JOB ANALYSIS AND

JOB DESCRIPTION
PREPARED BY: KRISZANNE DE GUIA, LPT, MAIP
INSTRUCTOR 1
• 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.
Before going through the mechanism of job analysis
and job design, it is relevant to understand the terms
which are used in job analysis and job design
 JOB
•  A job may be defined as a “collection or aggregation
of tasks, duties and responsibilities which as a whole,
are regarded as a regular assignment to individual
employees,” and which is different from other
assignments.
•  Each job has a definite title based upon standardized
trade specifications within a job; two or more grades
may be identified, where the work assignment may be
graded according to skill, the difficulty of doing them,
or the quality of workmanship.
 Decenzo and P. Robbins define other terms as
follows:
• Task: It is a distinct work activity carried out for a distinct
purpose
• Duty: It is a number of tasks.
• Position: It refers to one or more duties performed by one
person in an organization, There are at least as many
positions as there are workers in the organization;
vacancies may create more positions than employees
• Job: It is a type of position within the organization.
• Job Family: It is group of two or more jobs that either
call for similar worker characteristics or contain parallel
work tasks as determined by job analysis.
• Occupation: It is a group of similar jobs found across
organizations.
• Career: It represents a sequence of positions, jobs, or
occupations that a person has over his working life.
 JOB ANALYSIS DEFINED
• is the procedure through which you determine the duties and
nature of the jobs and the kinds of people (in terms of skills
and experience) who should be hired for them.’ It provides
you with data on job requirements, which are then used for
developing job descriptions (what the job entails) and job
specifications (what kind of people to hire for the job).
• According to MICHAEL L. JUCIUS, “Job analysis refers to
the process of studying the operations, duties and
organizational aspects of jobs in order to derive specifications
or as they called by some, job descriptions.
• According to DECENZO AND P. ROBBINS, “A job
analysis is a systematic exploration of the activities within a
job. It is a basic technical procedure, one that is used to
define the duties, responsibilities, and accountabilities of a
job.”
• According to HERBERT G HERMAN “A job is a collection
of tasks that can be performed by a single employee to
contribute to the production of some product or service
provided by the organization. Each job has certain ability
requirements (as well as certain rewards) associated with it.
Job analysis process used to identify these requirements.”
• FLIPPO has offered a more comprehensive definition of job
analysis as, “Job analysis is the process of studying and
collecting information relating to the operations and
responsibilities of a specific job. The immediate products of
the analysis are job descriptions and job specifications”
Thus, job analysis involves the process of identifying the
nature of a job (job description) and the qualities of the
likely job holder (job specification).
 JOB DESCRIPTION
• is the immediate product of job analysis process;
the data collected through job analysis provides a
basis for job description and job specification. Job
Description: is a written record of the duties,
responsibilities and requirements of a particular
job. It is concerned with the job itself and not with
the job holders. It is a statement describing the job
in such terms as its title, location, duties, working
conditions and hazards.
• “Job description” is different from “performance assessment.” The former
concerns such functions as planning, co-ordination, and assigning responsibility;
while the latter concerns the quality of performance itself. Though job
description is not assessment, it provides an important basis establishing
assessment standards and objectives.
 WRITING JOB DESCRIPTION

• 1. JOB IDENTIFICATION: It includes the job title, alterative

title, department, division, and plant and code number of the job.
• 2. JOB SUMMARY: Job summary describes the contents of the
jobs in terms of activities or tasks performed.
• 3. DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES: This is the most
important phase of job description and should be prepared very
carefully.
• 4. SUPERVISION: Under it is given number of persons to be
supervised along with their job titles, and the extent of
supervision involved –general, intermediate or close supervision
• 5. Relation to Other Jobs: It describes the vertical and horizontal
relationships f work flow. It also indicates to whom the jobholder
will report and who will report to him. It gives an idea of channels
of promotion
• 6. Machine, tools and equipment define each major type or trade
name of the machines and tools and the raw materials used.
• 7. Working Conditions: The working environment in terms of heat,
light, noise, dust and fumes etc, the job hazards and possibility of
their occurrence and working conditions should also be described.
It will be helpful in job evaluation
• 8. Social Environment: It specifies the social conditions under
which the work will be performed. In this part the size of work
group, interpersonal interactions required to perform the job and
development facilities are mentioned
 JOB SPECIFICATION
• JOB SPECIFICATION states the minimum acceptable qualifications
that the incumbent must possess to perform the job successfully.
• Based on the information acquired through job analysis, the job
specification identifies the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to
do the job effectively. Individuals possessing the personal
characteristics identified in the job specification should perform the
job more effectively than individuals lacking these personal
characteristics.
• The job specification, therefore, is a important tool in the selection
process, for it keeps the selector’s attention on the list of qualifications
necessary for an incumbent to perform the job and assists in
determining whether candidates are qualified.
A Job Specification should include:
• (i) Physical characteristics, which include health, strength,
endurance, age, height, weight, vision, voice, eye, hand and foot
co-ordination, motor co-ordination, and colour discrimination.
• (ii) Psychological and social characteristics such as emotional
stability, flexibility, decision making ability, analytical view,
mental ability, pleasing manners, initiative, conversational ability
etc.
• (iii) Mental Characteristics such as general intelligence, memory,
judgement, ability to concentrate, foresight etc.
• (iv) Personal Characteristics such as sex, education, family
background, job experience, hobbies, extracurricular activities etc
 JOB DESIGN
• The human resource managers have realized that the
design of a job has considerable influence on the
productivity and job satisfaction; poorly designed jobs
often result in boredom to the employees, increased
turnover, job dissatisfaction, low productivity and an
increase in overall costs of the organization. All these
negative consequences can be avoided with the help of
proper job design.
 Methods of Job Design
• 1. Job Simplification: In job simplification, the complete job is broken down into small subparts; this
is done so that employee can do these jobs without much specialized training.
• 2. Job Rotation: Another technique designed to enhance employee motivation is job rotation, or
periodically assigning employees to alternating jobs or tasks.
• 3. Job Enlargement: Another means of increasing employee’s satisfaction with routine jobs is job
enlargement, or increasing the number of tasks performed (i.e. increasing the scope of the job). Job
enlargement, like job rotation, tries to eliminate short job cycles that create boredom.
• 4. Job Enrichment: The concept of job enrichment has been derived from Herzberg’s twofactor
theory of motivation in which he has suggested that job content is one of the basic factors of
motivation. If the job is designed in such a manner that it becomes more interesting and challenging
to the job performer and provides him opportunities for achievement, recognition, responsibility,
advancement and growth, the job itself becomes a source of motivation to the individual.
END