JOB ANALYSIS

Job Analysis is a systematic exploration, study and recording the responsibilities, duties, skills, accountabilities, work environment and ability requirements of a specific job. It also involves determining the relative importance of the duties, responsibilities and physical and emotional skills for a given job. All these factors identify what a job demands and what an employee must possess to perform a job productively.

What Does Job Analysis Involve ?

The process of job analysis involves in-depth investigation in order to control the output, i.e., get the job performed successfully. The process helps in finding out what a particular department requires and what a prospective worker needs to deliver. It also helps in determining particulars about a job including job title, job location, job summary, duties involved, working conditions, possible hazards and machines, tools, equipments and materials to be used by the existing or potential employee.

However, the process is not limited to determination of these factors only. It also extends to finding out the necessary human qualifications to perform the job. These include establishing the levels of education, experience, judgment, training, initiative, leadership skills, physical skills, communication skills, responsibility, accountability, emotional characteristics and unusual sensory demands. These factors change according to the type, seniority level, industry and risk involved in a particular job.

Importance of Job Analysis

The details collected by conducting job analysis play an important role in controlling the output of the particular job. Determining the success of job depends on the unbiased, proper and thorough job analysis. It also helps in recruiting the right people for a particular job. The main purpose of conducting this whole process is to create and establish a perfect fit between the job and the employee.

Job analysis also helps HR managers in deciding the compensation package and additional perks and incentives for a particular job position. It effectively contributes in assessing the training needs and performance of the existing employees. The process forms the basis to design and establish the strategies and policies to fulfill organizational goals and objectives.

However, analysis of a particular job does not guarantee that the managers or organization would get the desired output. Actually collecting and recording information for a specific job involves several complications. If the job information is not accurate and checked from time to time, an employee will not be able to perform his duty well. Until and unless he is not aware of what he is supposed to do or what is expected of him, chances are that the time and energy spent on a particular job analysis is a sheer wastage of human resources. Therefore, proper care should be taken while conducting job analysis.

A thorough and unbiased investigation or study of a specific job is good for both the managers and the employees. The managers get to know whom to hire and why. They can fill a place with the right person. On the other hand, existing or potential employee gets to know what and how he is supposed to perform the job and what is the desired output. Job analysis creates a right fit between the job and the employee.

Purpose of Job Analysis

As discussed already, job analysis involves collecting and recording job-related data such as knowledge and skills required to perform a job, duties and responsibilities involved, education qualifications and experience required and physical and emotional characteristics required to perform a job in a desired manner. The main purposes of conducting a job analysis process is to use this particular information to create a right fit between job and employee, to assess the performance of an employee, to determine the worth of a particular task and to analyze training and development needs of an employee delivering that specific job.

Let’s understand the concept with the help of an example. If the job of an executive sales manager is to be analyzed, the first and foremost thing would be to determine the worth of this job. The next step is to analyze whether the person is able to deliver what is expected of him. It also helps in knowing if he or she is perfect for this job. The process doesn’t finish here. It also involves collection of other important facts and figures such as job location, department or division, compensation grade, job duties, routine tasks, computer, educational, communicational and physical skills, MIS activities, reporting structure, ability to adapt in a given environment, leadership skills, licenses and certifications, ability to grow and close sales, ability to handle clients, superiors and subordinates and of course, the presentation of an individual.

Purpose of Job Analysis

Job Analysis plays an important role in recruitment and selection, job evaluation, job designing, deciding compensation and benefits packages, performance appraisal, analyzing training and development needs, assessing the worth of a job and increasing personnel as well as organizational productivity.

• Recruitment and Selection: Job Analysis helps in determining what kind of person is required to perform a particular job. It points out the educational qualifications, level of experience and technical, physical, emotional and personal skills required to carry out a job in desired fashion. The objective is to fit a right person at a right place.
• Performance Analysis: Job analysis is done to check if goals and objectives of a particular job are met or not. It helps in deciding the performance standards, evaluation criteria and individual’s output. On this basis, the overall performance of an employee is measured and he or she is appraised accordingly.
• Training and Development: Job Analysis can be used to assess the training and development needs of employees. The difference between the expected and actual output determines the level of training that need to be imparted to employees. It also helps in deciding the training content, tools and equipments to be used to conduct training and methods of training.
• Compensation Management: Of course, job analysis plays a vital role in deciding the pay packages and extra perks and benefits and fixed and variable incentives of employees. After all, the pay package depends on the position, job title and duties and responsibilities involved in a job. The process guides HR managers in deciding the worth of an employee for a particular job opening.
• Job Designing and Redesigning: The main purpose of job analysis is to streamline the human efforts and get the best possible output. It helps in designing, redesigning, enriching, evaluating and also cutting back and adding the extra responsibilities in a particular job. This is done to enhance the employee satisfaction while increasing the human output.

