Concepts and Purpose of Job Analysis, Collecting Job Analysis and Its Techniques

Concepts

Job

The job should be defined as a division of completed task into packages/positions. Dale Yoder defines the job as a listed task collected, duties and authority that is described as a whole, is said to a routine work for a single worker and that differ from other given work. Therefore, the job is considered as a group of positions which involves duties, responsibilities, information and skills. Each job gives the idea of title standard trade specializations in a job. All job are different from one another jobs such as the person, clerk, supervisor, accoun­tant, manager, sales manager and so on. A job consists of different positions. A position defines a rules, regulation, duties and responsibilities given to the employee.

Job Analysis

Job analysis is defined as the method of collecting information related to the job. In other words, the anatomy of the job is known as job analysis. Job analysis is done towards the running jobs only. It includes job contents. For instance, the duties of an employee grade, the minimum knowledge, skills and abilities that are essential for adequately performing this job. The requirements for an employee grade, comparing with the grade of supervisor. The essential definitions of job analysis are in the view of Jones and Deco this “The method for getting information about jobs is job analysis that defines: what the employee do; how they gets it done; what is the reason for doing it; skill, knowledge, information and training essential for relationship with other jobs, demands; environmental conditions”. Edwin B. Flipper considers job analysis as the method for learning and collecting information related to the production and responsibilities about the specific job. The fast products of job analysis include descriptions and job specifications”. Herbert G. Herman defines a job as a collection of activity which is performed by individual workers for contributing production of goods and service provided by the company. Each job provides certain reward-related with it. Job analysis is the method used for identifying the needs. Now, job analysis is referred as assessment which defines jobs and the behaviors essential for performing them.

Purpose of Job Analysis

For developing an accurate job analysis, look at the responsibilities of several workers who include same job title. It helps in analyzing the responsibilities that are given to the individual for making a list of routine activities they perform. It helps provide as subject talking with the manager for getting an idea about the skills that an individual must have for performing the job. With given, the toy must prepare an idea of how this job position contributes to the organization for managing the work flow. The research with a comprehensive job analysis must be performed. The job descriptions that companies have developed for spotting any error and incomplete information must be looked. When posting a job, the job analysis list required for duties of the position and the job requirements must be viewed, for instance, a college degree or industry experience. The environment where individual will work in and the physical requirements of the position must be included.The role of job analysis is to recruit and select, job evaluation, job designing, identifying incentives and benefits, appraising performance, training and development needs, for developing the individual as well as organizational productivity.

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Recruitment and selection; The description of a type of person is required for performing a particular job is helped by job analysis. Job analysis describes the qualification, level of experience and technical, physical, emotional and personal skills required for carrying. The goal of job analysis is to place a right person at a right place.

Performance Analysis:Job analysis is used for identifying weather the goals and objectives of a given job are fulfilled or not. It decides the standards of performance, evaluates the criteria and people result. On this basis, the performance of the individual is calculated and they have appraised accordingly.

Training and Development:Job Analysis helps in assessing the needs of training and development of workers. The distinction between the expected and actual result helps in determining the training level that needs to be developed within workers. The training content, tools, equipment and so on can be used for conducting training and process of training.

Compensation Management: Job analysis is a cornerstone in playing a critical role in deciding the salary and incentives and benefits of workers. After all, the salary is based on the position, title of job and duties and responsibilities based on a job. The method provides rules for HR managers for deciding a particular job opening for the individual.

Job Designing and Redesigning: Streaming the efforts of human and getting the best possible result is the purpose of job analysis. It design, redesign, enrich, evaluate and also add the other responsibilities for a given job. It must be done for enhancing the worker's satisfaction be enhancing the output of the human.

So, the most important functions of an HR manager is job analysis. This helps to develop the right kind of competent worker at the right place and at the right time.

Methods of Data Collection for Job Analysis

Job analysis is related to the data of job. Hence the question arises on collecting data related to the job. A different process is available for collecting job information. This method is historically linked with the concept of job analysis observation related to the interview. In past years, questionnaires, check lists, critical incidents, diaries, personnel records and technical conference method are used for collecting the information about the job. The complete description of each method is as follows.

