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Chapter 4 slides
Job:
- A group of related activities
Position:
- The different responsibilities performed by an employee
Job family
- A group of individual jobs with similar characteristics
Relationship of job requirement and HRM functions
- Recruitment
- Recruiters need to know the job specifications for the positions they fill are to
fill before they can find employees
- Job specification
- A statement of the needed knowledge, skills, and abilities of the person
who is to perform the job
- Serve an essential role in the recruiting function provide a basis for attracting
qualified applicants and discouraging unqualified ones
Relationship of job requirements and HRM functions
- Selections
- Job description
- A statement of the tasks, duties, and responsibilities of the job to be
performed
- According to hrcc, job description must be reviewed annually to ensure they are
congruent with the organization’s strategic direction and structure
Relationship of job requirements and hrm functions
- Training and development
- Performance appraisal
- Compensation management
- Legal compliance
Job analysis
- The process of obtaining information about jobs by determining the duties, tasks, or
activities of jobs
- Aka the cornerstone of HRM because info it collects serves many hrm functions
- Should outline tools needed to do the job, the environment, times at which it needs to
be done, the people with whom it needs to be done and the outcome or performance
level it should produce
Gathering job information:
- common methods of analyzing jobs are through
1. Interviews
2. Questionnaires
3. Observations
4. Diaries
Controlling the accuracy of job information
- A job analyst should be alert for employees who tend to exaggerate difficulties to inflate
their egos and paycheque
- Care must be taken to ensure all facts about the job are included
- National occupational classification is composed of the labor market
- To compile, analyze, and communicate info about jobs
Approaches to job analysis
- Job analysis serves to justify job descriptions and other hrm selection procedures
Popular methods
- Position analysis questionnaire
- The critical incident method
- Task inventory analysis
- Functional job analysis
- Competency based analysis
Job descriptions:
- Vary in terms from appearance
1. Job title
2. Job identification section
a. Distinguishes job from other jobs
3. Job duties or essential functions
4. Job specification section skills
Job design:
- Outgrowth of job analysis that improves jobs through tech and human considerations
to enhance org. Efficiency and employee satisfaction
- Job design is a combination of four considerations
1. The organizational objectives the job was created to fulfill
2. Behavioral concerns that influence an employee’s job satisfaction
a. Job enrichment
i. Adding more meaningful tasks and duties to make work more
rewarding
3. Industrial engineering considerations
a. A field of study with analyzing work methods and establishing time
standards
4. Ergonomic concerns
a. Equipment design must consider the physical abilities of operators to
use the equipment and react through vision, hearing, and touch to the
way the equipment operates
Designing jobs to boost employee satisfaction
- Objective is to design jobs that fulfill the high motivational needs of employees, such as
self-fulfillment and self esteem whilst achieving long term satisfaction and
performance goals
3 perspective that are useful
1. Job enrichment
2. Job characteristics model
3. Empowerment
Job enrichment
- Enhancing a job by adding more meaningful tasks and duties to make the work more
satisfying
Job characteristics model
- Job design theory that purports that three psychological states (experiencing
meaningfulness of the work performed, responsibility for work outcomes, and
knowledge of the results of the work performed) of a jobholder result in improved
work performance, internal motivation, and lower absenteeism and turnover
Employee empowerment
- A technique involving employees in their work through the process of inclusion
- Encourages employees to become innovators and managers of their own work and
involve them in their jobs in ways that give them more control and autonomous
decision making capabilities
Job crafting
- Employees mold their tasks to better fit their individual strengths, passions and
motives
Employee teams
Logical outgrowth of employee involvement and the philosophy of empowerment
• Can operate in a variety of structures, each with different strategic purposes or functional
activities.
• Working in a group has been shown to enhance collaboration and increase synergy in the
workplace
• Common team forms include self-directed and high-performance teams.
• Typical team functions include setting work schedules, managing inventory, and purchasing
equipment or services.