Therefore, job analysis is one of the most important functions of an HR manager or department. This helps in fitting the right kind of talent at the right place and at the right time.

Job Analysis Process

Where to place the employees in order to best utilize their skills and talent? How to determine the need of new employees in the organization? How to eliminate unneeded jobs? How to set realistic performance measurement standards? How to identify the jobs and prepare a plan to fill them?

Well, all this can be effectively done by a proper and thorough job analysis. Managers deal such kinds of challenges in day-to-day company operations where they need to fulfill effectively and efficiently fulfill the organization’s requirements related to human resource recruitment, selection, performance, satisfaction and cutting down and adding extra responsibilities and duties. And there is no scope where they can avert the risk of being wrong.

An effective and right process of analyzing a particular job is a great relief for them. It helps them maintain the right quality of employees, measure their performance on realistic standards, assess their training and development needs and increase their productivity. Let’s discuss the job analysis process and find out how it serves the purpose.

Job Analysis Process

• Identification of Job Analysis Purpose: Well any process is futile until its purpose is not identified and defined. Therefore, the first step in the process is to determine its need and desired output. Spending human efforts, energy as well as money is useless until HR managers don’t know why data is to be collected and what is to be done with it.
• Who Will Conduct Job Analysis: The second most important step in the process of job analysis is to decide who will conduct it. Some companies prefer getting it done by their own HR department while some hire job analysis consultants. Job analysis consultants may prove to be extremely helpful as they offer unbiased advice, guidelines and methods. They don’t have any personal likes and dislikes when it comes to analyze a job.
• How to Conduct the Process: Deciding the way in which job analysis process needs to be conducted is surely the next step. A planned approach about how to carry the whole process is required in order to investigate a specific job.
• Strategic Decision Making: Now is the time to make strategic decision. It’s about deciding the extent of employee involvement in the process, the level of details to be collected and recorded, sources from where data is to be collected, data collection methods, the processing of information and segregation of collected data.
• Training of Job Analyst: Next is to train the job analyst about how to conduct the process and use the selected methods for collection and recoding of job data.
• Preparation of Job Analysis Process: Communicating it within the organization is the next step. HR managers need to communicate the whole thing properly so that employees offer their full support to the job analyst. The stage also involves preparation of documents, questionnaires, interviews and feedback forms.
• Data Collection: Next is to collect job-related data including educational qualifications of employees, skills and abilities required to perform the job, working conditions, job activities, reporting hierarchy, required human traits, job activities, duties and responsibilities involved and employee behaviour.
• Documentation, Verification and Review: Proper documentation is done to verify the authenticity of collected data and then review it. This is the final information that is used to describe a specific job.
• Developing Job Description and Job Specification: Now is the time to segregate the collected data in to useful information. Job Description describes the roles, activities, duties and responsibilities of the job while job specification is a statement of educational qualification, experience, personal traits and skills required to perform the job.

Thus, the process of job analysis helps in identifying the worth of specific job, utilizing the human talent in the best possible manner, eliminating unneeded jobs and setting realistic performance measurement standards.

Job Analysis Methods

Though there are several methods of collecting job analysis information yet choosing the one or a combination of more than one method depends upon the needs and requirements of organization and the objectives of the job analysis process. Typically, all the methods focus on collecting the basic job-related information but when used in combination may bring out the hidden or overlooked information and prove to be great tools for creating a perfect job-candidate fit.

Selecting an appropriate job analysis method depends on the structure of the organization, hierarchical levels, nature of job and responsibilities and duties involved in it. So, before executing any method, all advantages and disadvantages should be analyzed because the data collected through this process serves a great deal and helps organizations cope with current market trends, organizational changes, high attrition rate and many other day-to-day problems.

Let’s discuss few of job analysis methods that are commonly used by the organizations to investigate the demands of a specific job.

