Introduction

Workforce planning is focused on determining the organization’s quantitative and qualitative manpower requirements. This information is provided through job design and job analysis in hrm as it is one of the most complex difficulties in personnel planning is determining manpower requirements. It is necessary to grasp the terminologies used in job design and job analysis in hrm before proceeding with the method of job analysis and job design.

Job: A job may be defined as a “collection or aggregation of tasks, duties, and responsibilities which as a whole, are regarded as a regular assignment to individual employees,” and which is different from other assignments, In other words, when the total work to be done is divided and grouped into packages, we call it a “job.”

Each job has a definite title based upon standardized trade specifications within a job; two or more grades may be identified, where the work assignment may be graded according to skill, the difficulty of doing them, or the quality of workmanship. Thus, it may be noted that a position is a “collection o tasks and responsibilities regularly assigned to one person;” while a job is a “group of positions, which involve essentially the same duties, responsibilities, skill, and knowledge.” A position consists of a particular set of duties assigned to an individual.

Decenzo and P. Robbins define other terms of job analysis in hrm as follows: 

Task: It is a distinct work activity carried out for a distinct purpose. 

Duty: It is a number of tasks. 

Position: It refers to one or more duties performed by one person in an organization, There are at least as many positions as there are workers in the organization; vacancies may create more positions than employees. 

Job: It is a type of position within the organization. 

Job Family: It is a group of two or more jobs that either call for similar worker characteristics or contain parallel work tasks as determined by the job analysis. 

Occupation: It is a group of similar jobs found across organizations. 

Career: It represents a sequence of positions, jobs, or occupations that a person has over his working life. 

Uses of Job Analysis

 The following uses explain the importance of job analysis in hrm

1. Achievement of Goals:

Weather and Davis have stated, “Jobs are at the heart of every organization’s productivity; if they are well-designed and executed correctly, the organization advances toward its goals. Otherwise, productivity decreases, profitability declines, and the business is less able to satisfy the needs of society, consumers, workers, and others who have a vested interest in its success.”

2. Organizational Design:

Job analysis in hrm will be beneficial in categorizing occupations and determining their interrelationships. On the basis of job analysis information, sensible judgments on hierarchical positions and functional differentiation can be made, improving operational efficiency.

3. Organization and Manpower Planning:

It is useful in organizational planning because it defines labor in tangible terms, organizes worker operations, and clearly allocates jobs and responsibilities.

4. Recruitment and Selection:

Job analysis in hrm informs you about what the job includes and what human resources are necessary to carry out these activities. This information serves as the foundation for determining who to attract and hire.

5. Placement and Orientation:

Job analysis assists in aligning job needs with people’s talents, interests, and aptitudes. Jobs will be assigned to people based on their qualifications. The orientation program will assist the employee in learning the activities and duties necessary to perform a given job with more efficiency.

6. Employee Training and Management Development:

Job analysis gives the required information to training and development program managers. It aids in the development of training course content and topic matter. It also aids in the verification of application information, interview test results, and reference checks. 

7. Job Evaluation and Compensation:

Job evaluation is the method of establishing the relative worth of various occupations within an organization in order to match remuneration, both basic and supplemental, with the value of the positions. A job’s worth is defined by job qualities and job holder attributes. Both are provided by job analysis in the form of job descriptions and job specifications.

8. Performance Appraisal:

Each employee’s actual performance is compared to his or her desired performance in performance appraisal. Industrial engineers and other professionals use job analysis to identify the requirements and the precise activities to be completed.

9. Health and Safety:

It allows for the identification of dangerous circumstances and unhealthy environmental elements, allowing for remedial actions to be made to minimize and prevent the incidence of accidents.

10. Employee Counselling:

Job analysis in hrm informs about professional options and personal constraints. This type of information is useful in vocational counseling and rehabilitation counseling. Employees who are unable to cope with the risks and responsibilities of their occupations may be urged to seek alternative employment or retire early.

Steps in Job Analysis

The process of job analysis in hrm occurs by implementing the following steps

1. Determine the Use of the Job Analysis Information:

Start by selecting the use to which the information will be put as this will define the sort of data you gather and the technique you employ to acquire them.

2. Collection of Background Information:

According to Terry, “The make-up of a job, its relation to other jobs, and its requirements for competent performance are essential information needed for a job evaluation.

This information can be had by reviewing available background information such as organization charts (which show how the job in question relates to other jobs and where they fit into the overall organization); class specifications (which describe the general requirements of the class of job to which the job under analysis belongs); and the existing job descriptions which provide a starting point from which to build the revised job description”. 