• Virtual teams use advanced computer and telecommunications technology to link team
members who are geographically dispersed, often worldwide
• became the norm during the COVID-19 pandemic 4-17
Characteristics of successful teams
- Commitment to shared goals
- Motivated and energetic
- Open and honest
- Shared leadership
- Clear role assignment
- Climate of cooperation
- Recognition of conflict
Flexible work schedules
- Compressed workweek
- Less days but more hours per day
- Flextime
- Flexible working hours, employees choose when to start and when to finish
- Job sharing
- Arrangement where 2 part time employees perform a job that would be done by
one full time employee
- Telecommuting/remote work
- Working asynchronously
- - hybrid work
- Jobs that allows for employees to work remote some days and in person others
Textbook notes
Relationship of the job requirement and HRM functions
- A job is a group of related activities and duties
- Generally these units of work will be smaller and related to each other
- Some jobs require multiple people to do them, in employee that fulfills a job is known
as a position
- A positions is a group of different duties and responsibilities performed by one
employee
- Ex: 4 employees (the same position) work as a cashiers (the job)
- Certain jobs that are similar can be grouped together to form a job family
Strategic HRP
- Information about a job is used to examine a company’s structure and strategic
position for the future
- Does the company have the right quality and quantity of employees to cover their
scope of activities
- What skills do they require
- Are those skills different from the skills required by the company’s current jobs
Recruitment
- Before a company can look for and hire employees, they need to know what the job
they need will entail
- This is known as job specification
- A statement of the needed knowledge, skills and abilities of the person who is to
perform the job
- They provide a basis for what a job needs to attract qualified applicants and
discourage unqualified applicants
Selection:
- In addition to job specifications, managers and supervisors use job descriptions to
select employees and orient them to jobs
- A job description is a statement of the tasks, duties and responsibilities of a job
- In canada, all job descriptions have to be reviewed annually to make changes, even
minor ones to the job
- Might be needed to be reviewed by unions to make sure they are accurate and
unbiased
Training and development
- Any gaps between the chosen applicant and the job specifications provide clues on
where training is required
- As time has gone by, employees have been needing more time and money to be trained
Performance appraisal
- The requirements in the job description provide the criteria for evaluation for the
holder of the job
- The results of these evaluations may rebel that certain aspects of the job description
and specifications were invalid towards the necessities of the job
Compensation management
- In determining the rate to be paid for performing a job, the worth of a job is an
important factor
- The worth is determined on what the job demands of an employee
- Skills
- Effort
- Responsibility
Legal compliance
- A systematic collection of job data ensures that job duties match the job description
- If criteria used to hire is vague and unrelated to skills needed in the job, companies are
more likely to be accused of discrimination
Job analysis
- Actions within a company must be organized
- Each person has to be doing what they do best
- How should work be divided?
- Job analysis is the process of obtaining information about jobs by determining the
duties, tasks, or activities those of those jobs
- Is completed by following a series of steps creating a written report on
information obtained through analysis
- HR managers use this data to develop job descriptions, job specifications
- So in turn, job analysis are used to perform and enhance HR functions
- The ultimate goal of job analysis is to increase performance and productivity
Getting information for job analysis
- Job data may be obtained through several ways
1. Interviews
a. Job analysts may question individuals employees and managers about the job
under review
2. Questionnaires
a. The job analyst may circulate prepared questionnaires to be filled out
individually
b. These questions will consist of what the job entails, what tasks are performed,
requirements for completing the tasks
3. Observations
a. Job analysts may also learn about jobs by observing and recording the activities
of employees
4. Diaries
a. Jobholders may be asked to keep diaries of their work activities during a work
cycle
b. Diaries are generally filled for specific periods of time (every half an hour or
hour) and maintained for a 2-4 week period
Controlling the accuracy of job information
- Data collected must be accurate in order to create efficient and unbiased job
descriptions and specifications
- To do this, all important factors must be included
- Employees may exaggerate the difficulty of their job to inflate their egos and their
paychecks
- The interviewing, job analysts find outliers in the data that might be biased and does
not agree with the information collected and review the accuracy of these outliers
- If a job analyst doubts the accuracy of their information, they should seek further
details about the people who provided the information or from people who have
similar or the same job
NOC and job analysis
- The national occupational classification is compiled by the federal government
- The purpose of NOC is to compile, analyze and communicate information about a job
- This information and be used for employment equity, hr planning, occupational supply
and demand forecast and analyses
- The NOC is a composite of canadian labor and has helped bring uniformity in job
descriptions used by different employers in different parts of the nation
Approaches to job analysis
- 5 methods
1. Position analysis questionnaire system
2. Critical incident method
3. Task inventory analysis
4. Functional job analysis
5. Competency based analysis
The position analysis questionnaire system
- The position analysis questionnaire is also known as PAQ
- A data collection method covering 195 different tasks put onto a scale from 1 5o 5
- People taking the questionnaire would then have to rate each task from involvement of
each task in the job
- To perform PAQ, background info must be analyzed and observations about the job and
interviews with the job holders to assess job content
