Introduction

The success of every organization is dependent upon the performance of its employees. Ideally,
all of the jobs in an organization should interrelate to optimize the achievement of the
organization’s mission, goals and objectives. Job analysis is considered by many HR practice
leaders to be a pivotal aspect of effective human resources administration. It has the potential to
impact every major core competency area of HR, for better or for worse, depending on the
adequacy of the underlying job analysis practices in place within the organization.

Job

Job can be defined as regular work which an individual does for their employer in exchange of
money. It can casual or occasional work or it can be something that on is responsible for doing.

Job design

Job design is the process of organizing work as group of tasks, arranging and defining the job
process and structure at the workplace depending on the job analysis performed. The job design
takes into account the organizational objectives to be achieved along with trying to minimize on–
the-job fatigue, stress and human error.

Impact of job design on employees’ performance

Job design is very important because this is the process which makes sure that the job remains
updated and is relevant to the employee. The main objective here is to reduce dissatisfaction which
comes while doing the job on daily basis. This dissatisfaction can lead to employee leaving the
organization and causing issues for the company. Job design has primary responsibility of
regularly updating the job.

Job rotation

Job Rotation is a management approach where employees are shifted between two or more
assignments or jobs at regular intervals of time in order to expose them to all verticals of an
organization. It is a pre-planned approach with an objective to test the employee skills and
competencies in order to place him or her at the right place. In addition to it, it reduces the
monotony of the job and gives them a wider experience and helps them gain more insights.

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Objectives of Job rotation

Job rotation is a well-planned practice to reduce the boredom of doing same type of job every day
and explore the hidden potential of an employee. The process serves the purpose of both the
management and the employees. It helps management in discovering the talent of employees and
determining what he or she is best at. On the other hand, it gives an individual a chance to explore
his or her own interests and gain experience in different fields or operations

Job enlargement

Job Enlargement is the horizontal expansion of a job. It involves the addition of tasks at the same
level of skill and responsibility. It is done to keep workers from getting bored. It is different than
job enrichment.

Examples: Small companies may not have as many opportunities for promotions, so they try to
motivate employees through job enlargement. Job enlargement can be explained with the help of
the following example – If Mr. A is working as an executive with a company and is currently
performing 3 activities on his job after job enlargement or through job enlargement we add 4 more
activities to the existing job so now Mr. A performs 7 activities on the job.

It must be noted that the new activities which have been added should belong to the same hierarchy
level in the organization.

Job Enrichment

Job Enrichment, also called job enhancement or vertical job expansion, is the addition to a job of
tasks that increase the amount of employee control or responsibility. It is a vertical expansion of
the job as opposed to the horizontal expansion of a job, which is called job enlargement. A job
design technique that is a variation on the concept of job enlargement. Job enrichment adds new
sources of job satisfaction by increasing the level of responsibility of the employee.

Difference between Job enlargement and Job enrichment

While job enlargement is considered a horizontal restructuring method, job enrichment is a vertical
restructuring method by virtue of giving the employee additional authority, autonomy, and control
over the way the job is accomplished.

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Job analysis

Job analysis is having a thorough understanding about a particular job and understanding the key
skill requirements, roles, responsibilities, workplace processes, organizational hierarchy and so on
after conducting a research. Job analysis involves collecting job related information and
highlighting the basic requirements needed by an employee to successfully fulfill the role & profile
in order to achieve the goals & objectives set by the company. The analysis also gives an overview
on the physical, emotional & related human qualities required to execute the job successfully.

Job description

Job description is an informative documentation of the scope, duties, tasks, responsibilities and
working conditions related to the job listing in the organization through the process of job analysis.
Job Description also details the skills and qualifications that an individual applying for the job
needs to possess. It basically gives all the details which might be good for both the company and
the applicant so that both parties are on the same page regarding the job posting. Basically, job
analysis is bifurcated into two components namely job description and job specification.

Job Description Components

A Job description will include the following:

1. Roles and responsibilities of the job

2. Goals of the organization as well the goals to be achieved as a part of the profile
3. Qualifications in terms of education and work experience required have to be clearly
mentioned
4. Skill sets required to fulfill the job
5. Salary range of the job

Job Specification

A job specification defines the knowledge, skills and abilities that are required to perform a job in
an organization. Job specification covers aspects like education, work-experience, managerial
experience and so on which can help accomplish the goals related to the job. Job specification
helps in the recruitment & selection process, evaluating the performance of employees and in their

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appraisal & promotion. Job specification, along with job description, is actually derived from job
analysis.

