Job Analysis

Job analysis
• The systematic process which
helps you identify the job tasks
and responsibilities, KSAOs, and
critical incidents faced on the job
 Some Job Analysis Terminology
• Task: A basic element that can be used to describe a job. Together, a
large set of tasks makes up a job.
• Functional categories: A group of tasks that serve a similar purpose.
These groups of tasks are sometimes said to be grouped into larger
“responsibilities”.
• Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs): Used to describe the
characteristics an employee needs to do the job.
• Knowledge is generally something that someone can learn, for example from a
book.
• A skill is something that you can learn how to do, such as handle a customer
complaint properly.
• An ability is more innate, and something that the person brings with them to
the job, such as a mechanical skill.
• Subject matter expert (SME): A job expert with a great deal of
knowledge about and/or experience of the job, these are the people
from whom we get the job analysis information
 Incumbent: The person doing a given job, the
person most familiar with the job. These
people are sometimes consulted as subject
Some Job matter experts.
Analysis Supervisors: Those overseeing job incumbents;
Terminology for job analysis purposes supervisors as SMEs
may have a better idea of how a given job fits
(Cont.) into the overall organization.

Job analyst: The person conducting a job

analysis, this person is usually an I/O
psychologist or HR specialist.
How Are Job Analysis Data
Used?
1. basis for job descriptions and job
specifications
2. to understand what qualifications
(skills, experience) are required to do
the job.
3. necessary to develop strong criterion
measures, that is, measures of job
performance
Importance of Job Analysis

Job Description
It is a brief, two-to-five pages summary of the tasks and job requirements
found in the job analysis.

Employee Selection
it is very crucial to determine the tasks that will be performed by the
individual and the knowledge, skill and abilities involved to perform the tasks.
These are written statements of the duties, responsibilities, reporting
relationships, and minimum qualifications of a job.

Legal basis of certain functions and physical requirements

Two to five pages in length

A job description should contain the following eight sections:

Job Title
An accurate title describes the nature of the job. It aids in
employee selection and recruitment.
Job titles could affect as well the perceptions of the status and
worth of a job

Brief Summary
Need to be only a paragraph in length but should be brief on
describing the nature and purpose of the job.
Work Activities
The work activities section lists the tasks and activities in which the
worker is involved.

Tools and Equipment Used

This section list the tools and equipment used to perform the work
activities.
Job Context
This section should describe the environment in which the
employee works and should mention stress level, work schedule,
physical demands, level of responsibilities, temperature, number of
coworkers, degree of danger, and any other relevant information.
Work Performance
Brief description of how an employee is evaluated and what work
standards are expected of the employee
Compensation Information
This section contains information on the salary grade, whether the
position is exempt, and the compensable factors used to determine
salary.
Job Competencies
This section contains what are commonly called job specifications
or competencies. These are knowledge, skills, abilities, and other
characteristics that are necessary to be successful on the job.
Importance of Job Analysis

Training
Job analysis determines the kind of training needed by the
employee through the kind of tasks performed by each employee

Personpower Planning
Job analysis list down the skills of a particular job and the career
opportunities that go with it.
Peter Principle- promoting employee until they eventually reach
their highest level of competence.
Importance of Job Analysis

Performance Appraisal
It deals with getting all the necessary information about how well
each employee performs.

Job Classification
Job analysis enables a human resources professional to classify
jobs into groups based on similarities in requirements and duties.
Importance of Job Analysis

Job Evaluation
Job analysis information can be used to determine the worth of a
job.

Job Design
Job analysis can be used to determine the optimal way in which a
job should be performed
By analyzing a job, wasted and unsafe motions can be eliminated,
resulting in higher productivity and reduced numbers of job injuries.
Importance of Job Analysis

Compliance with Legal Guidelines

Job analysis determine the job relatedness of any employment
decision.

Organizational Analysis
Job analysis helps on attending certain organizational problems.
Job analysis interview, an employee may indicate that she does not
know how she is evaluated or to whom she is supposed to report.
Relationship between
Job Analysis and HR
functions
Areas of I/O Psychology that relies on Job
Analysis

Job design- A systematic

analysis of the organization of Job evaluation- A particular
work, which often includes job type of job analysis, used to
analysis to identify the best way determine the relative value
to allocate various tasks and that jobs have within an
responsibilities among different organization.
jobs.
 Preparing for a Job Analysis

Who Will Conduct the Analysis?

q Job Analyst
q Job incumbents
q Supervisors
q Consultants
q Graduate Students from I/O psychology
programs
 Preparing for a Job Analysis

How Often Should a Job Description Be Updates?

q a job description should be updated if a job
changes significantly
q high-tech jobs, this is probably fairly often
q jobs such as package handling, the job might not
change substantially for 20 years
 Preparing for a Job Analysis

Which Employee Should Participate?

