Job Analysis

and
Job Design
Chapter 4

McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Chapter Overview
• Basic Terminology
• Job Analysis
• Job Design
• Summary of Learning Objectives

4-3
Basic Terminology
• Micromotions – Simplest unit of work; involves very
elementary movement, such as reaching, grasping,
positioning, or releasing an object
• Elements – An aggregation of two or more
micromotions; usually thought of as a complete
entity, such as picking up or transporting an object
• Tasks – Consists of one or more elements; one of
the distinct activities that constitute logical and
necessary steps in the performance of work by an
employee
• A task is performed whenever human effort,
physical or mental, is exerted for a specific
purpose

4-4
Basic Terminology
• Duties – One or more tasks performed in carrying out
a job responsibility
• Responsibilities – Obligations to perform certain tasks
and assume certain duties
• Positions – Collection of tasks and responsibilities
constituting the total work assignment of a single
employee
• Jobs – Group of positions that are identical with
respect to their major or significant tasks and
responsibilities and sufficiently alike to justify their
being covered by a single analysis
• One or many persons may be employed in the
same job
• Occupations – A grouping of similar jobs or job
classes 4-5
Relationship among Different Job
Components

4-6
Job Analysis
• Process of determining and reporting pertinent
information relating to the nature of a specific job
• Involves determining the tasks that comprise the job and
the skills, knowledge, abilities, and responsibilities
required of the holder for successful job performance
• End product of a job analysis is a written description of
actual requirements of job
• When performing a job analysis, the job and its
requirements (as opposed to characteristics of person
currently holding the job) are studied
• It is the beginning point of many human resource
functions
• Specifically, data obtained from job analysis form the basis for a
variety of human resource activities

4-7
Job Analysis Influencing Human
Resource Activities
• Job definition – Job analysis results in a
description of duties and responsibilities of job
• Job redesign – Job analysis often indicates when
a job needs to be redesigned
• Recruitment – Process of seeking and attracting
a pool of people from which qualified candidates
for job vacancies can be chosen
• Job analysis not only identifies job
requirements but also outlines skills needed
to perform job
• Selection and placement – Process of choosing
from those available the individuals who are
most likely to perform successfully in a job
• Job analysis determines importance of
different skills and abilities
4-8
Job Analysis Influencing Human
Resource Activities
• Orientation – Introduction of new employees to the
organization, work unit, and job
• Effective job orientation cannot be accomplished
without clear understanding of job requirements
• Training – Learning process that involves acquisition of
skills, concepts, rules, or attitudes to increase employee
performance
• Job analysis helps in determining training
requirements, establishing training objectives, and
helps determine the reason of problem occurrence
• Career counseling – Job analysis provides clarity on
variety of jobs in the organization and clarifies exact job
requirements

4-9
Job Analysis Influencing Human
Resource Activities
• Employee safety – Often uncovers unsafe
practices and/or environmental conditions
associated with a job
• Performance appraisal – The objective of
performance appraisal is to evaluate an
individual employee’s performance on a job
• Job analysis helps in understanding exactly
what an employee is supposed to do
• Compensation – Job analysis helps ensure that
employees receive fair compensation for their
jobs
• Once worth of a job has been established
relative to other jobs, the employer can
determine an equitable wage or salary
schedule
4-10
Information Provided by a Job Analysis

4-11
Products of Job Analysis
• Job description – Written synopsis of nature and
requirements of a job
• Concentrates on describing the job as it is currently being
performed
• Explains, in written form, what the job is called, what it requires
to be done, where it is to be done, and how it is to be done
• Job specification – Description of competency, educational, and
experience qualifications the incumbent must possess to perform
the job
• Knowledge – Identifiable factual information necessary to
perform job
• Skills – Specific proficiencies necessary for performing
tasks that make up the job
• Abilities – General and enduring capabilities for doing the
job
• Other characteristics – Include any other pertinent
characteristics not covered under knowledge, skills, and
abilities
4-12
Contents of a Job Description

4-13
Job Description
• A potential problem with all job descriptions is
that they may become outdated
• Often, it is not periodically updated to reflect
any changes that have occurred in the job
• Jobholder and his or her supervisor should
review the most current job description annually
and determine whether description needs
updating
• If updating is required, jobholder should play
a central role in revising it
• In the initial development of a job description,
jobholder should be involved