Components of Job Specification

There are many parameters which are considered while giving the job specification for a certain
profile.

1. Educational Qualification
2. Experience
3. Skills & Knowledge
4. Personality traits and characteristics

Job description Vs job specification

Job Description Job Specification

Taken The job description is prepared from The job specification is prepared
From the job analysis. from the job description.

The Job description is about the nature The job specification is about the
Definition of the job, including the duties and eligibility and skills required for
tasks to be done. the vacancy.

The job description comprises of Job specification gives the

Comprises information about the workplace, duty- specific information about the
of timing, salary, responsibilities and age-limit, minimum qualification,
other general information. certificates, and experience.

The job description tells about the ‘do’s

Main The job specification is about the
of an individual he/she is selected for
Function eligibility for that post.
the post.

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Approaches to Job Design

Different Approaches to Job design have significant impact on designing the job. There are three
important approaches to Job design. These are described below:

1) Engineering approach.

2) Human approach.

3) Job Characteristic approach.

Engineering approach

Developer: Fredrick Winslow Taylor. (1911)

Essence: In words we can state that the essence of engineering approach is “prior task idea”.

Task Idea Implies:

 Work idea should be planned by management at least one day prior to the task assignment.

 Written instruction should be obtained by each employee.

 Description of assigned task should be in detail to the workers.

 What task to be done, how to be done and specific time is allowed for doing the task should
be included in the description?

Principles of Engineering Approach have given below:

 Work should be scientifically studied.

 Fragmentation and reutilization of work should be emphasized to get the advantage of

specialization.

 Work should be arranged so that workers can be efficient.

 Employee should be trained to perform the job.

 Employee selection should be matched to the demand of the job.

 Reward should be used to praise the successful completion of the task.

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The approach is based on the application of scientific principles to job design. Work, according to
this approach should be scientifically analysed and fragmented into logical tasks. Due emphasis is
then laid on organizing the tasks so that a certain logical sequence is followed for efficient
execution of the same. The approach also lies due emphasis on compensating employees
appropriately and training them continuously for work efficiency.

Human approach

Developer: Herzberg. (1966)

Essence:

Hygiene factors must be present in the job before motivators are used to stimulate a person.
Motivators cannot be used until all the hygiene factors are met. If the Hygiene factors are not met,
then Motivators become a Dissatisfier.

Hygiene factors or Dissatisfiers:

 Working conditions.

 Policies and administrative practices.

 Salary and Benefits.

 Supervision.

 Status.

 Job security.

 Co-workers Personal life.

Motivators or Satisfiers:

 Recognition

 Achievement

 Advancement

 Growth

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  Responsibility

 Job challenge.

Herzberg states that employee will be satisfied and more productive if motivators are present in
job content. He also states that job designer has to include hygienic factors adequately to reduce
job dissatisfaction and build motivating factors.

Job Characteristics Approach

Developer: Greg Oldham and Richard Hackman. (1975)

Essence: It states that employees will work hard, if they are satisfied with their work and they
achieve reward for their work.

This approach states that, any job can be described in terms of five core job dimensions as follows-

 Skill variety: The degree to which a job requires a variety of skills so that the employee
can use their different skills and talents.

 Task Identity: The degree to which a job requires completion of identifiable task or piece
of job.

 Task significance: The degree to which a job has substantial impact on the lives of other
people and work as well.

 Autonomy: The degree to which a job provides freedom and independence to the
employee to schedule the work and determine the procedure to carry out the job.

 Feedback: The degree to which an employee requires direct information to improve his
performance.

This approach states that there is a direct relationship between job satisfaction and rewards. They
said that employees will be their productive best and committed when they are rewarded
appropriately for their work.

These are different approaches to job design but all of them point to more or less the same factors
that need to be taken into consideration like interest, efficiency, productivity, motivation etc. All
these are crucial to effective job design.

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Problems Associated with Job Analysis

1. Job analysis that is neither Updated nor Reviewed

Job analysis must be reviewed on a regular basis by incumbents, supervisors and HR staff to ensure
that written requirements reflects the reality of contemporary job performance. Recent changes in
technology, materials, and process must be incorporated into the emended Job description or
specification. Poorly developed job description not only fail to provide proper guidelines to the
incumbents for their required duties and tasks but also valid job based information.

2. Job Description and Specification that is too Vague

Components of Job analysis namely Job description and Job specification should be specific to
meet the particular human requirements.

