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Job Analysis: Prepared By: Jhaven Mañas, RPM

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JOB ANALYSIS

Prepared by:
Jhaven Mañas, RPm
LEARNING OUTCOMES

1. List the uses of job analysis information.


2. Describe the sources and ways of collecting job analysis information.
3. Discuss the different job analysis methods.
4. Describe the evidence for reliability and validity of job analysis methods.
5. Explain how job evaluation is used to set salary levels for jobs.
JOB ANALYSIS

It is the process of identifying how a job is performed, the condition


under which it is performed and the personal requirements it takes to
perform the job.
Job analysis is a method for describing jobs and/or the human attributes necessary
to perform them. There are three elements that comprise a formal job analysis:

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.

3. The analysis results in some written product, either electronic or on paper.


Job-Oriented Approach

The job-oriented job analysis provides information about the nature of


tasks done on the job. Some methods describe the tasks themselves.

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

Provides a description of the characteristics or KSAOs necessary for a


person to successfully perform a particular job. KSAOs are the employee’s
knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics necessary for a job. The
first three characteristics focus mainly on job performance itself; the “other”
characteristics relate to job adjustment and satisfaction, as well as
performance.
1. Knowledge is what a person needs to know to do a particular job. For example, a carpenter should have
knowledge of local building codes and power tool safety.
2. Skill is what a person is able to do on the job. A carpenter should have skill in reading blueprints and in
using power tools.
3. Ability is a person’s aptitude or capability to do job tasks or learn to do job tasks. It is a person’s
potential to develop skills. Most skills require one or more abilities. The skill of using power tools
requires several abilities, including hand-eye coordination. In order to build the roof on a house, a
carpenter should have good balance and an ability to work quickly.
4. Other personal characteristics include anything relevant to the job that is not covered by the other
three characteristics. A carpenter should have a willingness to do manual tasks and to work outdoors.
Although they might seem to overlap, KSAOs and tasks are very distinct. A task
is something a person does. A KSAO is an attribute or characteristic of the
person required to do a particular task or tasks. Tasks define what is done on a
job, whereas KSAOs describe the sort of person needed
PURPOSE OF JOB ANALYSIS

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.

Selection - The first step in deciding who to hire for a job is


determining the human attributes or KSAOs necessary for success on
that job. This means that a person-oriented job analysis should be the
first step in the design of an employee selection system.
Training - The KSAOs for a job suggest the areas in which training
efforts should be directed. The KSAOs that applicants do not have
when they apply for a position are areas for training after they are
hired. An effective training program in an organization should be
based on a thorough analysis of the KSAO requirements for a job.
The KSAO requirements can be compared to the KSAOs of applicants
or employees. Deficiencies on the part of applicants or employees
are the areas toward which training efforts might be directed if the
characteristics can be acquired.
Vocational Counseling - A number of vocational counseling tools
exist to help individuals match their KSAOs to the KSAO
requirements of jobs. Some of these tools attempt to match
individual preferences and personalities to occupations that they
would enjoy. Other approaches match individual capabilities to job
requirements

Research ¬- An additional use of job analysis information is in


research. Many researchers are interested in determining the role of
job requirements or task characteristics in many organizational
phenomena, ranging from employee motivation and performance to
health and safety.
HOW JOB ANALYSIS INFORMATION IS
COLLECTED

Job analysis information is collected in several ways. All of them use


people who are trained in quantifying job characteristics and the
KSAOs necessary to accomplish the different aspects of jobs. These
people either survey the employees who do the job in question or
experience the job firsthand by doing it themselves or observing it
being done.
Approaches to Collecting Job Analysis Information
People can provide job analysis information in many ways. The four
most commonly used are:
• Perform Job - One way to collect job analysis information is for the
job analyst to actually do some of the job tasks or the whole job. . By
doing the job, the analyst gains insight into the nature of the job tasks
and how the job tasks interrelate. It also provides an appreciation for
the context in which employees do their jobs. Although this method
can provide good information, it is not often used. Experiencing the job
by doing it can be costly and time consuming.
• Observe Employees Working – Observers can be job analysts or people
trained to observe others. Observers are often given forms to complete
about the jobs they observe. The form could contain a list of activities,
and the observer would indicate how often the observed employee does
each one.

