HR Guide: Job Analysis and Its Methods

What is job analysis?

Job analysis is a procedure in which we identify and determine the duties, responsibilities, and specifications of a given job. It comprises the collection of data needed to form a job description that will attract the right candidate to fill in the position.

Job analysis also assists in establishing the level of experience, qualifications, skills and knowledge required to perform a job successfully.

The purpose of job analysis

Apart from helping the preparations of a concise job description, the purpose of job analysis extends to other areas in the Human Resources department. Here are the primary purposes of job analysis:

• Job designing and redesigning: HR managers can work to improve job specifications, increase professional output and incite company growth.

• Recruitment and selection: Job analysis outlines the type of person needed for a specific role. It highlights the level of education, qualifications, experience, and skill required by the ideal candidates. It also helps develop advertisements, salary levels, interview questions, selection tests, evaluation forms, and orientation materials for new hires.

• Determining training needs: Job analysis helps HR to develop and identify adequate training procedure, training content, assessment tests, training equipment and methods of training.

• Conducting performance reviews: Job analysis produces data necessary for performance reviews. It clearly defines the objectives of a job and sets scalable goals for employees that reflect their performance. 

Job analysis methods

Numerous techniques facilitate the job analysis process. Here are three job analysis methods that every Human Resources professional should know: 

Interview

The HR manager will conduct interviews with incumbents to collect data about their tasks and how they are coping with them. Depending on your company culture, an interview can be structured or unstructured.

A structured interview is a systematic approach where employees are interviewed accurately and consistently, following a preset format. A structured interview should have these attributes:

• All interviewees are asked the same questions in the same order.

• Interviewers record, compare and evaluate answers against standardised criteria.

• The interview process remains the same, even in there is a change with the interviewer.

These attributes are the reason why structured interviews have a high level of reliability, validity and consistency. 

There are many techniques to facilitate the job analysis process.

An unstructured interview unravels without a preset structure. The interview process is conducted as a conversation without specific questions predefined. Still, the interview should make the purpose and focus of the interview clear to the employees.

The purpose of the interview is to understand their job role better to improve or modify their position. These are the traits of an unstructured interview:

• Interviewees may experience different questions, or the same questions may be asked in a separate order.

• Interviewers don’t usually use standardised criteria for recording, comparing and evaluating answers.

• The interview process varies depending on the interviewer.

There are problems with this method. One of them is employees may exaggerate or omit vital information in an interview. To solve this issue, HR professionals should interview more than one employee in the same position. This will provide more reliable results and data for the HR professionals to work with. 

Questionnaires

This job analysis method requires employees, supervisors, and managers to fill out questionnaires. It is inexpensive to create and easy to distribute to several individuals at a faster rate. 

It can be open-ended, multiple choices, checklists or a mix of all of them. 

Questionnaires used for job analysis collect information about all aspects that influence how a job is done, including internal and external factors. These are the most common areas that questionnaires focus on: 

• Knowledge, skills, experience, and qualifications

• Duties performed daily

• Duties performed less frequently

• Equipment and materials used for duties

• Time spent on different job duties

• Physical and emotional input

• Level of job satisfaction

• Salary and compensation

• Work conditions

• Additional comments

Questionnaires are not enough to collect data that is both reliable and useful. They only scratch the surface of job analysis. It has some disadvantages, such as inaccurate information given by participants, question misinterpretation, and high non-response rates. 

Questionnaires create larger sample size but it is less authentic and therefore, less impactful. Since job analysis must yield reliable information, it is best to combine questionnaires with other job analysis techniques. 

Observation

This method enables HR professionals to observe employees in their daily routines. The data collected through observation is very useful and reliable since it is through first-hand knowledge.

Observation is the only method that allows the HR professional to directly obtain the data. 

In this method, an HR professional observes an employee and records what they do and do not do. This helps them reach a more reliable conclusion. 

Observation still has some disadvantages, such as: 

• Distortion of information if an employee is aware of the observation.

• Awareness may influence the work output during the observation.

• Not all job duties and reactions can be observed in the set time frame.

• Higher managerial and executive positions may be hard to observe fully.

This method allows HR professionals to create a wide-reaching sample pool while also understanding the factors at work when observing employees. 

An employee will also work harder when they know they are being analysed, but it will still give the analysis an excellent framework to notice how well the role is being performed.

A job analysis takes a lot of planning, structuring and analysis. But the job analysis process is essential to the growth and success of an organisation. Without the right use of job analysis methods, HR professionals will not achieve much success in talent acquisition and recruitment with an organisation.

Source: CareerMinds

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