Example-

Assertion of applicants experience for certain number of years in specific functional areas, instead
of Specifying the skills and competencies the applicants should have learnt over that period.

On the other hand, inclusion of the word “dependability” in the job requirement without proper
clarification.

For instance dependable behavior may refer individual will arrive on time for meeting with all
preparatory work properly completed.

To be effective Job analysis process must produce detailed, specific behavioral examples of
successful job performance for each job.

Contamination and Deficiency

If any job description and specification fails to incorporate any important aspects of job that are
required for job, this error of omission is referred to as deficiency.

On the other hand, if peripheral and unimportant aspects of Job are being included in the formal
Job description then it is referred to as contamination. Contamination in Job analysis process may
also lead to legal consequences, if unrelated information which is used to select individuals for
the Job is discriminatory under legislation.

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Job analysis should be as brief and clear as possible but not at the cost of excluding any important
element of the job.

Time and Cost of Job analysis

Some organizations are deterred from conducting Job analysis due to the significant time and start-
up costs assumed to be associated with the process. General costs include-

 Consulting fees for job analyst.

 Licensing fees associated with usage of copyrighted Job analysis methods.

 Cost of overtime involved with interviewing and surveying job incumbents and managers.

 Administrative costs involved with analyzing, revising and disseminating the information
that results from the process.

Organizations which are reluctant to do Job analysis because of large time and cost expenditure
associated with it, unaware about conducting proper cost-benefit analysis with respect to this
decision. Organization should consider the time and cost savings that result from the followings-

 Better matching of individual skills to organization requirements which result in the

reduced costs, lower absenteeism and turnover.

 Inclusion of the benefits of organizational learning with respect to product and process
improvement.

 Reduced job ambiguity and wastage.

 Clarification of operating procedures and job relationships.

 Explicit definition of performance expectations for individual and team.

 Facilitation of other HR programs.

If organization consider the full costs and benefits related with conducting a job analysis process,
the decision to proceed is undoubtedly very clear.

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Importance of Job Analysis

Job analysis has been used as a critical tool for manpower management program. In the proper
management of human resources job analysis plays an important role. Some important roles of job
analysis have been described below-

1. Ensuring Similarity in Job Title

If the same job is described or titled different ways in different organizations, the management
finds a great difficulty in the selection of personnel and pricing the jobs. Job analysis helps
minimizing this problem by introducing similarity in job title in different organizations.

2. Clarifying Methods and Procedures of Work

The jobs are studied scientifically in order to study the duties and the tasks of the workers doing a
particular job.

Job analysis helps the management to get a clear picture of workers requirements in regard to the
types of supply of tools, machine and equipment. It indicates how much training, responsibilities
and supervision the worker should receive in order to perform the job efficiently.

3. Improving Physical Conditions of Work Environment

Job analysis helps the management to provide the worker with optimum conditions for work by
providing adequate work place with good illumination and ventilation. It also helps the
management to decide the ways by which it can avoid unnecessary noise, humidity, dangerous,
unhealthy and hazardous conditions of work.

4. Explain the Relation of One Job to other Jobs

Job analysis describes the skill involved in doing a job as well as the characteristics required by
the worker to do the job efficiently. Thus, it helps the management to grade the jobs and to
coordinate the work of a job with other jobs.

5. Determining Conditions of Employment

Job analysis helps the industrial engineer to determine the length and hours of works as well as
helps him in determining the responsibilities for a particular job.

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It helps the HR department in pricing the job as well as in determining whether the job can be
made permanent seasonal. Last but not the least; it helps the management to have scientific
procedure to provide every employee with opportunities for promotions and advancement.

6. Reducing Grievances

At present an appreciable amount of labor unrest is due to the absence of adequate information
about jobs. Because of this management and union, in most of the cases, do not agree upon wage
fixation, transfer and promotion. Gross inequalities in rate of wages, poor promotion plan and
inability of heads of the department to understand fully the intricacies of job and lack scientific
analysis of human qualities create discontentment among employees and sometimes lead to serious
grievances.

Job analysis supplies the systematic information through job evaluation, job description, job
specification, job schedule etc and thus helps avoid discontentment.

