A Practical Guide to Job Analysis E-Book

Erich P. Prien

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 183

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

Presenting the first book that provides HR professionals with a context for understanding the importance of doing a proper job analysis together with a step-by-step guide to conducting such an analysis. This unique guide contains a series of eight ready-to-use templates that provide the basis for conducting job analyses for eight different levels of job families, from the entry-level to the senior manager/executive.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

About This Book

Why is this book important?

What can you expect from this book?

How is this book organized?

About Pfeiffer

Dedication

Title Page

Copyright Page

Preface

Chapter 1 - AN INTRODUCTION TO JOB ANALYSIS

Why Do We Analyze Jobs?

The Hiring Process

The Human Capital Life Cycle

Chapter 2 - WHAT IS A JOB ANALYSIS?

Defining Job Analysis

Applications of Job Analyses

Elements of a Job Analysis

Chapter 3 - HOW TO CONDUCT A JOB ANALYSIS

Methods of Job Analysis

Caveats and Cautions

Chapter 4 - THE JOB ANALYSIS TEMPLATES

The Development of the Templates

Eight Templates for Job Analysis

Using the Templates

Completing the Summary Forms

Summary of Work Activity Importance Ratings

Chapter 5 - THE WORKPLACE CHARACTERISTICS PROFILE

Organizational Culture and Climate

The Workplace Characteristics Profile

Chapter 6 - ESTABLISHING JOB PERFORMANCE LEVELS

Competencies and Jobs

The Uses of Job Performance Data

Methods for Measuring Job Performance

Problems with Performance Ratings

Behaviorally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS)

A SUMMARY OF THE JOB ANALYSIS PROCESS

References

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

Appendix D

Appendix E

Appendix F

Appendix G

Appendix H

Appendix I

Appendix J

Appendix K

Index

About the Authors

Pfeiffer Publications Guide

About This Book

Why is this book important?

A competent job analysis is the foundation of all other human resource functions. If we do not understand the nature of the job to be done, we cannot select appropriate candidates for that job, assess their worth in the job market, develop appropriate training and development programs, mentor them, or adequately carry out any of the multitudinous HR functions. It all must begin with a proper job analysis, a task for which this book provides a comprehensive guide.

What can you expect from this book?

This book provides the reader with a context for understanding the importance of doing a proper job analysis together with a step-by-step guide to conducting such an analysis. One unique element of this guide is a series of eight templates that provide the basis for conducting job analyses for eight different levels of job families, from the entry-level to the senior manager/executive. HR professionals or line managers can readily use these templates with confidence that they have the necessary tools as well as the understanding of the context of this process.

How is this book organized?

Beginning with two chapters on the context and importance of doing a competent job analysis, the book provides guides to specifying the work activities of tasks that make up the job, identifying the competencies necessary to successfully perform that job, spelling out the unique characteristics of the workplace in which the job will be performed, and finally, specifying the performance level at which this job needs to be executed. The templates or instruments necessary to complete each of the elements of a thorough job analysis are provided in an appendix and on a website (www.pfeiffer.com/go/LeonardGoodstein). This provides a convenient way that they easily can be customized for use in doing a job analysis.

About Pfeiffer

Pfeiffer serves the professional development and hands-on resource needs of training and human resource practitioners and gives them products to do their jobs better. We deliver proven ideas and solutions from experts in HR development and HR management, and we offer effective and customizable tools to improve workplace performance. From novice to seasoned professional, Pfeiffer is the source you can trust to make yourself and your organization more successful.

Essential Knowledge Pfeiffer produces insightful, practical, and comprehensive materials on topics that matter the most to training and HR professionals. Our Essential Knowledge resources translate the expertise of seasoned professionals into practical, how-to guidance on critical workplace issues and problems. These resources are supported by case studies, worksheets, and job aids and are frequently supplemented with CD-ROMs, websites, and other means of making the content easier to read, understand, and use.

