Job Analysis

Manpower planning is concerned with determination of quantitative and qualitative requirements of manpower for the organization

Determination of manpower requirements is one of the most important problems in manpower planning

Job analysis and job design, provide this knowledge.

Uses of Job Analysis

Achievement of Goals

Weather and Davis have stated, “Jobs are at the core of every organization’s productivity, if they are designed well and done right, the organization makes progress towards its objectives. Otherwise, productivity suffers, profits fall, and the organization is less able to meet the demands of society, customer, employees, and other with a stake in its success.”

Organizational Design

Job analysis will be useful in classifying the jobs and the interrelationships among the jobs. On the basis of information obtained through job analysis, sound decisions regarding hierarchical positions and functional differentiation can be taken and this will improve operational efficiency.

Organization and Manpower Planning

It is helpful in organization planning, for it defines labour in concrete terms and co-ordinates the activities of the work force, and clearly divides duties and responsibilities.

Recruitment and Selection

Job analysis provides you with information on what the job entails and what human requirements are required to carry out these activities. This information is the basis on which you decide what sort of people to recruit and hire. 

Placement and Orientation

Job analysis helps in matching the job requirements with the abilities, interests and aptitudes of people. Jobs will be assigned to persons on the basis of suitability for the job. The orientation programme will help the employee in learning the activities and understanding duties that are required to perform a given job more effectively.

Employee Training and Management Development

Job analysis provides the necessary information to the management of training and development programmes. It helps in to determine the content and subject matter of in training courses. It also helps in checking application information, interviewing test results and in checking references

Job Evaluation and Compensation

Job evaluation is the process of determining the relative worth of different jobs in an organization with a view to link compensation, both basic and supplementary, with the worth of the jobs. The worth of a job is determined on the basis of job characteristics and job holder characteristics. Job analysis provides both in the forms of job description and job specification.

Performance Appraisal

Performance appraisal involves comparing each employee’s actual performance with his or her desired performance. Through job analysis industrial engineers and other experts determine standards to be achieved and specific activities to be performed.

Health and Safety

It provides an opportunity for identifying hazardous conditions and unhealthy environmental factors so that corrective measures may be taken to minimize and avoid the possibility of accidents.

Methods for Collecting Job analysis data

Participant Diary/Logs

Workers can be to keep participant diary/long or lists of things they do during the day. For every activity he or she engages in, the employee records the activity (along with the time) in a log. This can provide you with a very comprehensive picture of the job, especially when it’s supplemented with subsequent interviews with the worker and his or her supervisor.

Interview

There are three types of interviews you can use to collect job analysis data: individual interviews with each employee; group interviews with groups of employees having the same job; and supervisor interviews with one or more supervisors who are thoroughly knowledgeable about the job being analyzed.

Critical Incidents

In this method, job holders are asked to describe incidents concerning the job on the basis of their past experience. The incidents so collected are analyzed and classified according to the job areas they describe, A fairly picture of actual job requirements can be obtained by distinguishing between effective and ineffective behaviors of workers on the job. However, this method is time consuming. The analyst requires a high degree of skill to analyze the contents of descriptions given by workers.

Technical Conference Method

This method utilizes supervisors with extensive knowledge of the job. Here, specific characteristics of a job are obtained from the “experts.” Although it is a good data gathering method, it often overlooks the incumbent worker’s perception about what they do on their job.

Job Performance

Under this method, the job analyst actually performs the job under study to get first-hand experience of the actual tasks, and physical and social demands of the job. This method can be used only for jobs where skill requirements are low and can be learnt quickly and easily. This is a time-consuming method and is not appropriate for jobs requiring extensive training.

Functional Job Analysis

Functional job analysis (FJA) is employee- oriented analytical approach of job analysis. This approach attempts to describe the whole person on the job.

1)   The extent to which specific instruction are necessary to perform the task

2)   The extent to which reasoning and judgment are required to perform the task

3)   The mathematical ability required to perform the task and

4)   The verbal and language facilities required to perform the task.

Observation Method

Using this method, a job analyst watches employees directly on the job. Observations are made on various tasks, activities, the pace at which tasks are carried out, and the way different activities are performed. This method is suitable for jobs that involve manual, standardized, and short job cycle activities..

Questionnaires

The method is usually employed by engineering consultants. Properly drafted questionnaires are sent out to job-holders for completion and are returned to supervisors. However, the information received is often unorganized and incoherent. The idea in issuing questionnaire is to elicit the necessary information from job –holders so that any error may first be discussed with the employee and, after corrections, may be submitted to the job analyst.