Job Analysis

Blog 2: Job Analysis

In my next blog I will be talking about the benefits to job analysis. Describing what job analysis is, how job analysis should be applied in the business world. Mainly my focus comes from my sources talking about the different factors to job analysis. My sources talks about job analysis methods for human resource in the new millennium, the use of O*net Online website, industrial and commercial training, and lastly job analysis for the changing workforce.

Job analysis is a family of formal methods for describing jobs and human attributes necessary for jobs. Job analysis answer to major important questions: what do people on a particular job do (task oriented)? What human characteristics are necessary for a job (person oriented)? The Unit of analysis is the job not the individual. Also, it deals with tasks/requirements for all positions within a job classification or title rather than individual people’s jobs.

O*net program “is the nation’s primary source of occupational information” (O*net website). It is used to focus on different job occupations as well as different skills, and characteristics amongst many other thing a person must possess. “Central to the project is the O*NET database, containing information on hundreds of standardized and occupation-specific descriptors” (O*net website). O*net program provides the primary source of occupational information. “The database, which is available to the public at no cost, is continually updated by surveying a broad range of workers from each occupation” (O*net). This website allows career exploration, also for students and workers who are looking to find or change their careers. “The Occupational Information Network (O*NET) is being developed under the sponsorship of the US Department of Labor/Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA) through a grant to the North Carolina Department of Commerce” (O*net website). O*net is very useful when trying to find what a certain occupation does, the necessary skills/training to have for this position. As well as education level, salary, and where will this job be at in the future.

“Job analysis may be viewed as the hub of virtually all human resource management activities necessary for the successful functioning of organizations” (Singh, Parbudyal). Human resource management need accurate and thorough job information. Job analysis makes up the effective activity in human resource. “Job analysis is focused on the collection of work-related information for the job as it currently exists and/or has existed in the past” (Singh, Parbudyal). With the increase in technology innovations jobs are becoming less static, and even less individually based. “Consequently, the tasks to be performed, and the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) required for effective job performance are also becoming more volatile, and sometimes more team-based” (Singh, Parbudyal). “Job analysis has grown considerably in scope and applications, especially over the last few decades. By the 1950s, even though there seemed to be less academic publications than before, job analysis became an influential management tool in business and industry” (Singh, Parbudyal). Job analysis helps businesses focus on current jobs as well as foresee jobs in the future. “job analysis has provided an informational base for a wide variety of organizational and managerial functions, including among others, selection and staffing, training and development, performance appraisal, compensation and benefits, job descriptions and job design, and employment equity and affirmative action” (Singh, Parbudyal). These are just a glimpse as to what all job analysis can provide to an individual as well as to human resource management.

Frederick Oswald breaks down job analysis by indicating the different structures human resource must achieve to acquire that the person can do the given job duty. “Job analysis as a generic label for information-gathering methods whose critical considerations include the type of job and worker data collected, the sources of the data, the methods of gathering the data, and the level of substantive and measurement/analytic detail required” (Frederick, L. Oswald).  How job analysis can be determine if we look at the job side is by job descriptions, performance appraisals, job evaluation and job redesign, from the worker side is selection and training. These same terms will be mention throughout my paper. They are consider very important when applying job analysis to a company. Job analysis applies to managerial jobs also for team-based work (KSAs and team functions). “These specific applications…which reflect related general considerations concerning the scope and nature of information collected from both the job (e.g., Functional Job Analysis, critical incident technique, task analysis) and the worker (e.g., Job Element Method, PAQ, and cognitive task analysis)” (Frederick, L. Oswald). The author goes into another technique called the hybrid methods of information. Frederick, L. Oswald goes onto say that this method is appropriate to help understand both of these sides of job-analysis equation. The more information you know about the two methods and applications, you will increase your chances for any potential pitfalls in job analysis. “Job analysis takes place not only within organizational and research contexts, but within a legal context as well (e.g., ADA and EEOC requirements,), and it is both art and science to implement a competent job analysis that acknowledges and skillfully manages these contexts in light of all relevant parties' intents and purposes” (Frederick, L. Oswald). Sometimes work and worker characteristics can or well change over time with the risen of technology, job redesign, and organizational change. “O*NET occupational data base and, in general, about the future of job analysis in light of changes in society, technology, and the business environment” (Frederick, L. Oswald). O*net like I mention earlier helps determine where the job will be in the future.

There are many steps that can be taken to determine the job analysis of a job. How can human resource management examine from the work and worker stand point. What skills and attributes needs to acquire for this job as well as the level of performance needed for this job. Will this job be here in the next twenty years or should we redesign to better fit with the ever changing of technology.

Work Citied

Frederick, L. Oswald. "Job Analysis: Methods, Research, and Applications for Human Resource Management in the New Millennium." Personnel Psychology 56.3 (2003): 800-2. ProQuest. Web. 27 Nov. 2013.

O*net Online http://www.onetonline.org/

"Section 4: Career/human Resource Development." Industrial and Commercial Training 27.5 (1995): 19. ProQuest. Web. 27 Nov. 2013.

Singh, Parbudyal. “Job analysis for a changing workplace”
Human Resource Management Review, Volume 18, Issue 2, June 2008, Pages 87-99
Parbudyal Singh