q Few people on the job-all will participate
q Many people on the job-not necessarily all
q committee-based job analysis, a group of subject matter
experts meet to generate the tasks performed, the
conditions under which they are performed, and the
KSAOs needed to perform them.
q field-based job analysis, the job analyst individually
interviews/observes a number of incumbents out in the
field.
Sources of Job
Analysis Data
• Existing Job
Analysis Data
• Government
Sources
 Job Analysis Data Collection Methods

Job analysis Job analysis survey:

interview: • A questionnaire given
• When a job analyst asks to a large number of
Observations: One of the SMEs questions about
Focus groups: When employees about the job
most basic ways to learn job responsibilities, tasks a job analyst gathers in order to conduct the
job analysis.
about a job, observations performed, critical groups of SMEs and
incidents faced, and what
are done by watching KSAOs, experience, and
asks structured sets
incumbents and SMEs qualifications are needed of questions
doing their job. to effectively perform the regarding their jobs.
job.
Job Analysis Frameworks

Work-oriented job analysis

method:
- A job analysis method in
which the primary unit of
analysis is the characteristics
of the job.
 Task-KSA analysis involves generating the list of critical job
tasks involved in a given job.

The list of tasks can be used to generate the KSAOs

needed to do the job, and which are clearly linked to the
Job Analysis job.

Frameworks
Task analysis in its own right has been around for many
years (Brannick et al., 2007).

ACTION VERB_OBJECT_HOW; USING WHAT EQUIPMENT_PURPOSE

“Measures (action verb) doorway (object) using tape measure (how) to properly
install door (purpose).”
Job Analysis Frameworks
Task Criticality
Survey

• Criticality: How important a

task is to job performance,
typically in terms of
importance to the job or
relative time spent on the
job.
• you want to be sure that all of
the tasks you have identified (1)
really are critical to the job and
(2) that the SMEs generally are
in agreement on their ratings
(Gatewood et al., 2011)
• Calculate a mean SME rating for each
task to see if the ratings are high
enough, and you calculate a standard
deviation (SD) to see if the SMEs are in
agreement.
• If the SMEs are in disagreement bout
the ratings of a task, it will show up in a
high standard deviation.
• Any task with a low mean – say, below
4.00 on a 5-point scale – is tossed out.
Similarly, any task where there is a high
SD – say, above 1.00 – is tossed out.
 KSA Criticality
Criticality survey- assessing
the criticality of identified
KSAs
 Task-KSA
Linkage Survey
• Last step
• SMEs (new group)
document the
degree to which the
KSAOs really are
needed to do the
tasks (Gatewood et
al., 2011).
Summary of Task-KSA Analysis
Other Work-Oriented
Job Analysis Methods
• Critical incidents
technique:
A worker-oriented
method of job analysis
focused on documenting
examples
of critical situations
faced by job
incumbents, such as
examples of good and
poor ways to handle
them, and the results.
Worker-Oriented Methods

POSITION ANALYSIS COMPETENCY MODELING

QUESTIONNAIRE
 Position Analysis Questionnaire
• A standardized, pre-written job analysis questionnaire containing 195
items. The items describe a broad range of jobs, and are an
alternative to the more time-consuming method of developing a
task-KSA analysis.
• Pros:
• Easier and does not require creating extensive lists of tasks or
KSAOs from scratch
• Whereas task-KSA analysis allows for detailed analysis of only one
or two jobs, the PAQ is good for comparing jobs in order to look
for differences. Moreover, the PAQ database can even provide
some information about the relative value of jobs for making pay
decisions.
• Cons:
• Does not provide great detail about jobs
• requires a fairly high reading level
 • Describing the general characteristics needed in jobs in a company,
especially within a series of jobs or across a range of jobs. This often
includes the company values or mission statement.
• For example, if an organization values its customers, these sorts of
values would be expressed in the competency model, across all jobs
in the organization. In short, competency models provide similar
information to job analyses regarding the human requirements for a
job, but they also include more about the organizational context
Competency and culture.
Modeling • Recent discussions of competency modeling and job analysis note
that although competency modeling and job analysis are quite
similar, the two processes may complement each other when used
together in organizational practice (Sanchez & Levine, 2009).
• For example, Campion et al. (2011) point out that, compared to
standard job analysis, competency models tend to focus on top
performance rather than just average performance; focus on how
the competencies vary across different organizational levels;
and tend to be .
Other Job Analysis Methods
• Functional job analysis (FJA) focuses on the fact that all jobs require
that workers need to deal with people, data, and things, and that the job
tasks can be specified to include who performs the task, what action is
performed, what the result is, what tools or equipment are used, and what
procedures and instructions are followed (Fine, 1988) .
• Job element method (JEM) is a worker-oriented job analysis method
designed to specify the worker characteristics needed to do a job. After
these elements are identified, they are then specified further into sub-
elements.
• JEM is much more focused on describing worker characteristics but to
a large degree skips over the explicit definition of job tasks. For that
reason, it may be less suitable in situations where you want to know a
lot of detail about what is actually done on the job.
 Conducting a Job Analysis