4-14
Job Analysis Methods – Observation
• Relatively simple and straightforward method of analyzing
jobs; can be used independently or in conjunction with
other methods
• Motion study (methods study)
• Determining motions and movements necessary for
performing a task or job and designing most
efficient methods for putting them together
• Time study
• Determines elements of work required to perform
job, order in which those elements occur, and time
required to perform them effectively
• Work sampling
• Based on taking statistical samples of job actions
throughout the workday and then drawing
inferences about requirements and demands of the
job

4-15
Drawbacks of the Observation Method
• Observer must be carefully trained to know what to look for
and what to record
• Helpful to use a form with standard categories of
information to be filled in as job is observed to ensure
basic information is not omitted
• Its application is somewhat limited to jobs involving short
and repetitive cycles
• Complicated jobs and jobs that do not have repetitive
cycles require such lengthy observation periods that it
becomes impractical
• Direct observation, can be used to get a feel for a
particular job and then combined with other methods to
thoroughly analyze

4-16
Job Analysis Methods – Interviews
• Requires that person conducting job analysis meet with
and interview jobholder
• Unstructured interviews – Have no definite checklist or
preplanned format; format develops as interview
unfolds
• Structured interview – Follows a predesigned format
• Ensures that all pertinent aspects of job are
covered
• Easier to compare information obtained from
different people holding the same job
• Major drawback
• Can be extremely time-consuming; compounded when
several people are interviewed about the same job

4-17
Job Analysis Methods – Questionnaires
• Typically three to five pages long and contain both
objective and open-ended questions
• For existing jobs – Incumbent completes questionnaire,
has it checked by immediate manager, and returns it to
job analyst
• For new jobs – Questionnaire is normally sent to
manager supervising the employee in the new job
• Job being analyzed is vacant but is duplicated in
another part of the organization – Questionnaire is
completed by incumbent in the duplicate job
• Information can be obtained from large number of
employees in a relatively short time period
• Used when large input is needed and time and cost are
limiting factors

4-18
Job Analysis Methods – Questionnaires
• Major Disadvantages of Questionnaire Method
• Misinterpretation of information by respondent
or analyst
• Time-consuming and expensive to develop
• A popular variation is to have incumbent write an
actual description of the job, subject to approval
of immediate supervisor
• Advantage
• Incumbent is often the person most
knowledgeable about the job
• Helps to identify any differences in
incumbent’s and manager’s perceptions
about job
4-19
Job Analysis Methods – Questionnaires
• Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ) – Highly specialized
instrument for analyzing any job in terms of employee
activities
• Uses six major categories of employee activities
• Total of 194 descriptors, called job elements, describe
the six categories in detail
• Using a five-point scale, one can analyze each
description for the degree to which it applies to the job
• Primary advantage
• Can be used to analyze almost any type of job
• It is relatively easy to use
• Major disadvantage
• The sheer length of questionnaire

4-20
Employee Activity Categories Used in
the PAQ

4-21
Sample Page from the Position Analysis
Questionnaire (PAQ)

4-22
Job Analysis Methods – Questionnaires
• Management Position Description Questionnaire
(MPDQ) – Highly structured questionnaire
designed specifically for analyzing managerial
jobs
• Contains 208 items relating to managerial
responsibilities, restrictions, demands, and
other miscellaneous position characteristics
• These items are grouped under the 13
categories
• Requires analyst to check whether each item
is appropriate to job being analyzed

4-23
Management Position Description
Questionnaire Categories

4-24
Job Analysis Methods – Functional Job
Analysis
• Developed by Employment and Training Administration of
Department of Labor
• Uses standardized statements and terminology to
describe content of jobs
• Collects detailed task statements and rates them
according to function level or function orientation
• Function level – Describes how an employee
interacts with data, people, and things
• Function orientation – Describes amount of time (in
percentages) employees spends on tasks of each
functional level
• Each task statement is analyzed and rated to
determine skills needed to perform task it describes
• Results in position-specific information about work
being performed and standardized information about
both work and person performing the work

4-25
Occupational Information Network
(O*NET)
• Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT), that described
over 12,000 jobs became obsolete and inefficient in early
1990s
• Provided very job specific and dated information in
many cases
• Did not provide for any type of cross-job comparisons
for job similarities and differences
• Did not directly identify what characteristics employees
needed to perform the job or under what conditions job
was performed
• To overcome these problems, the U.S. Department of
Labor developed a new system called the occupational
information network (O*NET)
• United States’ primary source of occupational
information