3. Selection of Jobs for Analysis:

job analysis in hrm is usually an expensive and time-consuming operation. As a result, a representative sample of employment must be chosen for examination. The importance of certain jobs can also be evaluated. A job may be chosen due to undocumented changes in work content.

The request for work analysis may come from the employee, supervisor, or management. When an employee seeks an analysis, it is generally because new work requirements have not been reflected in compensation adjustments. Employees’ pay is determined in part by the kind of work that they undertake. Some firms create a time cycle for analyzing each work. For example, A job analysis may be required for all jobs every three years. New jobs must also be subjected to analysis. 

4. Collection of Job Analysis Data:

Job data on features of the job, requited employee qualifications and requirements, should be collected either from the employees who actually perform a job; or from other employees (such as foremen or supervisors) who watch the workers doing a job and thereby acquire knowledge about it; or from the outside persons, known as the trade job analysis who are appointed to watch employees performing a job. The duties of such a trade job analyst are

(i) to outline the complete scope of a job and to consider all the physical and mental activities involved in determining what the worker does.;

(ii) find out why a worker does a job; and for this purpose, he studies why each task is essential for the overall result; and

(iii) the skill factor which may be needed in the worker to differentiate between jobs and establish the extent of the difficulty of any job. 

5. Processing the Information:

After collecting job analysis information, the following step is to arrange it such that it is helpful to individuals in charge of various personnel responsibilities. Several concerns occur in this regard. To begin, how much detail is required? Second, can the job analysis data be stated quantitatively? These must be carefully evaluated.

6. Preparing Job Descriptions and Job Classifications:

The job information that has been gathered must be processed in order to create the job description form. It is a statement that includes all of the job’s actions. Separate work description forms for various actions on the job may be utilized and assembled afterward. These job description forms are used to conduct the job analysis. These forms may be used as future references. 

7. Developing Job Specifications:

Job requirements are also created based on the information gathered. It is a declaration of the minimum acceptable attributes of the individual to be hired. It establishes the benchmark against which the person’s characteristics are judged. A job analyst creates such a statement by considering the abilities necessary to do the job correctly. A remark like this is utilized to find the right individual for the position.

Methods for Collecting Job Analysis Data 

1. Participant Diary/Logs:

Workers may be required to keep participation diaries/long lists of what they do during the day. Every activity that the employee performs is recorded in a log (together with the time). This can provide you with a very detailed picture of the job, especially when combined with following interviews with the individual and his or her supervisor. If used correctly, this procedure yields more accurate results. It is, however, time demanding.

Furthermore, each job holder may keep records in his or her own manner, which causes complications with analysis later on. As a result, its use is limited.

2. Interview:

Individual interviews with each employee, group interviews with groups of employees who have the same job, and supervisor interviews with one or more supervisors who are extensively informed about the job being examined are the three types of interviews you may use to collect job analysis data.

When a big number of employees are conducting similar or identical work, a group interview is employed since it is a rapid and economical approach to learning about the job. In most cases, the worker’s immediate supervisor will attend the group session; if not, you should interview the supervisor separately to acquire their viewpoint on the job’s duties and responsibilities.

3. Critical Incidents:

In this approach, prospective candidates are invited to narrate situations related to the work based on their prior experience. The occurrences are examined and grouped based on the work areas they depict. By discriminating between productive and poor workplace actions, a realistic image of actual job needs may be obtained. This procedure, however, is time-consuming. To analyze the contents of worker descriptions, the analyst must have a high skill level.

4. Technical Conference Method:

Supervisors with significant job expertise are used in this strategy. Specific job features are collected from “experts,” and while this is an excellent data-gathering strategy, it sometimes ignores the incumbent worker’s opinion of what they accomplish on the job.

5. Job Performance:

The job analyst uses this approach to gain first-hand experience with real tasks and the work’s physical and social demands. This strategy is only appropriate for professions with modest skill needs that can be taught fast and readily. This is a time-consuming strategy that is not suitable for vocations that require substantial training.

6. Functional Job Analysis:

Functional Job Analysis (FJA) is an employee-oriented analytical approach to job analysis in hrm. This approach attempts to describe the whole person on the job. The main features of FJA include the following:  The extent to which specific instructions are necessary to perform the task  The extent to which reasoning and judgment are required to perform the task  The mathematical ability required to perform the task and  The verbal and language facilities required to perform the task. 