Step 1: Identify the task Performed

§ Observing Incumbents
job analysis observation, the job analyst observes
incumbents performing their jobs in the work-
setting.
§ Job Participation
This technique is done by analyzing a job
through performing it.
 Conducting a Job Analysis

Step 2: Write the Task Statement

A properly written task statement must contain an action (what is
done) and an object (to which the action is done). Often task
statements will also include such components as where the task is
done, how it is done, why it is done, and which it is done.
 Conducting a Job Analysis

Step 2: Write the Task Statement

Here are some characteristics of well-written task statements:
1.One action should be done to one object.
2. Task statements should be written at a level that can be read and understood by a
person with the same reading ability as the typical job incumbent.
3. All task statements should be written in the same tense.
4.The task statement should include the tools and equipment used to complete the task.
5. Task statements should not be competencies.
6. Task statements should not be a policy.
7. The statement should make sense by itself.
8. For those activities that involve decision making, the level of authority should be
indicated.
 Conducting a Job Analysis

Step 3: Rate the Task Statements

Task analysis uses a group of SMEs to rate each
task statement on the frequency and the
importance or critically of the task being
performed
 Conducting a Job Analysis

Step 4: Determine Essential KSAOs

Once the task analysis is completed and a job
analyst has a list of tasks that are essential for
the proper performance of a job, the next step
is to identify the KSAOs needed to perform the
tasks
 Conducting a Job Analysis

Step 4: Determine Essential KSAOs

§ Knowledge is a body of information needed to perform a task
§ Skill is the proficiency to perform a learned task
§ Ability is a basic capacity for performing a wide range of different
task, inquiring knowledge, or developing a skill.
§ Other characteristics include such
personal factors as personality,
willingness, interest, and motivation
and such tangible factors as licenses,
degrees, and years of experience.
 Conducting a Job Analysis

Step 5: Selecting Tests to Tap KSAOs

The next step is to determine the best methods to tap the KSAOs
needed at the time of hire. These methods will be used to select new
employees and include such methods as interview, work samples,
ability tests, personality tests, reference checks, integrity tests, biodata,
and assessment centers.
 • Reliability of Job Analysis Data
• Detecting and Removing SMEs Who Are Providing
Poor Ratings
• Carelessness index:
Assessing and • A method for detecting whether SMEs are paying
attention. These consist of bogus or nonsensical
Assuring the questions throughout a survey, which if endorsed,
indicate that the SME is being careless.
Quality of Job • Who Are the Best SMEs?
• Dierdorff and Wilson (2003) found in a meta-
Analysis Data analysis that the job analysis information from
incumbents may be less reliable than the
information obtained from job analysts or
technical experts. Although this may be
concerning, other authors have pointed out that
lower reliability in job analysis results (i.e., dis-
agreement among raters) may merely indicate
that the job is done differently by different
employees with the same job title (Sanchez &
Levine, 2012).
 Assessing and Assuring the Quality of Job Analysis Data

What about Tasks versus Training SMEs

KSAs? Aguinis, Mazurkiewicz, and Heggestad
(2009) examined the possibility that
Tasks are more concrete in the mind of SMEs could be trained to improve the
the SMEs, whereas KSAs are more quality of their job analysis data. They
abstract found that providing SMEs with training
Dierdorff and Morgeson (2009) found reduced the correlation between SMEs’
that KSA ratings showed lower reliability personality characteristics and the ratings
than task ratings. Similarly, Morgesen, SMEs gave for a job’s personality
Delaney-Klinger, Mayfield, Ferrera, and requirements.
Campion (2004) found that KSA ratings
were more likely to be inflated than tasks
ratings. In considering these findings, we
would not suggest that analysts should
focus on task statements rather than
KSAOs in doing job analyses.
Job Evaluation: Job Analysis Informing Pay
Structures

• Compensation: Involves setting pay

levels within an organization.
• Internal Equity
• to assure fairness of relative pay
values within the organization.
• Tough working conditions,
experience/knowledge, level of
responsibility
Job • External Equity
Evaluation: • Assessment of fair compensation in
Job Analysis relation to market conditions for a
particular job. This is important for
Informing attracting and retaining the best
Pay talent for each position.
Structures
 • What a particular job title means in one
country versus another.
• The use of competency modeling, which is
so highly dependent on the culture and
values of the organization, seems
Global particularly susceptible to cultural
Implications differences from one part of a company to
another, creating some headaches in its
implementation.
CURRENT ISSUES AND CONTROVERSIES
The ability of large employers to collect data in the workplace has
changed through the years.

Many of our approaches to job analysis have been around for decades,
when jobs were more finite and changed very slowly. Today, jobs
can change quickly and be much more fluid. For that reason, there has
been a movement towards using the term “work analysis”, which implies
the fact that clear-cut, specific “jobs” are not always easily analyzed in
today’s workforce (Sanchez & Levine, 2012).

there are already a number of new approaches to job analysis on the

scene. One of these is cognitive task analysis (Brannick et al., 2007),
which goes beyond traditional task analysis by focusing specifically on
the cognitive processes involved in doing the job.