The Process of Job Analysis

There are actually five steps of job analysis process which maximize the potential for success.
Those are –

1. Determine the job or process to be analyzed

2. Determine methods and analyze the job or process

3. Examine the recorded data on the job and process

4. Define and formalize new methods and performance standards for the job or process

5. Maintain new methods and performance standard for the job or process

All five steps are crucial for the job analysis process. Those steps are described below-

1. Determine the job or process to be analyzed

The purpose of job analysis is to have a comprehensive record of all organizational jobs and their
associated duties, skill requirements, working conditions and so on but reality dictates that
organizations normally select certain well defined jobs common throughout the industry that can
be benchmarked externally ,the analysis commences with the well-known jobs first.

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Some of the factors that determine whether job analysis will be concurrent (all jobs analyzed at
approximately the same time) or sequential (job analysis conducted in different stages of time)
include-

i. The degree to which the selected job is central or critical. The more central or critical the
job or process the greater tendency to analyze it.

ii. The availability of job analysis and other resources and

iii. The availability of external performance benchmarks for organizational jobs.

2. Determine methods or analyze the job or process

This step involves an appraisal of the most appropriate method to use to study and record job
related behaviors. Selection criteria for job analysis methods are-

i. Cost- Cost includes license fees for copyrighted questionnaire, training ,administration etc.

ii. Time- Time includes that spent on data coding and analysis, survey, interview, training and so
on.

iii. Flexibility of the methods- This criteria shows if the method is appropriate for particular
circumstances.

iv. Validity and Reliability- These criteria relate to whether the job analysis methods have been
tested and whether they are accurate measures for the job’s elements and whether the result of
these methods show a consistent pattern over repeated usage.

v. Acceptance- The methods need to be acceptable to the workers .Otherwise they won’t cooperate
in providing information to the job analysts.

The abovementioned selection criteria are used to evaluate the following common methods of job
analysis-

i. Interview- To gather information about a job, a job analyst can interview people who are in the
job. This type of analysis is referred as 360 degree evaluation as the analyst has information from
people all around the job.

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ii. Observation- Observation of a job can be direct or indirect. In direct observation analysts
observe the production line for workers behavior and the skills required for job success. Indirect
observation can be done in various ways such as videotape recording of the job being performed.

iii. Questionnaires- Numerous standardized questionnaires are used for job analysis. The
questionnaires vary substantially but the common elements are questions concerning education,
training and skill requirements; responsibility and accountability, effort and working conditions.

iv. Journals and Diaries- In this method the job analyst asks jobholders to maintain a written record
of their job activities and associated time expenditures for a preset period. It can be useful in
discovering actual time expenditures and activities.

v. Output and Production analysis- Machine-generated output reports, all well as production
procedures, can obtain information about the job and its normal and peak levels of production.

vi. Current job description and specifications-In quest for information about the job, a useful
starting point, if a previous job analysis has been performed, is an examination of the existing job
descriptions and specifications. Although the information contained in these documents is already
dated but it is advantageous to see how the total process went.

3. Examine the recorded data on the job or process

After selecting the most appropriate methods to analyze the job, job analysts record the knowledge,
skills and abilities; job related behaviors, duties, task, responsibilities; and working conditions of
the job. The next step is to examine those data from a variety of perspectives to get a profile of the
current job. Some of the questions involved in the examination are as follows-

a. What is the purpose of the job? Why does it exist?

b. Where is the job physically performed? Are there compelling reasons why the jobs must be
performed there?

c. What is the sequence of behaviors required for successful job performance? Are there ways to
modify the methods and process to improve the job both qualitatively and quantitatively?

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d. Who performs the job? What constitutes the employee specifications required for job success?
Are those specifications optimal, or are they the minimum standards required for success on the
job?

e. What are the means of performing the job? Are the materials, machines, group processes and
operating procedures congruent with effective performance of the job?

The job analysts get a clear picture of the present job profile after addressing all those problems.
This information is used to draft job description and specification which should be reviewed by
not only job incumbents but also supervisors.

4. Define and formalize new methods and performance standards for the job:

Analysts will now formalize new methods and performance analysis for job or process. To this
point of process analysts have

a. Examined existing job description and specification for the job

b. Analyzed data on the job as it is performed by the jobholders

c. Compare (a) and (b) to the classification in the NOC and current practices in competitive
firms

Job analysts attempt to improve on current practices by recommending new methods and
performance standards for the job. For doing this, analysts must present some questions to the
incumbents and managers.

a. Would you recommend any changes in the materials, machinery, behavioral sequencing,
training, or procedure to improve performance?

b. Are there any rules or task that should be added to or deleted from the job?

c. Would you recommend any change in the specification?

d. What changes in the working conditions would you recommend to improve job
performance?

e. What is your rationale for these recommended changes?

