Job

Analysis
LECTURE 5

SABNAM BASU
Job Analysis
• In order to achieve effective HRP, the duties involved
and the skills required for performing all the jobs in an
organization have to be taken care of. This knowledge is
gained through the analysis of work, popularly called
job analysis.
• Job analysis is the procedure for determining the duties
and skill requirements of a job and the kind of person
who should be hired for it.
• Job analysis produces information for writing job
descriptions and job (or “person”) specifications
• Job description: A list of a job’s duties, responsibilities,
reporting relationships, working conditions, and
supervisory responsibilities
• Job specifications: A list of a job’s ―human
requirements, that is, the requisite education, skills,
personality, and so on
Types of Information Collected
• Work activities. Information about the job’s actual work activities, such as cleaning,
selling, teaching, or painting. This list may also include how, why, and when the worker
performs each activity.
• Human behaviors. Information about human behaviors the job requires, like sensing,
communicating, lifting weights, or walking long distances. Information such as knowledge or
skills (education, training, work experience) and required personal attributes (aptitudes,
personality, interests).
• Machines, tools, equipment, and work aids. Information regarding tools used, materials
processed, knowledge dealt with or applied (such as finance or law), and services rendered (such
as counseling or repairing).
• Performance standards. Information about the job’s performance standards (in terms of
quantity or quality levels for each job duty, for instance).
• Job context. Information about such matters as physical working conditions, work schedule,
incentives, and, for instance, the number of people with whom the employee would normally
interact.
Uses of Job Analysis
• Recruitment And Selection: Information about what
duties the job entails and what human characteristics are
required to perform these duties helps managers decide
what sort of people to recruit and hire.
• EEO Compliance: Job analysis is crucial for validating all
major human resources practices. For example, not
discriminating against employees and job applicants based
on protected factors.
• Performance Appraisal: A performance appraisal
compares each employee’s actual performance with his or
her duties and performance standards. Managers use job
analysis to learn what these duties and standards are.
• Compensation: Compensation (such as salary and bonus)
usually depends on the job’s required skill and education
level, safety hazards, degree of responsibility, and so on—all
factors you assess through job analysis.
• Training: The job description lists the job’s specific duties
and requisite skills—thus pinpointing what training the job
requires.
 Conducting a Job Analysis
• Decide how you’ll collect & use the
information.
• Review relevant background information.
• Organization chart: A chart that shows
the organization wide distribution of
work, with titles of each position and
interconnecting lines that show who
reports to and communicates to whom
• Process Chart: A work flow chart that
shows the flow of inputs to and outputs
from a particular job
 Workflow Analysis
• Reviewing the organization chart, process chart, and job description helps the manager
identify what a job’s duties and demands are now.
• However, it does not answer questions like “Does how this job relates to other jobs?” or “Should
this job even exist?”
• Workflow analysis is a detailed study of the flow of work from job to job in one identifiable
work process.
• In turn, this analysis may lead to changing or “reengineering” the job.
Job Redesign
➢Previously economists claimed that specialized jobs were more efficient (as in, “practice makes
perfect”).
➢However, Specialized jobs can backfire, for instance by sapping morale.
➢Experts typically suggest three ways to redesign specialized jobs to make them more
challenging.
➢Job enlargement means assigning workers additional same-level activities. Thus, the worker
who previously only bolted the seat to the legs might attach the back too.
➢Job rotation means systematically moving workers from one job to another.
➢Psychologist Frederick Herzberg argued that the best way to motivate workers is through what
he called job enrichment
➢Redesigning jobs in a way that increases the opportunities for the worker to experience feelings
of responsibility, achievement, growth, and recognition—and therefore more motivation.
➢Herzberg said empowered employees would do their jobs well because they wanted to, and
quality and productivity would rise
Methods for Collecting Job Analysis
Information
• Many methods available, so the basic rule
is to use those that best fit your purpose.
• Thus an interview might be best for
creating a list of job duties. The more
quantitative “position analysis
questionnaire” method may be best for
quantifying each job’s worth for pay
purposes.
• The different methods are:
• The interview
• Questionnaires
• Observation
• Participant Diary/Logs
• Quantitative Job Analysis techniques
• Electronic Job Analysis Methods
The Interview
Advantages
➢ Information sources Quick, direct way to find overlooked information.

❑ Individual employees Disadvantages

Distorted information
❑ Groups of employees

❑ Supervisors with knowledge of the job

➢ Interview formats

❑ Structured (Checklist)

