Case Analysis: When He Screws Up, IT\'s Too Late

¶ … Screws Up it Is Too Late

In the case "When he screws up its too late," the term 'he' refers not to someone from the organization as we might assume but actually points to the applicant who responds to a job advertisement. This applicant may not have all the skills required for the job but when he makes a mistake, it's usually due to negligence on the part of human resource personnel since they are responsible for screening a candidate, asking questions, and describing the job and the skills it requires.

In this case, it is obvious that the applicant Phyllis Quinlin appeared to be the right candidate for a job that required her to have computer-related skills and familiarity with a word processor. However it was when she started working that the person who hired her noticed that her computer skills were inadequate and the word processor she was familiar with was Word Perfect when she was required to work with Microsoft Word. This is when the personnel team realizes that their questions are not specific and the terms 'computer' or 'word' should have been used more specifically such as Microsoft word and IBM compatible computers. This brings us to the problem of job analysis. It is extremely important to understand that just when advertising a vacancy, the potential applicants must be told specifically what the job is all about. If that's not done, then at least during the screening process, they must be asked questions that are more targeted in nature. Job analysis is thus an indispensable tool.

Job analysis refers to the process of collection of data about a particular vacancy in a firm. This date helps in accurately assessing the nature of the job and determining major job requirements. These help the human resource personnel to further determine the correct level of compensation and training.

We must take into consideration the fact that while most people are aware of what they are required to do when at work-still when it comes to describing their jobs they are usually at a loss for words because their job responsibilities are not properly defined by the firm. In other words, work-related activities and tasks are usually too abstract to be defined. This is when job analysis is needed desperately.

Data collected is the method that helps in rewriting and defining job responsibilities in order to extract the best out of the employees, provide the firm with the right kind of people and also compensate them appropriately for the work done and to provide adequate training. "Job analysis covers a host of activities, all directed toward discovering, understanding and describing what people do at work. It thus forms the basis for the solution of virtually every human resource problem." (HR magazine: 2004)

The recruitment and selection process is where we can ask the most appropriate and specific questions and choose the right candidates. But again job analysis helps because a firm needs to have a clear idea of what kind of people it is looking for to fill up a certain vacancy. It is close to impossible to recruit the most suitable person for a vacant position if the firm is not clear on the subject of what exactly is the person required to do. Job analysis helps in identifying main job responsibilities and the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) needed to perform those tasks. "This process of job analysis identifies not only the critical tasks but also those tasks which require high skill levels. Recruitment and hiring procedures can be developed around these high level skills with a clear audit trail back to the critical tasks included in the initial job analysis data. Job announcements and summary job descriptions can also be developed based on the critical tasks. Performance exams can be developed using material from the tasks with the corresponding high skill scores." (Cliffard: 1994)

Job analysis is also needed for accurate determination of pay scale which is crucial for keeping employees motivated. Their motivation level is directly connected with organization's productivity level. Thus job analysis helps in identifying the level of skills and expertise needed to perform job-related tasks and the pay-package that adequately compensates the employee for his hard work. Job analysis focuses on the "measurement of the internal worth or "content" of jobs on what are termed "compensable factors." .. It is worth noting at this point that virtually all regulatory legislation defines compensable factors as "skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions." (Scoville, 2001) Not every skill that a person possesses is important or needed for the job and thus they have to be paid for only the ones that are connected with their jobs or have an impact on their work. For example, a person may have advanced language skills and may know three different languages but if he is working in an IT department where his job is to trouble-shoot company's system then his language skills are more or less useless for the firm. However if the firm has foreign clients and somehow he is capable of interacting with them in much better way than others, then the firm must compensate him accordingly. For this reason, when screening a candidate, the firm needs to pay close attention to compensable skills.