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Having gleaned the collective wisdom of all relevant parties, the HR specialists or job analysts
write the new job description or specification. This will incorporate improvement in areas like

a. Methods

b. Time

5. Maintain new methods and performance standards for the job or process:

This step is required to ensure new methods and standards for performance are put into practice.
There are four main methods to ensure the usage of new techniques and prevent relapses to the
old, comfortable ways of performing the job.

a. Communication and training

b. Supervisory reinforcement

c. Employee feedback and

d. Reward system

Specific Job Analysis Techniques

Here we will discuss five well known and widely utilized techniques

CRITICAL INCIDENT TECHNIQUE

It is a qualitative process of job analysis that produces behavioral statements along a range from
superior to ineffective performance for a specific job. Several experts normally trained jobholders
with considerable experience in the job that is being examined are asked to identify the key
dimensions of their jobs. They described for the analyst in writing or verbally specific critical
incident that relate to success as well as those lead to job failure.

Once these critical incidents have been described they are ranked with respect to their importance
to success on the job. The behavioral statements are then used to provide specific guidance for HR
planners in refining employee specification for the job in question.

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They proposed three steps in their methods

1. Completing the performance record as critical incidents occur

2. Summarizing them for the rating period

3. Conducting performance review interview with the employee

Method used to collect data

A. Focus group

B. Interview

C. Survey

D. Performance records

E. Work dairies

BEHAVIORALLY ANCHORED RATING SCALES

These are used by organizations for appraisal of employees’ performance and for job analysis
purposes. In essence each job is examined and divided into a small number of key dimensions.

Next behavioral statements are developed for each dimension on a continuum ranging from
examples of superior performance to examples of unsuccessful performance. In this aspect BARS
are quite similar in its approach to the critical incident technique.

The next steps involves anchoring the behavioral statements by assigning numerical values to
them, with perhaps a value of 5 being allocated to a behavioral example of superior performance
and a value of 1 to an example of unsuccessful behavior. Such as

5. Exceptional performance

4. Excellent performance

3. Fully competent performance

2. Marginal performance

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1. Unsatisfactory performance

This BARS analysis provides a qualitative and quantitative comparison of jobs based on the
derived behavioral statements and numerical values generated by the process.

POSITION ANAYSIS QUESTIONAIRES

Position analysis questionnaire is a structure job analysis checklist that includes 194 job elements
that are used to rate a job. These job elements are incorporated into the following six dimensions

1. Information unit: How and where the workers obtains the necessary information for the job
functioning.

2. Mental processes: The types of planning, reasoning and decision making processes
required by job.

3. Work output: The specific items produced by the workers and the tools he or she employs
to produce them

4. Relationships with other workers: Important interpersonal contracts for the job holder.

5. Job context and Work satisfaction: The physical and social working environment.

6. Other job characteristics: Element of the job that do not fall into the other five dimensions.

Although the job incumbent can complete the PAQ typically a job analyst will interview the
incumbent prior to directly observing his or her actions in fulfilling the requirements of the job.
This enable the job analyst to score each of the 194 items on several five point rating scale such as
frequency of usage, importance to the specific job, etc.

FUNCTIONAL JOB ANALYSIS

It employs a series of written task statement, each containing four essential elements

1. A verb related to the task action being performed by worker.

2. An objects that refers to what is being acted on

3. A description of equipment, tools, aids and processes

4. The output of task completion

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A compendium of various task statements covers all necessary task of the job and although brevity
and concise written statement are the norm. The completed task statements are used to described
any job and contains three essential element

1. People

2. Data

3. Things

Each of three dimensions is than rated on level of complexity and importance with respect to the
job being analyzed. The result of the rating is a quantitative score that can be used to compare
various jobs.

THE HAY SYSTEM

Edward Hay and associates has developed a system of job analysis that is used extensively for its
consulting work compensation and organizational analysis. The Hay System uses three key factors
to analyze each job

1. Know how (The specific knowledge and skills requires to perform the job)

2. Problem solving (The decisions and problems that must be successfully handled on the job)

3. Accountability (The jobholder’s responsibility for critical task completion and for
organizational resources, budgets, supervision of the people etc.

Conclusion

Job analysis examined number of aspects of the job analysis process. Organization work process
is subdivided into meaningful units of work called jobs. Knowledge of job analysis process and
methods of evaluating jobs are essential components in the formation of the successful HR
planning system.

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