sound decisions regarding hierarchical positions and functional differentiation can be taken and

this will improve operationalefficiency.

3. Organization and Manpower Planning: It is helpful in organization planning, for it defines

labour in concrete terms and co-ordinates the activities of the work force, and clearly divides
duties and responsibilities.

4. Recruitment and Selection: Job analysis provides you with information on what the job
entails and what human requirements are required to carry out these activities. This information
is the basis onwhich you decide what sort of people to recruit and hire.

5. Placement and Orientation: Job analysis helps in matching the job requirements with the
abilities, interests and aptitudes of people. Jobs will be assigned to persons on the basis of
suitability for the job.
Theorientationprogrammewillhelptheemployeeinlearningtheactivitiesandunderstandingdutiest
hat are required to perform a given job more effectively.

6. Employee Training and Management Development: Job analysis provides the necessary
information to the management of training and development programmes. It helps in to
determine the content and subject matter of in training courses. It also helps in checking
application information, interviewing test results and in checking references.

7. Job Evaluation and Compensation: Job evaluation is the process of determining the
relative worth of different jobs in an organization with a view to link compensation, both basic
and supplementary, with the worth of the jobs. The worth of a job is determined on the basis
of job characteristics and job holder characteristics. Job analysis provides both in the forms of
job description and job specification.

8. Performance Appraisal: Performance appraisal involves comparing each employee’s

actual performance with his or her desired performance. Through job analysis industrial
engineers and other experts determine standards to be achieved and specific activities to be
performed.

9. Health and Safety: It provides an opportunity for identifying hazardous conditions and
unhealthy
environmentalfactorssothatcorrectivemeasuresmaybetakentominimizeandavoidthepossibilityo
f accidents.

10. Employee Counselling: Job analysis provides information about career choices and
personal limitation. Such information is helpful in vocational guidance and rehabilitation
counselling. Employees who are unable to cope with the hazards and demands of given jobs
may be advised to opt for subsidiary jobs or to seek premature retirement.
According to Dale Yoder, “The job specification, as such a summary properly described is
thus a specialized job description, emphasizing personnel requirement and designed especially
to facilitate selection and placement.”

A Job Specification should include:

1. Physical characteristics, which include health, strength, endurance, age, height,

weight, vision, voice, eye, hand and foot co-ordination, motor co-ordination, and colour
discrimination.
2. Psychological and social characteristics such as emotional stability, flexibility,
decision making ability, analytical view, mental ability, pleasing manners, initiative,
conversational ability etc.
3. Mental Characteristics such as general intelligence, memory, judgement, ability to
concentrate, foresight etc.
4. Personal Characteristics such as sex, education, family background, job experience,
hobbies, extracurricular activities etc.

Uses of Job Analysis

1. Achievement of Goals: Weather and Davis have stated, “Jobs are at the core of every
organization’s productivity, if they are designed well and done right, the organization makes
progress towards its objectives. Otherwise, productivity suffers, profits fall, and the
organization is less able to meet the demands of society, customer, employees, and other with
a stake in its success.”

2. Organizational Design: Job analysis will be useful in classifying the jobs and the
interrelationships among the jobs. On the basis of information obtained through job analysis,
Job Description

A Job description is a written statement of what the job holder actually does, how he or she
does it, and under what conditions the job is performed. This information is in turn used to
write a job specification. This lists the knowledge, abilities, and skills needed to perform the
job satisfactorily. While there is no standard format you must use in writing a job description,
most descriptions contain at least sections on:

1.Job Identification: Itincludesthejobtitle,alterativetitle,department,division,andplantand

code number of the job. The job title identifies and designates the job properly, the department,
division, etc., indicate the name of the department where it is situated – whether it is the
maintenance department, mechanical shop etc. Location gives the name of the place. This
portion of job description gives answer to two important questions: to what higher level job is
this job accountable. And who is supervised directly?

2. Job Summary: Job summary describes the contents of the jobs in terms of activities or tasks
performed. Job summary should clear the nature of the job. Primary, secondary and other duties
to be performed on the job should clearly be indicated separately.

3. Duties and Responsibilities: This is the most important phase of job description and should
be prepared very carefully. It describes the duties to be performed along with frequency of each
major duty. Responsibilities concerning custody of money, supervision and training of staff
etc.

5. Relation to Other Jobs: It describes the vertical and horizontal relationships f work flow.
It also indicates to whom the jobholder will report and who will report to him. It gives an idea
of channels of promotion.

6. Machine, tools and equipment define each major type or trade name of the machines and
tools and the raw materials used.

7. Working Conditions: The working environment in terms of heat, light, noise, dust and
fumes etc, the job hazards and possibility of their occurrence and working conditions should
also be described. It will be helpful in job evaluation.

8. Social Environment: It specifies the social conditions under which the work will be
performed. In this part the size of work group, interpersonal interactions required to perform
the job and development facilities are mentioned

Job Specification

The job specification states the minimum acceptable qualifications that the incumbent must
possess to perform the job successfully. Based on the information acquired through job
analysis, the job specification identifies the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to do the
job effectively. Individuals possessing the personal characteristics identified in the job
specification should perform the job more effectively than individuals lacking these personal
characteristics. The job specification, therefore, is a important tool in the selection process, for
it keeps the selector’s attention on the list of qualifications necessary for an incumbent to
perform the job and assists in determining whether candidates are qualified.
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: To do job analysis is a costly and time consuming process.
It is hence, necessary to select a representative sample of jobs for purposes of analysis.
Priorities of various jobs can also be determined. A job may be selected because it has
undergone undocumented changes in job content. The request for analysis of a job may
originate with the employee, supervisor, or a manager.

When the employee requests an analysis it is usually because new job demands have not been
reflected in changes in wages. Employee’s salaries are, in part, based upon the nature of the
work that they perform. Some organizations establish a time cycle for the analysis of each job.
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
qualification and requirements, should be collected either form the employees who actually
perform a job; or from other employees (such as foremen or supervisors) who watch the
workers doing a job and there by 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: Once job analysis information has been collected, the next
step is to place it in a form that will make it useful to those charged with the various personnel
functions. Several issues arise with respect to this. First, how much detail is needed? Second,
can the job analysis information be expressed in quantitative terms? These must be considered
properly.

6. Preparing Job Descriptions and Job Classifications: Job information which has been
collected must be processed to prepare the job description form. It is a statement showing full
details of the activities of the job. Separate job description forms may be used for various
activities in the job and may be compiled later on. The job analysis is made with the help of
these description forms. These forms may be used as reference for the future.

7. Developing Job Specifications: Job specifications are also prepared on the basis of
information collected. It is a statement of minimum acceptable qualities of the person to be
placed on the job. It specifies the standard by which the qualities of the person are measured.
Job analyst prepares such statement taking into consideration the skills required in performing
the job properly. Such statement is used in selecting a person matching with the job.
 STAFFING

Job Analysis Defined

Developing an organizational structure, results in jobs which have to be staffed. Job analysis is
the procedure through which you determine the duties and nature of the jobs and the kinds of
people (in terms of skills and experience) who should be hired for them.’ It provides you with
data on job requirements, which are then used for developing job descriptions (what the job
entails) and job specifications (what kind of people to hire for the job). Some of the definitions
of job analysis ate given as follows, to understand the meaning of the term more clearly:

According to Michael L. Jucius, “Job analysis refers to the process of studying the operations,
duties and organizational aspects of jobs in order to derive specifications or as they called by
some, job descriptions.”

Steps in Job Analysis

1. Determine the Use of the Job Analysis Information: Start by identifying the use to which
the information will be put, since this will determine the type of data you collect and the
technique you use to collect them.