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Elements and Importance of Job Analysis

 

A typical human resource manager should have to understand for a particular company he or she works for should have a clear and defined answer to questions about what must be done, how it must be done, the best person to do it, and how the person can find satisfaction doing it. It is in an attempt to give answers to these questions that the functions of job analysis and design come in.

Dissecting a job to give a general description of its component elements can be termed job analysis (Holst and Pancoast, 1921). It can be a detailed and descriptive study and presentation of skills such as knowledge, abilities, skills, and responsibilities relating to the operation of a specific job. It is through this information that one job differentiates from another and determines the success of a worker in performing his or her duties (PPMS, 2018).

Okunade (2015) divided job analysis into two subsets as shown below.

Figure 1: An illustration showing the branches of job analysis.


Source: (Okunade, 2015)

Purposes and uses of job analysis

The usefulness and reasons for carrying out job analysis are discussed below.

1.   Determination of labor needs: Job analysis assists an organization to evaluate its labor needs and do the needful preparation for them. 

2.  Recruitment and Selection: It is through job analysis forms the information will be available for an organization to carry on the recruitments, selections, orientations, training, transferring, and promotion of employees.  

3.    Wage and Salary Administration: Information like previous job experience educational qualifications and the risks and hazards involved in performing specific jobs of the employee will help in wage and salary administration.

4.    Job Re-engineering: Job analysis provides information to change the job roles of employees with specific characteristics and qualifications to perform them. 

5.    Employee Training and Management Development: The training management and development programs use information from job analysis to determine the content to be included in the training programs. It also helps in checking application information, interviewing, weighing test results, and checking references. 

6.   Performance Appraisal: Having a precise performance appraisal process is a must to measure employee performance. Job analysis helps human resource managers to establish those standards more precisely. 

7.    Health and Safety: Identification of Hazardous conditions and unhealthy environmental factors of a job is very important because we must and should try to protect those accidents from happening as much as possible.  Job analysis can play a vital part when it comes to identifying these conditions because during those analysis processes we tend to discover the issues which can occur.

 

To attract the right people for the right positions of the job, a thorough job analysis, which involves job description and job specification, must be carried out. A proper job analysis will inform the management on the right people for a specific job role (Emechebe, 2009).  However, for the employee to perform the job efficiently and finds satisfaction in it, the job design, which is made based on the job analysis, must be done properly (Uche, 2009). It can be concluded that job analysis (description and specification), and job design are foundational to the success or growth of any organization.

 

References 

Emechebe, S. N. (2009). Human resource management in education. In Babalola, J. B., Ayeni A. O. (Eds.), Educational management: Theories and Tasks (pp. 629-645). Lagos, Nigeria: Macmillan Nigeria Publishers Limited.

Holst, E. and Pancoast, E. (1921) Scientific Method in Job Analysis. Journal of Political Economy. 29(6) pp. 508-516.

Okunade, B. (2015). Personnel and Industrial Relations in Education EME 312. Distance Learning Centre, University of Ibadan, Ibadan.

Practical and Professional Management Signatures (PPMS) (2018). Human Resources Management. (Lecture manual). Practical and Professional Management Signatures

Uche, C. M. (2009). Human resource management in education. In Babalola, J. B., Ayeni A. O. (Eds.), Educational management: Theories and Tasks (pp. 696-697). Lagos, Nigeria: Macmillan Nigeria Publishers Limited.


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Comments

  1. Asitha GalhenaSeptember 2, 2022 at 11:45 AM

    As you mentioned, outcome of the job analysis are job descriptions and specifications. One problem with the Job description is that competitiveness and technology change rapidly in today's working world, which will not reflect what employee is doing. Additionally, through the Job description, it's impossible to identify what kind of person is suitable for the post. As a result managers often make mistakes in hiring (Rothwell, 2012).

    ReplyDelete
  2. Isuri PinnaduwaSeptember 2, 2022 at 12:29 PM

    Agreed Asitha. Job analysis is a process of identifying, analyzing, and determining the duties, responsibilities, skills, abilities, and work environment of a specific job. These factors help in identifying what a job demands and what an employee must possess in performing a job productively. Job analysis helps in understanding what tasks are important and how to perform them. Its purpose is to establish and document the job-relatedness of employment procedures such as selection, training, compensation, and performance appraisal.

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