❑ Unstructured
Questionnaires
➢ Information source
Have employees fill out questionnaires
to describe their job-related duties and
responsibilities.
➢ Questionnaire formats
❑ Structured checklists
❑ Opened-ended questions
➢ Advantages
Quick and efficient way to gather
information from large numbers of
employees
➢ Disadvantages
Expense and time consumed in
preparing and testing the questionnaire
Distortion
Observation
➢ Information source
Observing and noting the physical activities of
employees as they go about their jobs.
➢ Advantages
❑ Provides first-hand information
❑ Reduces distortion of information
➢ Disadvantages
❑ Reactivity
❑ Time consuming
❑ Difficulty in capturing entire job cycle
❑ Of little use if job involves a high level of mental
activity.
 Quantitative Job Analysis Techniques
Position Analysis Questionnaire(PAQ)
➢ Its purpose is to define the duties and responsibilities of a position in order to
determine the appropriateness of the position classification, essential functions.
➢PAQ contains 195 items called "job elements" and consists of six different Disadvantages
divisions: • Trained analyst
▪ Information input (How workers get the info needed for the job) • Biases (if filled by
▪ Mental processes (Reasoning, planning, and decision making) incumbents)
▪ Work Output (Physical activities, tools and devices)
• Not very
informative about
▪ Interpersonal activities (Relationship with other people)
managerial jobs or
▪ Job context and work situation (Physical and social environment)
some different
▪ Other aspects
kind of jobs
➢The final PAQ “score” reflects the job’s rating on each of these six activities.
 Functional Job Analysis
• Worker-oriented job analytical approach which attempts to describe the whole person on the job
• Jobs are performed in relation to data, people and things.
• In relation to things, employees draw on physical resources; in relation to data, employees draw on
mental resources; and in relation to people, employees draw on interpersonal resources.
• All jobs require employees to relate data, people and things to some degree.
• Experts at the U.S.
Department of Labor
did much of the early work
developing job analysis
• They used their results to
compile what was for many
years the bible of
job descriptions,
the Dictionary of
Occupational Titles
Sources of Information
• Human and non human sources
• All these sources may provide information which an average job holder cannot, thereby
enabling the job analyst to question the job-holder more effectively
Job Description
• Job description is one of the most important
product of job analysis.
• It is a written statement of what the
worker actually does, how he or she does
it, and what the job’s working conditions
are.
• Although no standard format for writing a job
description exists, but mostly all of them
contain the following:
1. Job identification
2. Job summary
3. Responsibilities and duties
4. Standards of performance
5. Working conditions
7. Job specification
 1. Job identification
• Job title
• Date
• Location of the job in terms of its
facility/division and department,
• Immediate supervisor’s title
• Information regarding salary and/or pay scale
2. Job summary
• Describes the general nature
of the job
• Lists the major functions or
activities
• “Other duties, as assigned,”
should not be included as this
leaves open the nature of the
job.
 3. Relationships
• There may be a “relationships”
statement that shows the jobholder’s
relationships with others inside and
outside the organization.
• Reports to: employee’s immediate
supervisor
• Supervises: employees that the job
incumbent directly supervises
• Works with: others with whom the
job holder will be expected to work
and come into contact with
internally.
• Outside the company: others with
whom the job holder is expected to
work and come into contact with
externally.
4. Responsibilities
and duties
• Heart of the job description
• A listing of the job’s major
responsibilities and duties
(essential functions)
• Defines limits of jobholder’s
decision-making authority,
direct supervision, and
budgetary limitations.
5. Standards of performance
• Lists the standards the employee is expected to achieve under each of the job description’s main
duties and responsibilities.
• One way to set standards is to finish the statement, “I will be completely satisfied with your
work when….” This sentence, if completed for each listed duty, should result in a usable set of
performance standards. For example:

6. Working conditions
• Noise level,
• Hazardous conditions,
• Heat and Light conditions
• Need to operate heavy and dangerous machinery
 7. Job Specifications
• Human traits and experience that are
required to do this job effectively
• Kind of person to recruit and for what
qualities you should test that person
• Minimum required qualifications that a
person should posses in order to
perform a particular job
• Includes educational
qualification/requirements, experience,
personality traits and physical abilities.
• KSAs

Specifications for Trained personnel Specifications for Untrained personnel

Focus on traits like length of previous Focus on physical traits, personality, interests, or
service, quality of relevant training, and sensory skills that imply some potential for
previous job performance performing or for being trained to do the job
Job Specifications Based on
Judgement
• Most job specifications simply reflect the educated guesses of people like supervisors
and human resource managers
• Review the job’s duties, and deduce from those what human traits and skills the job
requires
• Web-based job descriptions: O*NET online; www.jobdescription.com, etc.
• Generic work behaviors that he found to be important to all jobs
Job Specifications Based on
Statistical Analysis
• Attempts to determine statistically the relationship between (1) some predictor (human trait for
example punctuality, creativity, time management, organization skill, critical thinning, etc.),
and (2) some indicator or criterion of job effectiveness, such as performance as rated by the
supervisor.
(1) analyze the job and decide how to measure job performance;
(2) select personal traits like creativity, that you believe should predict performance;
(3) test candidates for these traits;
(4) measure these candidates’ subsequent job performance;
(5) statistically analyze the relationship between the human trait (finger dexterity) and job
performance.
• Your aim is to determine whether the trait predicts performance.
• Advantages:
• If you see repeatedly that a particular trait does not predict performance
• Equal rights laws prohibit using traits that you can’t prove distinguish between high and low job performers
 Competency model for HR managers

Competency-Based
Job Analysis
• In high performance work environments, as noticed in
most of the new economy firms, in which organizations
need workers to seamlessly move from job to job
and exercise self-control, job descriptions based
on lists of job-specific duties may actually inhibit
(or fail to encourage) the flexible behaviors the
companies need
• Competency-based job analysis is when the focus is on
the individual, but not on the job
• Collect information about the competencies of
employees rather than job duties.
• Competencies include measurable and observable
behavioral competencies that an employee must
exhibit to do the job well
Thank You