Essential Tools Pfeiffer’s Essential Tools resources save time and expense by offering proven, ready-to-use materials-including exercises, activities, games, instruments, and assessments-for use during a training or team-learning event. These resources are frequently offered in looseleaf or CD-ROM format to facilitate copying and customization of the material.

Pfeiffer also recognizes the remarkable power of new technologies in expanding the reach and effectiveness of training. While e-hype has often created whizbang solutions in search of a problem, we are dedicated to bringing convenience and enhancements to proven training solutions. All our e-tools comply with rigorous functionality standards. The most appropriate technology wrapped around essential content yields the perfect solution for today’s on-the-go trainers and human resource professionals.

Essential resources for training and HR professionals

Our readers are invited to view and download the templatesand instruments from the appendices of this book. Thematerials can be customized for use in doing a job analysis.The materials are available FREE with the purchase of thisbook at www.pfeiffer.com/go/LeonardGoodstein.

Copyright © 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by Pfeiffer An Imprint of Wiley 989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741 www.pfeiffer.com

Except as specifically noted below, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax [phone], or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax [phone], or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

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Certain pages from this book and all the materials on the accompanying website are designed for use in a group setting and may be customized and reproduced for educational/training purposes. The reproducible pages are designated by the appearance of the following copyright notice at the foot of each page:

A Practical Guide to Job Analysis. Copyright © 2009 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Reproduced by permission of Pfeiffer, an Imprint of Wiley. www.pfeiffer.com

This notice may not be changed or deleted and it must appear on all reproductions as printed.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A practical guide to job analysis / Erich P. Prien ... [et al.]. p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

eISBN : 978-0-470-44424-5

1. Job analysis. I. Prien, Erich P., HF5549.5.J6P73 2009 658.3’06 -dc22 2008051523

Acquiring Editor: Matthew Davis Director of Development: Kathleen Dolan Davies Production Editor: Dawn Kilgore Editor: Rebecca Taff Editorial Assistant: Lindsay Morton Manufacturing Supervisor: Becky Morgan

Printing

Preface

This workbook was written with three audiences in mind. The first audience is the relatively new human resource (HR) professional who needs to develop an understanding of the procedures and methodology of job analysis in order to conduct such analyses and then use the data from such analyses in their daily work. The second audience is the experienced HR professional who is trained and experienced in job analysis but who can use specialized information about specific methods and approaches for conducting job analyses, applying the results of such analyses, and training and supervising more junior members of the HR staff. A third audience is line managers who are interested in understanding how competent job analyses can improve the quality of the workforce and positively impact the bottom line.

The organization of this workbook follows the sequence in which job analyses are conducted. The introductory chapter places job analyses in the context of the process of the management of the organization’s most important asset—its human capital. In the second chapter we discuss in some depth what is involved in job analyses, including some caveats and cautions to observe. Chapter Three provides a detailed description of how to perform a job analysis. The next chapter provides information on how to use the eight generic job analyses that are, to our knowledge, unique contributions to the field. Each of these eight generic job analyses then follows in a separate section, arranged in order of increasing complexity of the job from entry-level jobs to managerial positions. But work is always done in an organization, and the nature of that organization—its unique culture, strategy, and structure—provides a context within which work is performed. No job analysis is complete without understanding the characteristics of that workplace. The next chapter provides an overview for understanding those characteristics and introduced our Workplace Characteristics Profile (WCP), a newly revised instrument for identifying the specific characteristics of a workplace that directly impact job performance. Our final chapter deals with how the various levels of job performance can and should be established. Thus we provide a comprehensive manual for performing a job analysis.

Our focus is always on identifying and specifying the particular tasks involved in effectively performing an identified job and the necessary competencies required to do that job. Such a focus is required to produce narrative job descriptions that can be used successfully in recruiting, screening, selecting, and integrating new employees into the workforce.