7. Observation Method:

A job analyst uses this strategy to observe employees on the job. Observations are made on various tasks and activities, the rate at which tasks are completed, and the manner in which such activities are carried out. This strategy is appropriate for tasks with manual, standardized, and short job cycle activities. This strategy also necessitates that the complete spectrum of actions is visible, which is feasible in some jobs.

8. Questionnaires:

Engineering consultants are the most likely to use this strategy. Job applicants are handed properly designed questionnaires to complete and return to supervisors. However, the material provided is frequently disorganized and incoherent. The goal of distributing questionnaires is to extract the relevant information from job applicants so that any errors may be discussed with the employee first and then provided to the job analyzer after repairs.

Because many employees do not complete the questionnaire or provide incorrect information due to their own limitations, this technique is time-consuming and generally does not produce satisfactory results. Only in the case of technical jobs where the job contents are not completely known to the supervisor or the operation is too complex to observe is the use of a questionnaire recommended.

A few agencies have developed standardized questionnaires that are used by various organizations for job analysis.

The majority of these questionnaires fall into two categories: position analysis questionnaires and management position description questionnaires, which are described below:

Position Analysis Questionnaire

The position analysis questionnaire (PAQ) is a highly specialized instrument for analyzing job activities. Purdue University’s PAQ is a comprehensive questionnaire for gathering information for job analysis.

Various job elements have been grouped into six categories in this questionnaire, with each category containing relevant job elements, resulting in 195 elements as shown in the Table.

PAQ has the advantage of providing a quantitative score or profile of any job in terms of how that job rates on the fundamental activities. Thus, the PAQ’s true strength is in job classification. The results of PAQ can be used to compare jobs to one another, and pay levels can be assigned to each job.

The main issue with PAQ is the amount of time it takes for a job analyst to complete the ratings. PAQ, on the other hand, has been extensively researched and tested, and it appears to be both reliable and valid.

Management Position Description Questionnaire: A management position description questionnaire is a highly structured questionnaire with 208 items relating to managerial responsibilities, restrictions, demands, and other position characteristics. W.W. Tomov and P.R. Pinto created the following Factors influencing management position description

The methods listed above are the most commonly used for gathering job analysis data. They all provide accurate information about what job holders actually do. As a result, they can be used to create job descriptions and job specifications. Caroll L. Shartle, Otis, and Lenhert have made the following recommendations for making the job analyst’s job easier.

• Introduce yourself so that the worker knows who you are and why you are there.
• Show a sincere interest in the worker and the job that is analyzed;
• Do not try to tell the employee how to do his job.
• Try to talk to the employee and supervisors in their own language;
• Do a complete job study within the objectives of the programmer: and
• Verify the job information obtained.

Job analysis in hrm, as now we know, is the process of identifying and assessing in depth the contents of a certain position, so precisely outlining the job’s duties, responsibilities, accountabilities, and capabilities. An essential component of job analysis in hrm is that it is performed on the work and on the individual.

The procedure of job analysis in hrm yields two types of data:

• Job Description -A written declaration contains detailed information about a job, such as the job title, duties, tasks, responsibilities, working conditions and dangers, reporting relationships, tools, machinery, and equipment to be utilized, and relationships with other roles.
  
• Job Specification – It specifies the skills an individual should have to do the job effectively. This comprises education, experience, training, and the necessary skills, knowledge, and abilities to execute the job.

Job Description

Job descriptions are the immediate result of the job analysis process; the data gathered through job analysis serves as the foundation for job descriptions and job specifications.

A job description is a written record of a job’s duties, responsibilities, and requirements. It is concerned with the job itself, not with the people who hold it. It is a statement that describes the job’s title, location, duties, working conditions, and hazards.

According to Flippo, “A job description is an organized, factual statement of duties and responsibilities of a specific job. In brief, it should tell what is to be done. How it is done why. It is a standard of function, in that defines the appropriate and authorized content of a job.

According to Pigors and Myres, “Job description is a pertinent picture (in writing) of the organizational relationships, responsibilities and specific duties that constitutes a given job or position. It defines a scope of responsibility and continuing work assignments that are sufficiently different from that of other jobs to warrant a specific title.

“Job description” is not the same as “performance evaluation.” The former is concerned with functions such as planning, coordination, and responsibility assignment, whereas the latter is concerned with the quality of the performance itself. Though job descriptions are not assessed, they serve as an important foundation for establishing assessment standards and objectives.

Writing Job Description

A job description is a written statement that describes what the job holder does, how he or she does it, and under what conditions the job is done. This data is then used to create a job specification.

