Talent Management Handbook Job Analysis

Talent Management Handbook

Job Analysis

Job analysis is a crucial component of the overall job design process and revolves around the attentive analysis of the specifications of a given occupation. A main specification that has to be made relative to job analysis is that the analyses are conducted on the occupation itself and the connection to the individual occupying the respective job is barely existent. In other words, the task of performing job analysis is an objective one, based on facts and documents and implies as little human impact as possible. Furthermore, in this same line of thoughts, the result of job analysis will be a detailed description of the assessed position and will not contain any references to the occupant of the analyzed position.

The generally expected outcome of a job analysis is that of retrieving an objective description of a job, which will further be used in organizational documents, estimations or for recruiting purposes. The information collected at this stage is various and refers to features such as the components of the job, the duties and responsibilities, the working environment or the KSAs (knowledge, skills and abilities) which have to be possessed by the occupant.

Some actions undergone in the process of job analysis include the following:

discussions with current employees with the intent of gathering input on their job responsibilities research with the intent of reviewing specialized job descriptions for similar or the same position as the one assessed communications with other companies with the intent of sharing information identifying the main KSAs associated with the respective position

2. Job Description

The job description is generally the result of the job analysis and it generically represents a document revealing the most important findings of the analysis process. There are three primary goals of a job description -- the first one is that of presenting the features of a given job with the intent of hiring someone for that position; the second role is that of establishing remuneration and other rewards is direct accordance with the tasks and responsibilities undertaken by the occupant of that position and the third use is that of assessing the performances.

The information contained in the job description is various and includes elements such as the name of the organization and the position, the functions pegged to the occupation, the essential KSAs, the level of education and the minimum required expertise within the field or within a similar position, the mental and physical functions required from the occupant of the position, the working environment or other special comments. The functions component is generally the most important one and includes three primary elements -- tasks, duties and responsibilities.

Tasks? -- contains references to all tasks that have to be performed by the occupant of the respective position; for instance, the main tasks of a senior developer are those of conducting research, writing code, communicating with customers and aiding the junior programmers

Duties -- generally used as a synonym to tasks, encompasses the main activities which need to be handled by the occupant of a respective position

Responsibilities -- the responsibility component is more formal in the meaning that it generally includes the relationships which are developed and need to be sustained at the professional level. Following the previous example of a senior developer, his responsibilities revolve around his interactions with the managerial team, the customers and his subalterns

3. Job Specifications

The job specification is also a result of the job analysis process, with the difference however that it focuses primarily on the skills required from the occupant of the assessed position. In terms of its relationship with job description, the job specification reveals the qualifications necessary to fruitfully comply with the duties, tasks and responsibilities as they have been identified throughout the previous section.

Knowledge -- this information is generally presented in factual or procedural nature and includes the past actions that need to have been performed in order to ensure that the occupant of the position will be able to successfully handle the given tasks; it generally relates to the knowledge required to achieve the expected levels of job performance

Skills -- this is a feature characteristic primarily to the individual and revolves around the ability to learn from past and present experiences and integrate them in order to solve a given task; it is basically the ability to manipulate information to solve a duty

Abilities -- finally, the abilities element refers to the actual capacity of performing a given task.

Others -- other components of job specification are recurrent from the previous sections and may include the title of the position, ordinary and extraordinary characteristics required from the occupant of the position, the main tasks of the job, or the expertise required from the candidate

4. Job Design

Introduction to Job Design

A major part in conducting a proper process of talent management is that of creating an adequate environment in which the organizational staff members feel free to professionally express themselves. It is crucial to set the basis of an environment which fosters creativity, originality, hard work, collaboration and even competition. A working medium in which the employees are encouraged to express their views, opinions, satisfactions and dissatisfactions related to the job they are performing or the workplace is often promoted as an organizational incentive. Modern day companies forward the idea of a pleasant working environment as a means of attracting more employees and improving their reputation.

Examples from Today's Corporations

The Starbucks website for instance states that while being an employee within the coffee monolith, "it's like working with friends."

Another example, whilst the list is extremely comprehensive and a few pages would be insufficient to simply state them, is given by Wal-Mart, the largest retailer within the United States. Their website argues that "as our more than 2.1 million associates can attest, working for Wal-Mart is the chance to be a part of a company unlike any other in the world. it's more than a job; it's a place to develop your skills and build a career with competitive pay and health benefits for you and your family. To work for Wal-Mart is to be welcomed into a diverse family, where the individual contributions of every associate are respected and valued. Above all, it's an opportunity to join a team 1.9 million strong who is helping the world live better every day."

Importance of Job Design

All the efforts undertaken by modern day managers to create a friendly and stimulating working environment are organized under the generic concept of job design. Organizational leaders engage in processes of job design as a means of increasing company results. The relationship between job design and organizational outcomes is simply portrayed below:

Job Design -- > Employee motivation and on-the-job satisfaction -- > Higher levels of employee performances -- > Increased organizational revenues

The specialized literature offers a multitude of definitions of job design, but all of these definitions state the same things, within a different formulation however. For didactical purposes, we will hereby define the concept of job design as the series of operations undertaken by organizational leaders with the threefold objective of maximizing the utility of the consumed resources, increasing organizational revenues and creating a working environment which fosters productive activities on the part of the staff members.