Observation

The data which is obtained by observing workers while at work. The job analyst on observation records about what employee do, how he/she do, and determine the time require for job completion. It is a reliable method that provides first-hand information relevant for a job. This method is best for jobs which consist of observable physical ability, short job cycle activities. The draftsman, mechanic, spinner, weaver etc are the types of such jobs. However, the flip side of this method is that This method is not accepted for jobs which include unobservable task and remote areas and with no complete cycle of the job. This method requires more time and it is also called another handicap. Given these, The job analyst must be skillful for collecting data related to the jobs with a high degree of decision content. Training and development enhance the analyst skill.

Interview

Under this method, the analyst interviews the applicants using a structured interview for finding elicit information about the respected job. The jobs where direct observation is not possible at such time interview is developed. By way of The method of directly talking to the applicants, the interviewer may extract essential data from the applicants about his/her job. The interview method has disadvantages of being time-consuming and costly. Due to the complex types of job it ends with a longer interview. The bias on the part of the analyst and the applicants arises, for example, the interviewer may not provide the accuracy and objectivity of the information gathered through the interview. The interview effectiveness is depended on the ability of both interviewer and applicants through asking questions and responding them respectively. The guideline for an effective interview is; Introduction, drive out the worker’s fear by showing a keen interest in their job, you must not advise the worker for doing the job. Learn to talk with the worker in their language if possible; do not develop the conflict with the work and the worker. Study the job goal within the programs and test the information of job that is obtained by workers.

Questionnaire

Questionnaire method is essential based on the following two situa­tions:

First, the different people who perform the same job, which is large so this creates difficulty in interviewing them. Second, the time with the worker is desirable for enabling them in exploring the different types of the jobs. Under this method, the workers are given structured questionnaire for filling it and must be given to the supervisors. The supervisor, after correcting the errors submits the corrected information to the job analyst. Question­naire give important and to the point information about the job. Information obtained must be developed through the computer. The advantage of the questionnaire method includes that it provides efficiency for job analyst to hold applicant in the shortest period of time. However, the method has disadvantages, the lack of presence of rapport between the job analysts and applicants both coordination and developments of the workers are at the low level. Often worker due less skill and training failed to express the job-related information in a meaningful and clear style. So such information may be inaccurate, time-consuming and costly.

Checklists

The checklist method and the questionnaire method are not related with one another as checklists include only a few subjective questions such as yes or no. The applicants are told for ticking the questions about his/her job. The job informa­tion developed from different factors such as supervisors, engineers, and the individual who is related to the particular job helps to create checklists. When the checklist is developed, it is then sent, to the applicants for checking all the activities listed in the listed employee perform. They are told to provide the amount of time spent on each activity and the methods of training and development required for completing each task. Information is kept in a table for obtaining the job-related data. Similar to the questionnaire method, the checklist method is used in the bigger company which include a large number of the employee who are assigned to do one particular job. This method is costly so not applicable for a small company.

Technical Conference Method

A conference is developed for the people who have extensive information about job. Such people define on various criteria of the job. The supervisor contains information about the job through the discussion among the specialists. The method does not consume time. However, the main disadvantage of this method is it does not provide accuracy and authenticity as the real employees are not involved in providing information of the job. We can analyze that method is incomplete and is not superior. In fact, no method are mutually exclusive all method are inclusive. The addition of the all other methods helps to develop or collect best data.

Job analysis techniques

Job description

To any staff position, the job description should accurately and essentially describe the job. Some documents give a way to understand the position’s major duties, details of how the duties are achieved, and develop the knowledge, skills and abilities essential for performing the job. A copy of file must be brought at the time of hiring the workers. A well-written job description provides the duties of the position, it develops human resources management effectively in different ways. A job description defines recruiting, developing and retaining employee and also provides maximum utilization of responsibilities, outcomes, and evaluation of performance. The important element for maintaining an equal compensation system and ensuring legal compliance is the job description. The document should be not outdated but must be updated once in a year at the time of performance evaluation cycle. A job description must have sufficient information for describing major duties and essential functions; however, the document must include only some information of how and what work must be performed so that it remains useful even when minor changes occur. The staff managers are responsible for writing may the job description where supervisor must approve it. The templates, samples and some guidelines for building the document of the job description are as follows.

