: are attributes that will become a handicap to successful job
performance.
Role Analysis: Over a period of time, roles to be played by a job holder may undergo a
change. Role analysis provides a satisfactory answer to this problem. A role is a set of
expectations people have about the behavior of a person in position. A position holder may
perform three types of roles in day to day life.
Expected role: For e.g. a faculty member is expected to come on time and teach the subject well.
Perceived role: is how the individual thinks s/he should behave to fulfill the expected role.
Enacted role: is the actual role – the way a person actually behaves in an organization.
Certain techniques that have helped in redefining jobs in this manner are:
Flatter organizations: Most progressive organizations are trimming the excess fat and
also at the same time reducing levels. As the remaining managers are left with more people
reporting to them, the roles of subordinates get larger.
Work teams: Till the other day, jobs were rigid in the functional sense. Workers
performed the same tasks daily. The situation has now changed. Work is organized around teams
and processes rather than around specialized functions.
How will one carry out a job analysis in an organization that never has had job
descriptions?
Group exercise: Draw up a job description for the Head of Department (HOD) of the
Psychology / Sociology / Economics / Accountancy sections and based on your analytical skills
develop a job specification. - Each group to choose one section by a draw of lots to be carried out
by the respective Subject Representative.
Job Design
Learning Objectives
• Job Design and approaches to Job Design
Overview
Job design, which is an outgrowth of job analysis, is a way of organizing tasks, duties and
responsibilities into a productive unit of the work. While designing work, HR managers should
take care of organizational requirements in terms of timely completion, high quality
performance, economic use of resources, etc. At the same time, while trying to realize
organizational objectives, employees’ job related needs must also be taken care of.
The focus must be to ensure technical efficiency without negatively impacting the
workers’ job-related needs in terms of interest, challenge and achievement.
Engineering Approach
The principles offered by scientific management (F. W. Taylor) to job design can be
summarized as follows:
Work should be scientifically studied
Work should be arranged so that workers can be efficient
Employees selected for work should be matched to the demands of the job
Employees should be trained to perform the job
Monetary compensation should be used to reward successful performance of the
job
Any job can be described in terms of five core job dimensions which are:
1. Skill variety: The degree to which the job requires that workers use a variety of different
activities, talents and skills in order to successfully complete the job requirements.
2. Task identity: The degree to which the job allows workers to complete whole tasks from
start to finish, rather than some portions of the job.
3. Task significance: The degree to which the job significantly impacts the lives of others
both within and outside the workplace.
4. Autonomy: The degree to which the job allows workers freedom in planning and
scheduling and the methods used to complete the job.
5. Feedback: The degree to which the job itself provides workers with clear, direct and
understandable knowledge of their performance.
Job Enlargement: expands a job horizontally. It increases job scope; that is, it increases
the number of different operations required in a job and the frequency with which the job cycle is
repeated. By increasing the number of tasks an individual performs, job enlargement increases
the job scope, or job diversity.
Job Rotation: refers to the movement of an employee from one job to another. Jobs
themselves are not actually changed, only the employees are rotated among various jobs.
Job Enrichment: as currently practiced in industry, is a direct outgrowth of Herzberg’s
Two Factor Theory of motivation. It is based on the assumption that in order to motivate
personnel, the job itself must provide opportunities for achievement recognition, responsibility,
advancement and growth.
Find out from your School Teachers or Jr. or Sr. College Faculty (at least 25) what they
believe are the two most important rewards. Sum up their responses and find out whether it is
consistent with Hackman and Oldham’s Job Characteristics Model.
For the past one year, Jaydeep a manager at an engineering company comes home from
work depressed and angry. He just finds that in spite of his best efforts he can’t motivate his
workers to improve their performance. Over the last year, Jaydeep sent each worker for special
training, purchased new equipment and transferred employees who lacked the ability to do their
jobs. Despite those interventions, his department’s performance is a t the same level it was two
years ago. This has Jaydeep worried coz he fears being fired.
Jaydeep thought that a boost in morale would improve performance so he gave each worker a
10% rise. In spite of morale increasing, workers complained even louder than before. Jaydeep
also held a departmental meeting in which he requested everyone to work hard and improve their
performance levels. His department was enthusiastic for a fortnight but productivity level did not
change.
Where has Jaydeep gone wrong and what advice would you offer him to motivate his
employees?
JOB EVALUATION
Learning Objectives
• What is job evaluation?
• Distinguish between job evaluation and performance appraisal
• Process of job evaluation
• Methods of job evaluation
• Limitations of job evaluation
Overview
Job evaluation is a systematic way of determining the value/worth of a job in relation to
other jobs in an organization. It tries to make a systematic comparison between jobs to assess
their relative worth for the purpose of establishing a rational pay structure.
Define Find the relative worth of a job Find the worth of a job holder
Aim Determine wage rates for different jobs Determine incentives and
rewards for superior
performance
Gaining acceptance: Before undertaking job evaluation, top management must explain
the aims and uses of the program to employees and unions
Job evaluation committee: A single person cannot evaluate all the key jobs in an
organization
Jobs to be evaluated: All jobs need not be evaluated as it can lead to high costs and can
become too taxing
Analyzing and preparing job description
Selecting the method of evaluation: The most important method evaluating the jobs
must be identified keeping the job factors and organizational demands in mind
Classifying jobs: The jobs should be arranged in order of importance using criteria such
as skill requirements, experience needed, under what conditions are jobs performed,
responsibilities, etc.
Installing the program: Once the evaluation process is over and a plan of action is
ready, management must explain it to its employees and put it into operation
Reviewing periodically: Traditional clerical jobs of the past have undergone a sea
change due to technological developments - hence a periodic review is a must.
Factor Comparison Method: A most complex method but is consistent. Under this
method, instead of ranking complete jobs, each job is ranked according to a series of factors.
These factors include mental effort, physical effort, skill needed, responsibility, supervisory
responsibility, working conditions and other such factors.
Point method: is currently widely used. Jobs are expressed in terms of key factors.
Points are assigned to each factor after prioritizing each factor in order of importance. The points
are summed up to determine the wage rate for the job