• Interview Employees - One of the most popular ways to collect


information about jobs is by interviewing SMEs who are familiar with
them. The experts are usually job incumbents and their supervisors.
Interviews are carried out by job analysts or trained interviewers.
Interviews are often used to generate lists of all tasks and activities
done by everyone who has the same job title.
• Administer a Questionnaire - The questionnaire is the most
efficient means of collecting job analysis information. It can
contain hundreds of questions about the job and can be
administered easily to thousands of employees. No other
technique can provide as much information about jobs with as
little effort on the part of the job analyst.
Multiple Approaches

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 JCI provides information about the perceptual, physical, mathematical,


communication, decision making, and responsibility skills needed to perform
the job, which are the five components of job feature.
FUNCTIONAL JOB ANALYSIS

Uses observation and interviews with SMEs to provide both a


description of a job and scores on several dimension concerning the
job and potential workers. The dimensions are applicable to all
jobs, so that the procedure can be used to make comparisons among
jobs.
FJA was the job analysis method used by the U.S. Department of Labor
to produce the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) (U.S.
Department of Labor, 1977, 1991).

Occupational Information Network Enlisting the help of many I/O


psychologists from both research firms and universities, the U.S.
Department of Labor launched the Occupational Information Network
(O*NET) in the 1990s, and its development and refinement are an
ongoing process. This information system is a computer-based resource
for job-related information on approximately 1,100 groups of jobs
sharing common characteristics.
POSITION ANALYSIS QUESTIONNAIRE

The Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ) (McCormick, Jeanneret, & Mecham,


1972) is an instrument that can be used to analyze any job. The questionnaire
itself contains 189 items dealing with the task requirements or elements of jobs.
A KSAO profile for a job can be developed from the elements. The elements of
the PAQ are general and allow comparisons of different jobs on a common set of
dimensions or KSAOs.

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

Job analysis information depends on the judgment of people who


either do or observe others do a job. It is important to determine
how reliable and valid each job analysis method is. Studies have
addressed this issue for some of the methods. In general, results
suggest that different people’s ratings of jobs are often reasonably
reliable. In other words, there will be a relatively high correlation
among different people’s ratings of the same job for at least some
job analysis methods. Validity is a more difficult question, and some
researchers have begun to study the question of what job analysis
ratings actually represent. In other words, are they accurate
representations of task characteristics and KSAO requirements, or
do they reflect something else?
RELIABILITY - Dierdorff and Wilson (2003) used meta-analysis, which allowed
them to summarize the results of 46 studies that reported reliabilities for
various job analysis methods. They found a mean test-retest reliability
of .83, suggesting that people are quite consistent over time in making
their job analysis ratings

Inter-rater agreement was somewhat lower, depending on the types of


raters (e.g., analysts vs. SMEs) and the dimensions being rated. Correlations
among ratings by different rater types ranged from .48 to .81.

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

• Job evaluation refers to a family of quantitative techniques that


are used to scientifically determine the salary levels of jobs. The
major difference between job analysis and job evaluation is that
job evaluation has the specific purpose of determining the relative
salaries for different jobs by mathematically combining job
information.
First, a panel, often managers or other organization members,
determines the compensable factors for the job. Compensable
factors are characteristics that will serve as the basis for the
evaluation. They include:

Consequences of error on the job Responsibility


Education required Skill required
Second, a panel (comprised of new people or the same people)
judges the degree to which each job has each compensable factor.

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).

The point system is just one of many different job evaluation


methods. There are also several varieties of point systems. They are
all used to determine the pay levels of jobs by estimating their
comparative worth. Research on the various methods suggests that
they may be interchangeable. Studies have shown that the results of
different methods are often quite similar.
Comparable Worth - Means that different but comparable jobs should
be paid the same. If jobs that are held predominantly by women
contribute as much to the organization as jobs held primarily by men,
the jobs should be paid the same. The difficulty is finding a common
measure by which to gauge the comparable worth of jobs.

Perhaps the biggest impediment to achieving comparable worth is not


bias in job evaluation but the cost involved in substantially raising
salaries in predominantly female occupations, such as clerks and
elementary school teachers. The adjustments of these salaries would
be extremely expensive unless they were accompanied by reductions
in the salaries of other jobs.
Assignment 4

Compare and contrast all the Methods of analysis in a table and


emphasize on the advantages and disadvantages of the methods.

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