Although job analyses have been conducted on a systematic basis in business and industry for many decades, for the most part they have not led to producing job descriptions that effectively communicate to others the competencies required to fill those jobs successfully. It seems to us that many of these earlier job descriptions were not written with sufficient attention to how the information included was to be used. All too often, the focus was on describing the tasks involved in the job, rather than on the competencies necessary to carry out the tasks. This focus left the end-user of the job description having to interpret the competencies required for success from the narrative description. The approach of this workbook is to obviate the need for such interpretation. The model of job analysis presented here produces both a clear statement of the work activities involved in the job and the knowledge, skills, and abilities required for successful performance of that job.

In conventional job analyses the individual(s) responsible for performing the analysis must begin with an examination of the tasks involved, and then determine the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to perform those tasks; this analysis leads to a job description that typically will combine similar tasks and then separately identify the necessary competencies to perform each set of tasks. This resultant job description serves as a template for this specific job and others in that job family.

In order to circumvent this time- and labor-intensive process, we have developed eight standardized questionnaires that ask respondents first to rate the relative importance of each of a series of work activities involved in a particular job family provided in a list and, second, to rate the importance of a separate set of competencies known to be involved in the successful completion of those work activities. Compiling both these ratings of the importance of various work activities and of the associated competencies produces a job description based on quantitative ratings that identify the required competencies.

Considerable prior work in developing standardized job analysis questionnaires does exist, but all of these efforts have focused on producing a single set of work activities and competencies (e.g., Fleishman, 1992). While there is merit in having a single instrument that covers the entire range of jobs, we firmly believe that such a single-minded approach cannot do justice to the enormous range of jobs and competencies necessary in today’s increasingly complex workplace. Chapter Four addresses these issues in greater depth.

Any work of this scope involves the efforts of several others besides the authors. We extend our sincere appreciation to Dr. Kristin Prien for her technical assistance and, even more importantly, her support and affection. Rebecca Taff provided her usual editorial expertise to producing a final product, for which we are exceedingly grateful.

1

AN INTRODUCTION TO JOB ANALYSIS

Identifying the right person to fill a job vacancy has always been difficult. Our aging, culturally diverse, and heterogeneous workforce has increased that difficulty, and our globally competitive economy makes searching for competent workers an even more formidable task. The rise of the Internet and the virtual avalanche of resumes employers receive in response to each job posting make the task of finding suitable candidates yet more laborious.

Still, hiring the wrong people poses serious risks to all businesses—from the smallest to the large, multinational corporation. Indeed, the costs of a hiring mistake are estimated to be from one-half to ten times an individual’s yearly salary. The expense of hiring mistakes must be controlled by using a systematic and consistent approach to identifying and hiring competent and suitable people.

Hiring a competent and suitable individual to fill a position is a true win-win proposition—a win for both the new employee and the employer. Recruiting competent people for positions in which they can succeed, feel good about what they are doing, and experience the positive regard of their co-workers is highly reinforcing to everybody. New employees should experience a boost in their sense of self-worth and self-esteem. They should begin to feel secure and bring greater focus and energy to their work, as job satisfaction increases. This growing sense of achievement and capability, in turn, leads to greater increases in motivation, to further achievement, and to a greater sense of competence.

Why Do We Analyze Jobs?

Completing a competent job analysis is ordinarily necessary in order to write the job description, the formal statement of the responsibilities involved, and the qualities necessary for success on this specific job. Without such a job analysis, it is difficult, if not impossible, to prepare a useful job description—and without a job description it would be impossible to fill any job vacancy successfully. A sample job description is included as Appendix A.

But job descriptions have a bad reputation in most organizations. Both employees and managers regard writing job descriptions as a waste of time—until they need to use the information from that job description. Many feel that job descriptions are too confining, that they limit people to a specific set of tasks, and that they limit the behavior of job incumbents. Consequently, writing job analyses is one part of human capital management that everyone loves to hate, arguably even more than performance reviews. People give various reasons for not wanting to do (or even be involved in preparing) job descriptions:

• “It’s too much work, and I have more important things to do.”

• “It’s a waste of time; my people know what their jobs are.”

• “Our jobs change too fast to write descriptions.”

• “A job description is too confining. I want my people to be flexible.”

