Job Analysis: Prepared By: Jhaven Mañas, RPM
Job Analysis: Prepared By: Jhaven Mañas, RPM
Job Analysis: Prepared By: Jhaven Mañas, RPM
Prepared by:
Jhaven Mañas, RPm
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1. The procedure must be systematic. This means the analyst specifies a procedure
in advance and follows it.
2. A job is broken into smaller units. We describe components of jobs rather than
the overall job.
The purposes of the job analysis determine which type of approach would
be more useful. The task descriptions provide a picture of what people do on
a job, whereas the characteristics of tasks can be used to compare the nature
of tasks across different kinds of jobs.
Tasks can be divided into a hierarchy in which higher-level descriptions are broken down into smaller
and smaller pieces of the job.
Brannick et al. (2007) discussed a hierarchy that contains five levels of specificity:
1. Position – Is a collection of duties that can be performed by a single individual. Typically, each
employee has a single position, although it is possible that one individual hold more than one position.
Furthermore, a number of similar positions might be given the same title
2. Duty - is a major component of a job. duty is accomplished by performing one or more associated
tasks.
3. Task - s a complete piece of work that accomplishes some particular objective. Each task can be
divided into activities.
4. Activity - are the individual parts that make up the task.
5. Element - To accomplish this activity, a number of very specific actions or elements are involved.
Person-Oriented Approach
A thorough job analysis is the foundation for almost all human resources activities. It is
difficult to imagine how one could write a job description, select employees, evaluate
performance, or conduct training programs without knowing the tasks an employee
performs, the conditions under which they are performed, and the competencies needed
to perform the tasks. A thorough job analysis provides such information.
Career Development - Many organizations have systems that allow
employees to move up through the ranks to higher and higher positions.
This is referred to as a career ladder: A progression of positions is
established for individuals who acquire the necessary skills and
maintain good job performance. Not everyone can climb to the top of
the ladder because of limited opportunities for promotion and inability
to achieve the necessary KSAOs.
Competency systems have become popular in organizations to
reward employees for acquiring the knowledge and skills needed to
both improve performance and be promoted. Such systems require
the identification of critical competencies, the availability of the
means of learning and developing competencies, and a procedure
for evaluating progress.
Legal Issues - Most industrialized countries have laws prohibiting
discriminatory employment practices, especially in the hiring of
employees. Although the specific groups that are protected against
discrimination vary from country to country, the basic idea that
decisions affecting people should be fair is almost universal. Job analysis
provides a list of relevant KSAOs as the basis for hiring rather than
irrelevant personal characteristics.
Performance Appraisal - A well-designed performance appraisal system
will be based on a job analysis. Criterion development, determining
the major components of job performance to be evaluated, is one of
the major uses of job analysis information. A job-oriented analysis
provides a list of the major components of a job, which can be used as
dimensions for performance evaluation.
Each of the four ways of collecting job analysis information has its
own set of advantages and limitations in providing a picture of
what a job is like. In practice, multiple ways are often used so
that the limitations of one are offset by the strengths of another.
METHODS OF JOB ANALYSIS
The methods vary in their use of the four sources of job analysis
information and the four ways of collecting information. Many of
these methods use more than one source and more than one way of
collecting information. One reason that so many methods exist is
that they are not all suited to the same purposes. Levine, Ash, Hall,
and Sistrunk (1983) found that job analysts rated different methods
as being best suited to different purposes.
JOB COMPONENTS INVENTORY
This method allows for the simultaneous assessment of the job requirements
and a person’s KSAOs. In other words, the KSAOs for a job and for an
individual are listed. The degree of correspondence of the lists is used to
determine if an individual is suited to a particular job or if the person needs
additional training in order to perform a particular job adequately.
The elements cover a wide variety of task requirements, including the inputting
and processing of information, the use of equipment and tools, general body
movements, interpersonal interaction, and work context. The elements can be
translated into KSAOs for any job.
The PAQ produces a profile of the task elements and KSAOs for a job. The profile
compares a given job to the hundreds of jobs in the PAQ database
TASK INVENTORY
A task inventory is a questionnaire that contains a list of specific tasks that
might be done on a job that is being analyzed.
Job incumbents usually are asked to complete the inventory for their own job.
Results are compiled across incumbents to give a picture of the average
importance or time spent for each task in a particular job. When several people
complete a task inventory, they are certain to give somewhat different ratings
on the same dimensions for each task.
A task inventory for even a fairly simple job can contain hundreds of tasks. To
make interpretation easier, tasks are often placed into dimensions that
represent the major components of a job. better understanding of this job can
be gained by considering the individual tasks in the context of the major
dimensions.
A task inventory often is a major component of an extensive job
analysis project that collects several different types of information
about jobs and people. Edward Levine’s Combination Job Analysis
Method (C-JAM) uses both interviews and questionnaires to collect
information about KSAOs and tasks. It produces a detailed picture of
the KSAOs for a job and the tasks performed.
CHOOSING A JOB ANALYSIS METHOD
FJA was seen as being relatively effective for almost all purposes;
however, it was also seen as one of the most time-consuming to
complete. Choice of method requires consideration of several
factors, including cost and purpose.
JOB ANALYSIS METHODS FOR WORK TEAMS
Job analysis methods that are designed for jobs that are done
individually. However, more and more work in organizations is being
done by teams rather than individuals, requiring the use of special
job analysis methods.
RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY OF JOB ANALYSIS
INFORMATION
Taken together, the studies suggest that job analysis ratings can be
reasonably reliable. As noted here, there are exceptions with task inventory
ratings. Care should be taken in deciding which scales to use for rating tasks
when job incumbents are the SMEs.
VALIDITY - The best evidence for the validity of job analysis ratings
comes from studies that compared different methods or sources of
information, such as incumbents versus supervisors. Spector, Brannick
and Coovert (1989) summarized the results of studies that reported
correlations among methods or sources that ranged from .47 to .94.
These results are suggestive of validity for job analysis ratings, but an
intriguing study raises some doubts about the interpretation of source
agreement. Smith and Hakel wondered if the analyst ratings
reflected preconceived notions about the job rather than the
information gathered with the job analysis procedures
JOB EVALUATION
Third, the points for the factors are summed for each job to provide
a total score. In this example, the job would get a total of 22 points
(2 + 20) for the two factors.
The fourth and final step is to plot the actual salaries for each job in
an organization against the point totals for each job. If the salary
system is fair according to the compensable factors, the plot should
be a straight line. This means that the more points a job has, the
higher the salary for that job.
If the point for a particular job is not on the straight line, the job is
either overpaid (point is above the line) or underpaid (point is below
the line).