Job Analysis Methods

Most Common Methods of Job Analysis

• Observation Method: A job analyst observes an employee and records all his performed and non-performed task, fulfilled and un-fulfilled responsibilities and duties, methods, ways and skills used by him or her to perform various duties and his or her mental or emotional ability to handle challenges and risks. However, it seems one of the easiest methods to analyze a specific job but truth is that it is the most difficult one. Why? Let’s Discover.
  It is due to the fact that every person has his own way of observing things. Different people think different and interpret the findings in different ways. Therefore, the process may involve personal biasness or likes and dislikes and may not produce genuine results. This error can be avoided by proper training of job analyst or whoever will be conducting the job analysis process.
  This particular method includes three techniques: direct observation, Work Methods Analysis and Critical Incident Technique. The first method includes direct observation and recording of behaviour of an employee in different situations. The second involves the study of time and motion and is specially used for assembly-line or factory workers. The third one is about identifying the work behaviours that result in performance.
• Interview Method: In this method, an employee is interviewed so that he or she comes up with their own working styles, problems faced by them, use of particular skills and techniques while performing their job and insecurities and fears about their careers.
  This method helps interviewer know what exactly an employee thinks about his or her own job and responsibilities involved in it. It involves analysis of job by employee himself. In order to generate honest and true feedback or collect genuine data, questions asked during the interview should be carefully decided. And to avoid errors, it is always good to interview more than one individual to get a pool of responses. Then it can be generalized and used for the whole group.
• Questionnaire Method: Another commonly used job analysis method is getting the questionnaires filled from employees, their superiors and managers. However, this method also suffers from personal biasness. A great care should be takes while framing questions for different grades of employees.
  In order to get the true job-related info, management should effectively communicate it to the staff that data collected will be used for their own good. It is very important to ensure them that it won’t be used against them in anyway. If it is not done properly, it will be a sheer wastage of time, money and human resources.

These are some of the most common methods of job analysis. However, there are several other specialized methods including task inventory, job element method, competency profiling, technical conference, threshold traits analysis system and a combination of these methods. While choosing a method, HR managers need to consider time, cost and human efforts included in conducting the process.

Job Description and Job Specification

Job Analysis is a primary tool to collect job-related data. The process results in collecting and recording two data sets including job description and job specification. Any job vacancy can not be filled until and unless HR manager has these two sets of data. It is necessary to define them accurately in order to fit the right person at the right place and at the right time. This helps both employer and employee understand what exactly needs to be delivered and how.

Both job description and job specification are essential parts of job analysis information. Writing them clearly and accurately helps organization and workers cope with many challenges while on board.

 

Though preparing job description and job specification are not legal requirements yet play a vital role in getting the desired outcome. These data sets help in determining the necessity, worth and scope of a specific job.

Job Description

Job description includes basic job-related data that is useful to advertise a specific job and attract a pool of talent. It includes information such as job title, job location, reporting to and of employees, job summary, nature and objectives of a job, tasks and duties to be performed, working conditions, machines, tools and equipments to be used by a prospective worker and hazards involved in it.

Purpose of Job Description

• The main purpose of job description is to collect job-related data in order to advertise for a particular job. It helps in attracting, targeting, recruiting and selecting the right candidate for the right job.
• It is done to determine what needs to be delivered in a particular job. It clarifies what employees are supposed to do if selected for that particular job opening.
• It gives recruiting staff a clear view what kind of candidate is required by a particular department or division to perform a specific task or job.
• It also clarifies who will report to whom.

Job Specification

Also known as employee specifications, a job specification is a written statement of educational qualifications, specific qualities, level of experience, physical, emotional, technical and communication skills required to perform a job, responsibilities involved in a job and other unusual sensory demands. It also includes general health, mental health, intelligence, aptitude, memory, judgment, leadership skills, emotional ability, adaptability, flexibility, values and ethics, manners and creativity, etc.

Purpose of Job Specification

• Described on the basis of job description, job specification helps candidates analyze whether are eligible to apply for a particular job vacancy or not.
• It helps recruiting team of an organization understand what level of qualifications, qualities and set of characteristics should be present in a candidate to make him or her eligible for the job opening.
• Job Specification gives detailed information about any job including job responsibilities, desired technical and physical skills, conversational ability and much more.
• It helps in selecting the most appropriate candidate for a particular job.

Job description and job specification are two integral parts of job analysis. They define a job fully and guide both employer and employee on how to go about the whole process of recruitment and selection. Both data sets are extremely relevant for creating a right fit between job and talent, evaluate performance and analyze training needs and measuring the worth of a particular job.

Job Design - Meaning, Steps and its Benefits

Job design follows job analysis i.e. it is the next step after job analysis. It aims at outlining and organising tasks, duties and responsibilities into a single unit of work for the achievement of certain objectives. It also outlines the methods and relationships that are essential for the success of a certain job. In simpler terms it refers to the what, how much, how many and the order of the tasks for a job/s.