• Must write a clear, direct style job description.
• Must not use narrative form. Sentence structure must not be complex.
• The action verb, a parallel structure must be use while beginning with each sentence.
• Present tense must be used.
• Critical activities must be given emphasize; must omit trivial duties and occasional tasks.
• Be concise and must define responsibilities.
• Avoid vague words such as "DBMS".
• Avoid technical language if possible.
• If acronyms are used, spell out the words the first time they are mentioned.
• Do not refer to the people's names, refer to the title of jobs.
• Be descriptive. For example, human resources, explain what that entails.

Generic Job Descriptions

Creating a job description is one of the time-consuming methods. Human Resources have developed job descriptions with equivalent major responsibilities and duties for positions. The staff and supervisors are given templates for downloading and editing the specific job-related criteria in the department where they work.

Job Specification

The document or statement that tells about the minimum levels of qualification, skills, physical abilities, experience, judgment, attributes and so on for performing the task efficiently and effectively. Job specification is developed with job descriptions that explain the qualities of individual important for performing the activities effectively. The physical, psychological, personal, social and behavioral traits of individual are defined. The job specification is an essential element for selection process because it identifies abilities, skills and knowledge of people for performing tasks.The list of qualifications is seen by the top level management. Finally, it allows supervisor for determining whether candidates are selected for the position in the organization. The list minimum levels of qualification, skills and abilities that candidate should possess for performing the required task properly. An employee with the best the qualities is specified in a job specification statement that helps applicants to perform the job more effectively than individual lacking them.

Contents of Job Specification Statement

• Required Education

Education for each post that a worker must have that is specified in job specification statement. It describes job ranks so that people are paid according to their position in an organization.

• Health and Physical Fitness

Physical fitness and health is the important factor for efficient performance. Therefore, a structure of the body, ability and other aspects of health and fitness is essential for performing well in the company.

• Appearance

Appearance refers to a look or view of workers, that should be attractive and good looking. The cleanliness and neatness of employee describe their appearance. Therefore, job specification statement determines the worker's appearance.

• Mental and Other Abilities

The employee should not have any stress while performing the task. If not, the working place may be full of problems. Mental fitness is based on decision making, managing emotions and sorrows, dealing with different kinds of people and so on.

Concept of job evaluation

The rating of jobs in a company is called job evaluation. The way of developing the value or worth of jobs in a job sequence is called job evaluation. It helps in comparing the intrinsic factor of jobs within a company. Therefore, job evaluation compares process between jobs. The International Labor Office (ILO) defines the Job evaluation as an attempt for determining and comparing the demands. The British Institute of Management tells that job evaluation as the method for analyzing and assessing the jobs for their negative worth that use the assessment on the basis for a balanced wage structure”. Kimball and Kimball view Job evaluation as an effort for determining the specific value of every job for determining the equal wage for the specific job. Wendell French tells job evaluation is a method that describes the relative worth of the various jobs within the company, so when differential wages are paid jobs are worth. The value is produced with relative job. The variables that define value include forces such as responsibility, skill, effort, working condition and so on. Now, Job evaluation is considered for achieving job in job hierarchy. The job evaluation is ranking of the job so we should not rank employee. Performance appraisal is used for rating workers. We must understand that job evaluation is about relationships among jobs but not absolutes. Job evaluation cannot be used for deciding pay structures. External factors such as labor market conditions, collective bargaining, and individual differences do also have the impact on the wages level. Nonetheless, it can be used for certainly providing a goals standard which can be changed for fixing the structure of wage. The job evaluation begins with job analysis. Without analyzing we cannot evaluate any one. The job evaluation is different from job analysis, job description and job specification which is explained in the following Table

References

Dessler, Gary.a Framework for Human Resource Management.Florida: Pearson Education Asia, 2002.

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