This section outlines the knowledge, abilities, and skills required to do the job well. While there is no standard format for writing a job description, most descriptions include sections on:

Job identification: It includes the job title, alternate title, department, division, and plant, as well as the job code number. The job title properly identifies and designates the job, while the department, division, and so on, indicate the name of the department where it is located – whether it is the maintenance department, mechanical shop, or so on. The name of the location is given by location. This section of the job description answers two critical questions: to what higher-level job is this job accountable? And who is directly supervised?

Job Summary: A job summary describes the job’s contents in terms of activities or tasks performed. The nature of the job should be made clear in the job summary. The primary, secondary, and other duties to be performed on the job should be clearly identified.

Duties and Responsibilities: This is the most important part of the job description and should be thoroughly prepared. It outlines the tasks to be completed as well as the frequency of each major duty. This section also covers responsibilities such as money custody, staff supervision and training, and so on.

Supervision: It specifies the number of people to be supervised, as well as their job titles and the level of supervision required (general, intermediate, or close supervision).

Relationship to Other Jobs: It describes the vertical and horizontal workflow relationships. It also specifies who will report to the jobholder and who will report to him. It provides an idea of promotion channels.

Each major type or trade name of the machines and tools, as well as the raw materials used, is defined by machine, tools, and equipment.

Working Conditions: The working environment should be described in terms of heat, light, noise, dust, and fumes, as well as job hazards and the possibility of their occurrence. It will aid in job evaluation.

Social Responsibilities: It specifies the social conditions under which the work will be carried out. This section discusses the size of the workgroup, the interpersonal interactions required to perform the job, and the development facilities.

Job Specification

The job specification specifies the minimum acceptable qualifications that the incumbent must have in order to successfully perform the job. The job specification identifies the knowledge, skills, and abilities required to do the job effectively based on the information gleaned from job analysis.

Individuals who possess the personal characteristics identified in the job specification should perform the job more effectively than those who do not. As a result, a job specification is an important tool in the selection process because it keeps the selector’s attention on the list of qualifications required for an incumbent to perform the job and helps determine whether candidates are qualified.

According to Dale Yoder, “The job specification, as such a summary properly described is thus a specialized job description, emphasizing personnel requirements and designed especially to facilitate selection and placement.”

According to Flippo“Job specification is a statement of the minimum acceptable human qualities necessary to perform a job properly ………….. It is a standard of personnel and designates the qualities required for acceptable performance.”

It is clear from the above definitions that a job specification is a statement or summary of personnel
requirements for a job. It may also be called the “standard of personal for the selection”

A Job Specification should include:

(i) Physical characteristics, which include health, strength, endurance, age, height, weight, vision,
voice, eye, hand, and foot coordination, motor coordination, and color discrimination.
(ii) Psychological and social characteristics such as emotional stability, flexibility, decision-making ability, analytical view, mental ability, pleasing manners, initiative, conversational ability, etc.
(iii) Mental Characteristics such as general intelligence, memory, judgment, ability to concentrate, foresight, etc.
(iv) Personal Characteristics such as sex, education, family background, job experience, hobbies, extracurricular activities, etc.

All these characteristics must be classified into three categories:

• Essential attributes which a person must possess.

• Desirable attributes which a person ought to possess.

• Contra indicators that will become a handicap to successful job performance

Job Design

Job design is of comparatively recent origin. Human resource managers have realized that the design of a job has a considerable influence on productivity and job satisfaction; poorly designed jobs often result in boredom for the employees, increased turnover, job dissatisfaction, low productivity, and an increase in the overall costs of the organization. All these negative consequences can be avoided with the help of proper job design.

According to Jon Werner and DeSimone, “Job design is the development and alteration of the
components of a job (such as the tasks one performs, and the scope of one’s responsibilities) to improve productivity and the quality of the employees’ work life.”

Job design has been defined by Davis (1966) as: “The specification of the contents, methods, and relationships of jobs in order to satisfy technological and organizational requirements as well as the social and personal requirements of the job-holder.”

Milkovich and Boudreau defined job design as, “Job design integrates work content (tasks, functions, and relationships), the rewards (extrinsic and intrinsic), and the qualifications required (skills, knowledge, abilities) for each job in a way that meets the needs of employees and the organization.”

Michael Armstrong has defined job design as “the process of deciding on the content of a job in
terms of its duties and responsibilities, the methods to be used in carrying out the job, terms of techniques, systems, and procedures, and on the relationships that should exist between the job holder and his superiors, subordinates, and colleagues.”