Job design essentially involves integrating job responsibilities or content and certain qualifications that are required to perform the same. It outlines the job responsibilities very clearly and also helps in attracting the right candidates to the right job. Further it also makes the job look interesting and specialised.

There are various steps involved in job design that follow a logical sequence, those that were mentioned earlier on. The sequence is as follows:

1. What tasks are required to e done or what tasks is part of the job?
2. How are the tasks performed?
3. What amount are tasks are required to be done?
4. What is the sequence of performing these tasks?

All these questions are aimed at arriving upon a clear definition of a specific job and thereby make it less risky for the one performing the same. A well defined job encourages feeling of achievement among the employees and a sense of high self esteem.

The whole process of job design is aimed to address various problems within the organisational setup, those that pertain to ones description of a job and the associated relationships. More specifically the following areas are fine tuned:

• Checking the work overload.
• Checking upon the work under load.
• Ensuring tasks are not repetitive in nature.
• Ensuring that employees don not remain isolated.
• Defining working hours clearly.
• Defining the work processes clearly.

The above mentioned are factors that if not taken care of result into building stress within the employees.

Benefits of Job Design

The following are the benefits of a good job design:

1. Employee Input: A good job design enables a good job feedback. Employees have the option to vary tasks as per their personal and social needs, habits and circumstances in the workplace.
2. Employee Training: Training is an integral part of job design. Contrary to the philosophy of “leave them alone’ job design lays due emphasis on training people so that are well aware of what their job demands and how it is to be done.
3. Work / Rest Schedules: Job design offers good work and rest schedule by clearly defining the number of hours an individual has to spend in his/her job.
4. Adjustments: A good job designs allows for adjustments for physically demanding jobs by minimising the energy spent doing the job and by aligning the manpower requirements for the same.

Job design is a continuous and ever evolving process that is aimed at helping employees make adjustments with the changes in the workplace. The end goal is reducing dissatisfaction, enhancing motivation and employee engagement at the workplace.

Job Classification - Meaning, its Need and Importance

Job classification is a scheme of classifying a job according to the current responsibilities and duties associated with the job. It is different than job design in that the person assigned to the job is not taken into consideration. Jobs are classified with the purpose of studying jobs in a holistic perspective.

Job classifications group’s jobs into various grades, each grade having a certain specific class description and many times a pay scale that is used for job comparisons. Often the title is also assigned on the basis of grade arrived at after the job classification.

Need for Job Classification

There are various methods available for classifying jobs and often these vary across organisations and the industries. The basic purposes of classifying jobs are:

1. To help in recruitment and selection by defining significant qualification standards.
2. To help in designing and developing standards for performance and appraisals.

Allocating responsibilities aligned to the company mission and vision and those that help in the realisation of organisations business plans and strategies.

3. Identification of career and growth paths in organisations.
4. Establish standards for compensation.
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When and Where is a Job Classification System Used

A job classification system cannot be used for positions which do not match in terms of their duties and responsibilities. Instead it is used to group positions that have similar duties and responsibilities, require same qualifications, experience and training interventions. As mentioned above it is beneficial in recruitment, selection and compensation in a standard way across the whole organization.

The most important aspect of job classification is that it is based upon the objective aspects of the job and does not take into consideration the person assigned, the skills and the performance levels for the job. Instead factors like scope and level of responsibilities and duties, decision making authority and its relationship to other jobs is taken into consideration.

Job classification as a system empowers the administration to handle a wide variety of job functions and rather than just one, at a single time. Different positions are named and assigned titles and grades, keeping the job characteristics into consideration.

Job classification is not a constant or one time process; it is an ever changing one. They change due to introduction of new policies and procedures, new management initiatives and in many cases due to introduction of new technologies. The flip side of this is that it may affect employee productivity or performance and their reporting relationships. People resources may be redeployed and employees may find it difficult to adjust with the new people environment, affecting the performance due to change in benchmark standards. Then again in certain cases the productivity may increase in case of certain employees and decline in case of others depending upon how these employees deal with the stressors.

Many organizations use the tools of job balance assessment and competency matrix assessment for dealing with the changes associated with job classification. These tools help in aligning the employees with changes in the external environment such that their productivity levels are enhanced and not otherwise. 