4-26
Occupational Information Network
(O*NET)
• O*NET database – Comprehensive online database of
employee attributes and job characteristics
• Provides definitions and concepts for describing
employee attributes and workplace requirements that
can be broadly understood
• Using comprehensive terms to describe KSAs, it can
accommodate rapidly changing job requirements
• Continually updated by surveying a broad range of
employees from each occupation – Done every five
years
• Content model – Encapsulates key features of an
occupation into a standardized, measurable set of
variables called “descriptors”
• O*NET-SOC taxonomy – Identifies existing work
occupations
• Includes 949 occupational titles, 812 of which have
data collected from job incumbents or occupation
experts
4-27
The Content Model Forming
the Foundation of O*NET

4-28
The ADA and Job Analysis
• “Qualified individuals with disabilities” – Persons who have
a disability and meet the skill, education, experience, and
other job-related requirements of position held or desired
and can perform essential functions of the position with or
without reasonable accommodation
• Requires identification of essential functions of each
job and a reasonable accommodation to disabilities of
qualified individual
• Essential job function – One that is fundamental to
successful performance of the job
• Marginal job functions may be performed at certain times
but are incidental to main purpose of the job
• A job function is considered marginal if its performance
is a matter of convenience and not a necessity

4-29
The ADA and Job Analysis
• Reasonable accommodation means the
employer may be required to alter conditions of a
particular job so as to enable the candidate to
perform all essential functions
• An employer cannot be required to make an
accommodation that causes undue hardship for
the employer
• Undue hardship refers to any accommodation
that
• Would be unduly costly, substantial or
disruptive
• Would fundamentally alter the nature or
operation of business

4-30
Questions to Be Addressed to
Determine Essential Functions

4-31
Potential Problems with Job Analysis
• Top management support is missing
• Only a single means and source are used for
gathering data
• Supervisor and jobholder do not participate in
design of job analysis procedure
• No training or motivation exists for jobholders
• Employees are not allowed sufficient time to
complete the analysis
• Activities may be distorted
• Participants fail to critique the job

4-32
Job Design
• Process of structuring work and designating specific work
activities of an individual or group of individuals to achieve
certain organizational objectives
• Job design process are divided into these phases
• Specification of individual tasks – What different tasks
must be performed?
• Specification of the method of performing each task –
Specifically, how will each task be performed?
• Combination of individual tasks into specific jobs to be
assigned to individuals – How will the different tasks be
grouped to form jobs?
• Phases 1, 3 determine content of job
• Phase 2 indicates precisely how job is to be performed

4-33
Job Design
• Goal of job design – Develop work assignments
that meet requirements of the organization and
technology, and that satisfy personal and
individual requirements of jobholder
• Key to successful job design is to balance requirements
of organization and jobholder
• Prevailing practice in designing jobs was to focus
almost entirely on simplifying tasks to be
undertaken
• Usually resulted in making jobs as specialized as
possible
• Job specialization has its advantages, but can result in
boredom and even degradation of jobholder

4-34
Advantages of Job
Specialization

4-35
Job Scope and Job Depth
• Job scope – Number and variety of tasks
performed by jobholder
• In a job with narrow scope, jobholder
performs a few different task and repeats
them frequently
• Can result in more errors and lower quality
• Job depth – Freedom of jobholders to plan and
organize their own work, work at their own pace,
and move around and communicate
• Its lack can create job dissatisfaction,
tardiness, absenteeism, and even sabotage
• A job can be high in job scope and low in job
depth, or vice versa

4-36
Sociotechnical Approach to Job Design
• Its thrust is that both the technical system and
the accompanying social system should be
considered when designing jobs
• Jobs need to be designed by taking a holistic,
or systems, view of the entire job situation,
including its physical and social environment
• The approach is situational
• Requires job designer to consider role of
employees in the sociotechnical system, nature
of tasks performed, and autonomy of work group
• Has been applied in many countries under
headings such as “autonomous work groups,”
“Japanese-style work groups,” or employee
involvement (EI) teams

4-37
Using Sociotechnical Approach to
Create Guidelines to Designing Jobs
• Job needs to be reasonably demanding for the individual in
terms other than sheer endurance, yet provide some
variety (not necessarily novelty)
• Employees need to be able to learn on the job and to
continue learning
• Employees need some minimum area of decision making
that they can call their own
• Employees need some minimal degree of social support
and recognition in the workplace
• Employees need to be able to relate what they do and
what they produce to their social lives
• Employees need to believe that the job leads to some sort
of desirable future