However, the information obtained from job analyses and which leads to the job description is essential for virtually all of the other human resources (HR) functions. The manager who does not have time to work on job descriptions today certainly doesn’t have time to defend against an EEO suit later. Perhaps the current employees really do know what their jobs are, but what happens when a key employee suddenly leaves, and the information necessary for recruiting a replacement is not there? And if jobs are changing rapidly, knowing what skills are needed to perform these jobs is even more essential, since training people in the newly necessary skills will be a constant requirement. Finally, while flexibility is good in the abstract, organizations require a functional level of responsibility and accountability, which requires job descriptions, which in turn require competent job analyses. Thus, the job description should include information about the duties the employee performs, the knowledge, skills, and abilities, that is, the competencies, necessary to perform those tasks, and any other job-related information. Nowhere is this more important than in the hiring process.

The Hiring Process

For the employer, hiring such people is equally important. First, it saves money by raising productivity, lowering personnel turnover, and reducing supervisory problems. Further, personnel conflicts and problems decline sharply, as does the turnover of new hires, all of which result in considerable savings in additional hiring costs and downtime. Proper selection processes significantly reduce the risk of litigation for negligent or discriminatory hiring practices. An organization succeeds when its hiring process places people in jobs that allow them to utilize their abilities, capabilities, and skills. Finally, from a societal point of view, good selection also provides genuine equal opportunity to all people and helps our economy grow by increasing productivity and reducing job dissatisfaction.

Despite the many benefits of hiring the right candidate to fill a job vacancy, doing so is rarely easy for most organizations. In our experience, one of the most important reasons for this difficulty is that all too many supervisors and managers do not have a clear understanding of the competencies necessary for success in that job and how to assess those competencies. If you do not know what you are looking for, it is difficult to find it!

Prior to an in-depth analysis of job analysis, it is important to place job analysis in a proper context, one that illuminates its importance in the management of an organization’s most important asset, its human capital.

The Human Capital Life Cycle

We believe that the ideal human capital life cycle is best understood as involving six more or less discrete steps. All too often employers do not differentiate these steps clearly and thus do not follow them, leading to poor-quality outcomes. The six steps approach employee recruitment, selection, and hiring as the initial aspects of an employee life cycle, one that is concerned with employees throughout their employment careers. The six steps are

• Job analysis

• Recruitment

• Screening

• Final selection

• Job orientation

• Training and development

Additional phases of human capital management appear later in work life as employees move through a career and into retirement, but we will concern ourselves only with these initial six steps, ones that build on the job analysis and universally affect virtually all employees and most jobs. Beginning with job analysis, we will review each of these steps briefly.

Job Analysis

It is not possible to overestimate the importance of a competent job analysis in the human capital process. It is the step on which the entire employee life cycle hinges and thus should be regarded as one of the most important professional responsibilities of both the human resource staff who must conduct thorough job analyses and of their managers who must initiate and oversee the process.

Simply stated, the purpose of a job analysis is to provide an in-depth understanding of the competencies required for success in order to select appropriate candidates. A job competency is a behavior, or set of behaviors, necessary to accomplish a specific work task or achieve a specific goal. These competencies can range from the most simple, such as filing, operating a punch press, or answering callers politely and warmly, to the most complex, such as neurosurgery or getting along with a difficult supervisor.

The importance of using comprehensive job analyses in selecting among candidates is strongly supported by empirical research. This research (e.g., Campion, Palmer, & Campion, 1997; Campion, Pursell, & Brown, 1988;) clearly shows that, when the hiring process was based on a careful job analysis, the prediction of job success is greatly increased, and that it is possible to identify correctly those candidates most likely to succeed. This line of research also supports the conclusion that much of the early research on the problems in predicting job success was seriously flawed by one critical omission—the lack of job analyses that identified the characteristics necessary for success on that job. While the following chapters of this book are concerned with the nuts and bolts of conducting a competent job analysis, the remainder of this chapter will continue with the importance of using job analyses throughout the employee life cycle.

Recruitment