Job Enrichment - Meaning and its Benefits

Organizations are increasingly facing the heat of attrition, which is not good to health of the same. Lots of time, money and resources are spent into training an individual for a particular job and when he / she leaves the return on that investment equals null. Often it is not for the money that people leave; that may be the reason with the frontline staff but as we move towards the upper levels of organisational hierarchy, other reasons gain prominence. Many of those who quit their jobs complain of their jobs as uninteresting!

All this has compelled organisations to think of ways to make the job they offer interesting. Lots of efforts are made to keep monotony at bay; job enrichment is one of them. It is the process of making a job more interesting, challenging and satisfying for the employees. It can either be in the form of up gradation of responsibilities, increase in the range of influence and the challenges.

How does an Organisation Enrich a Job

Typically job enrichment involves combining various existing and new tasks into one large module of work. The work is then handed over to an employee, which means there is an increase in responsibilities and scope. This increase in responsibility is often vertical. The idea is to group various tasks together such that natural work units are created.

In addition expanding jobs vertically also gives employee direct control over works units and employees that were formerly under the jurisdiction of top management only. While on one hand this increases the ownership of the employees in their work, it also relieves the unnecessary burden from the top management.

Job enrichment also opens up a feedback channel for the employees. Employees are frequently apprised of their performance. This keeps them on track and helps them know their weak and strong points. Performance standards are set for the employees themselves and future performances are matched against the benchmarks. All this without any serious intervention or involvement of the top management!

In a certain bank that dealt with commercial credit letters for import and export trade, the employees processed the documents in a sequence with each employee being specialised for certain aspect of verification. Often it so happened that a mistake at preceding level lead to a series of mistakes at succeeding level. Errors accumulated at each level and this result in huge loss of productivity.

The organisation decided to go for job enrichment where each employee or clerk was specialised in all aspects of processing. Each employee was now able to handle a client on his own. After some time it was found out that the transaction volume increased by 100 percent!

Benefits of Job Enrichment

Research studies on job enrichment found out decreased levels of absenteeism among the employees, reduced employee turnover and a manifold increase in job satisfaction. There are certain cases however where job enrichment can lead to a decrease in productivity, especially when the employees have not been trained properly. Even after the training the process may not show results immediately, it takes time to reflect in the profit line.

Job Enlargement - Meaning and its Benefits to the Organization

Job enlargement is a job design technique wherein there is an increase in the number of tasks associated with a certain job. In other words, it means increasing the scope of one’s duties and responsibilities. The increase in scope is quantitative in nature and not qualitative and at the same level.

Job enlargement is a horizontal restructuring method that aims at increase in the workforce flexibility and at the same time reducing monotony that may creep up over a period of time. It is also known as horizontal loading in that the responsibilities increase at the same level and not vertically.

Many believe that since the enlargement is horizontal in nature there is not a great need for training! Contrary to this, job enlargement requires appropriate training especially on time and people management. Task related training is not required much since the person is already aware of the same or doing it for some time.

Benefits of Job Enlargement

The following are the major benefits of Job enlargement

1. Reduced Monotony: Howsoever interesting the job may appear in the beginning, sooner or later people complain of boredom and monotony. Job enlargement if planned carefully can help reduce boredom and make it more satisfying and fulfilling for the employees.
2. Increased Work Flexibility: There is an addition to the number of tasks an individual performs. There is thus an increased scope of carrying out tasks that are versatile and yet very similar in certain aspects.
3. No Skills Training Required: Since the individual has already been performing the task in the past, there is no great requirement for imparting of new skills. However people and time management interventions may be required. The job thus gets more motivational for the one performing it.

Job Enrichment and Job Enlargement

1. The difference between job enrichment and job enlargement is essentially of quantity and quality. Whereas job enlargement means increasing the scope of job quantitatively by adding up more tasks, job enrichment means improvement in the quality of job such that employees are more satisfied and fulfilled.
2. Through job enrichment an employee finds satisfaction and contentment in his job and through job enlargement employee feels more responsible and worthwhile in the organization.
3. Job enrichment entails the functions of planning and organizing and enlargement involves execution of the same. Both complement each other, in that job enrichment empowers and enlargement executes.
4. Job enrichment depends upon job enlargement for success and the reverse in not true.
5. Job enrichment means a vertical expansion in duties and responsibilities and span of control whereas in job enlargement the expansion is horizontal in nature.

Job enrichment has been found to have greater impact in terms of motivation when compared to job enlargement. Since enrichment gives employee greater insights in managerial functioning and a better work profile, it is looked upon as an indicator of growth and development. The same is not true in case of job enlargement which is seen as an employer tactic to increase the workload