Job design is an attempt to create a match between job requirements and human attributes. It involves organizing the components of the job and the interaction patterns among the members of a workgroup. It helps in developing the appropriate design of the job to improve efficiency and satisfaction.

Principles of Job Design:

Principles are the bases of the approach used in job design. Robertson and Smith (1985) have suggested
the following five principles of job design:

• To influence skill variety, provide opportunities for people to do several tasks and combine

tasks.

• To influence task identity, combine tasks from natural work units.

• To influence task significance, form natural work units, and inform people of the importance of

their work.

• To influence autonomy, give people responsibility for determining their own working systems.

• To influence feedback; establish a good relationship and open feedback channels.

Methods of Job Design

The various techniques of job design and redesign are discussed below:

Job Simplification:
In job simplification, the complete job is broken down into small subparts; this is done so that employees can do these jobs without much-specialized training. Moreover, small operations of the job can also be performed simultaneously so that the complete operation can be done more quickly. For job simplification, generally, time and motion studies are used.

Job Rotation:
Another technique for increasing employee motivation is job rotation, which involves assigning employees to alternating jobs or tasks on a regular basis. For example, an employee may spend two weeks attaching bumpers to vehicles and the next two weeks performing final chassis checks.

The same employee may be assigned to two different jobs over the next month. As a result, the employee would be rotated between four jobs. The benefit of job rotation is that employees are not assigned to the same routine job every day. Job rotation only addresses the issue of assigning employees to limited-scope jobs; the depth of the job remains unchanged. The job cycle for actual daily work has not been extended or changed. Employees are instead simply assigned to different jobs with different cycles.

Job rotation is criticized as nothing more than having an employee perform several boring and monotonous jobs rather than one because it does not change the basic nature of jobs. Some employees dislike job rotation more than being assigned to one boring job because they know exactly where to report and what work to expect each day when they are assigned to one job. Employees quickly realize that job rotation does not increase their enthusiasm for their jobs.

Although it rarely addresses a lack of employee motivation, it does provide managers with a method of dealing with frequent absenteeism and high turnover. As a result, when there is absenteeism or turnover in the workplace, managers can quickly fill the vacated position because each employee can perform multiple tasks.

Job rotation is frequently used as an effective training technique for new, inexperienced employees. Rotation also aids in the development of managerial generalists at higher organizational levels by exposing them to a variety of operations.

Advantages of Job Rotation Technique:

• The employee experiences a variety of work, workplace, and peer groups.
• Job rotation helps to broaden the knowledge and skills of an employee.
• The main advantage of job rotation is that it relieves the employee from boredom and the monotony of doing the same job.
• With the help of this method, people become more flexible. They are prepared to assume responsibility, especially in other positions.
• Job rotation broadens the work experience of employees and turns specialists into generalists.
• It is beneficial for the management also as the management gets employees who can perform a variety of tasks to meet the contingencies.
• This method improves the self-image and personal worth of the employee.

Disadvantages of the Job Rotation Technique:

• Job rotation also creates disruptions. Members of the workgroup have to adjust to the new employee.
• Productivity is reduced by moving a worker into a new position just when his efficiency at the prior job was creating organizational economies.
• Training costs are increased.
• The supervisor may also have to spend more time answering questions and monitoring the work of the recently rotated employee.
• It can demotivate intelligent and ambitious trainees who seek specific responsibilities in their chosen specialty

Conclusion

The purpose of an organization is to give each person a separate distinct job and to ensure that these jobs are coordinated in such a way that the organization accomplishes its goals. Developing an organizational structure results in jobs that have to be staffed. Job analysis is the procedure through which you find out

(1) what the job entails? and

(2) what kinds of people should be hired for the job?

It involves six steps:

(1) determine the use of the job analysis information;
(2) collection of background information;

(3) selection of jobs for analysis;

(4) collection of job analysis data;

(5) processing the information;

(6) preparing job descriptions and job classifications; and

(7) developing job specifications.

Job description and job specification are products of job analysis in hrm. The job description should indicate: the duties to be performed by the job holder and the manner he should complete the tasks. Job specification: answer the question “what human traits and experience are necessary to do the job. It portrays what kind of person to recruit and for what qualities that person should be tested

Job design is an attempt to create a match between job requirements and job attributes. Job rotation implies transfer to a job of the same level and status. Job simplification enables the employees to do this without much-specialized training. Job analysis is a helpful tool for HR when managing responsibilities in difficult times such as inflation.