4-38
The Physical Work Environment
• The physical work environment should allow for normal
lighting, temperature, ventilation, and humidity
• Baffles acoustical wall materials, sound absorbers,
soothing colors, limiting exposure to less-than-ideal
physical conditions to short periods are measures
employers can take
• Mental and psychological impacts of work environment to
be considered when designing jobs
• Implementation of Occupational Safety and Health Act
(OSHA) in 1970 magnified safety concerns
• Specifies federal safety guidelines that all
organizations in United States must follow

4-39
Flextime
• Allows employees to choose, within certain limits, when
they start and end their workday
• Organization defines a core period
• Some allow varied hours worked each day, as long as
a specified weekly total is met
• Advantages
• Allows employees to accommodate different
lifestyles and schedules
• Allows employees to avoid rush hours, having less
absenteeism and tardiness
• Allows employers an edge in recruiting new
employees and in retaining hard-to-find qualified
employees
• May result in an increase in productivity
• Disadvantages
• Can create communication and coordination
problems for supervisors and managers

4-40
Telecommuting
• The practice of working at home or while traveling and being able
to interact with the office
• Information technology has aided its spurt
• Advantages
• Less travel time and travel expenses, avoiding rush hour
• Avoiding distractions at office
• Being able to work flexible hours
• Disadvantages
• Insurance concerns relating to health and safety of
employees working at home
• Lack of professional and social environment of workplace
• Some state and local laws restrict just what work can be
done at home
• Recent evidence shows that when given a choice, employees
prefer a mix of working part-time from home and part-time in
office

4-41
Job Sharing
• Two or more part-time individuals perform a job that would
normally be held by one full-time person
• Can be in the form of equally shared responsibilities,
split duties, or a combination of both
• Especially attractive to people who want to work, but
not full-time
• From organization’s viewpoint, job sharing aids in
retention of valuable employees
• A critical factor is how benefits are handled – Often
benefits are prorated between part-time employees
• Some organizations allow job-sharing employees to
purchase full health insurance by paying the difference
between their prorated benefit and the premium for a
full-time employee

4-42
Condensed Workweek
• Number of hours worked per day is increased and number
of days in the workweek is decreased
• Typically done by having employees work 10 hours per
day for four days per week (known as 4/40)
• Other variations include reducing total hours worked to
36 or 38 hours
• Advantages
• Lower absenteeism and tardiness
• Less start-up time
• More time available for employees to take care of
personal business
• Disadvantages
• Fatigue that often accompanies longer hours

4-43
Contingent Workers
• The U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics
separates contingent workers into
• Independent contractors and on-call workers, who are
called to work only when needed
• Temporary or short-term workers
• Reasons that organizations use contingent workers include
• Seasonal fluctuations, and project-based work
• Desire to acquire skill sets not available in the normal
employee
• Population, hiring freezes, and rapid growth
• Advantages
• Flexibility for dealing with fluctuating product or service
demand
• Increasing workplace diversity
• Determining potential as a future full-time employee
• Providing skills organization doesn’t have in-house

4-44
Contingent Workers – Challenges
• Management issues
• Who manages different contingent workers and what
role does HR play?
• Tracking and reporting
• How do contingents fit into different HR system such as
payroll?
• Compensation
• How are contingents compensated compared to other
employees?
• Retention
• Since most contingents don’t receive benefits they can
be hard to retain
• Attitude and work quality
• Most contingents do not share same degree of
commitment as other employees

4-45
Contingent Workers – Challenges
• Orientation and training
• Orientation and training can be difficult to schedule
because of scheduling conflicts with other jobs
• Legal issues
• Contingent workers must meet legal definition of
“independent contractor” under IRS rules
• Use or company resources
• Can include everything from company discounts to
participation in company educational programs
• Physical security
• Do contingent workers have same access to company
facilities as other employees?

4-46
Summary of Learning Objectives
• Define job analysis and job design
• Distinguish among a position, a job, and an
occupation
• Describe several common uses of a job analysis
• Define job description and job specification
• Identify four frequently used methods of job
analysis
• Discuss why O*NET was developed and
summarize what it is
• Define essential functions and reasonable
accommodation as interpreted under the
Americans with Disabilities Act

4-47
Summary of Learning Objectives
• Identify several problems frequently
associated with job analysis
• Define job scope and job depth and
explain their relationship to job design
• Explain the sociotechnical approach to
job design
• Distinguish among the following types
of alternative work schedules: flextime,
telecommuting, job sharing, and
condensed workweek
• Define the term contingent worker
4-48