- Paq tasks are listed in 6 categories
1. Information input
2. Mental processes
3. Work output
4. Relationships with other workers
5. Job context
6. Other
Critical incident method
- Consists of determining the most important duties and responsibilities of a job that
leads to success known as critical job tasks
- These tasks can be determined by interviews or through self report statement
- Ex:
- A hotel manager asks a receptionist what the most important aspects of their
job is, records this information and accurately writes about the information
gathered which results in a clear, complete, and easily available report on that
the major responsibilities of the being a receptionist
Task inventory method
- Task inventory analysis is similar to PAQ, but is much more specific to a company and
the specific roles within that company rather than a broad scope and general
explanation of what a job entails
- This is done by creating a list of tasks and their descriptions that are components of
different jobs
- The goal is to produce a comprehensible list of tasks that are applicable to all jobs
Functional job analysis
- The functional job analysis (FJA) approach uses an inventory of the various types of
work activities that can constitute any job
- Basic activities called worker functions are used to describe that workers do regarding
information, people and things as part of this system
Competency based analysis
- This method for job information collection assumes job stay static
- Ie they do not change over time other than the people who perform them
- This analysis focuses on collected the responsibilities and activities of jobs and the
worker competencies for organizational success
HRIS and job analysis
- HRIS have greatly facilitate the job analysis process
- It allows companies to generate job analysis using computer software
- The software will analyze jobs, create job descriptions, and job specifications bose on
analyses using key and generalized task statement that can apply to many different jobs
- A manager will select the statements that best fit the job description and the
software will generate the analysis
Job description:
- A job description is a well written description of the duties a job includes
- Most jobs have at least 3 parts, a job title, a job identification section and duties section
- If job specifications are not prepared as a separate document, they are usually stated in
the concluding section of a job description
Job title
- Selection of a job title is important
- Is provides appeal to applicants
- Sanitation engineer will sound better than garbage collector
- It tells applicants what the job entails
- Meat inspector, engineer, electronics assembler all provide hints to what a job
will entail
- They should also imply the hierarchy of the organization
- Junior engineer implies the job is a more lower level entry position, compared
to senior engineer
Job identification section
- The job identification section of a job description usually follows the job title
- Includes location
- The boss of the job
- The date the job description was last revised
Duties section
- Usually arranged in order of importance
- Usually, but not always, importance can be determined by the amount of time devoted
to each task
- The statement should include all the responsibilities the job entails
- Tools and equipment used in the job are also important
Job specification section
- Contains the skills and qualifications required to do the job
- Covers 2 areas
1. The skills required to do the job
a. Education, experience, relevant training
2. Physical demands the job places on the employee performing it
- Should also include interpersonal skills or key competencies necessary for success
Problems with job descriptions
1. If poorly written, they are not useful
2. Sometimes not up to date as jobs change over time
3. May violate legal compliances by providing unrelated specification to success towards
the job
4. They can limit the scope of activities in the job, reducing flexibility for the person hired
Writing a clear and specific job description
- Direct and simply worded statements
- Competency based job descriptions may also be used to highlight the key components
and necessities of the job
- Skills and knowledge must be clear and ability to perform each specific task
Job design
- An outgrowth of job analysis that is concerned with structuring jobs to improve
efficiency and improve satisfaction
- Job analysis is about understanding the job, job design is about changing the
fundamental of a job to better fit the need of a company
- It should take into consideration the necessities and goals of the company, but also the
capabilities and needs of the potential hirees
Components of job design
1. Organizational objectives of the job, including tasks, duties, and responsibilities to be
performed
2. Industrial engineering concerns on efficient production processes and work method
improvements
3. Behavioral concerns reflected in the different talents, abilities and skills of employees
4. Ergonomic considerations involving human capabilities and limitations
Motivational considerations
- When designing a job, the job must provide motivation for the people doing it
Job enrichment
- Any efforts to make the job more rewarding or satisfying by adding more meaningful
tasks to an employee’s job is called job enrichment
- It is about fulfilling the motivational needs of self fulfillment and self esteem
- Can be done by providing more autonomy and freedom
5 factors of job enrichment
1. Increasing the difficulty of the job
2. Allowing employees to have more authority and control over the outcomes of the work
3. Providing unit or individual job performance reports directly to employees
4. Adding new tasks to the job that require training and growth
5. Assigning individual specific tasks enabling employees to use their personal, unique
skills
Job characteristics
- The job characteristics model proposed that three mental states of a job holder results
in improved work performance, internal motivation, and lowe absenteeism and
turnover
1. A motivated employee experiences meaning in their work
2. Experiences responsibility for the positive outcomes
3. Has knowledge of the results of the work performed
5 job characteristics
1. Skill variety
a. The degree to which a job requires many skills to complete the tasks
2. Task identity
a. The degree to which the job requires completion of the whole and identifiable
piece of work
3. Task significance
a. The degree to which the task influences the life of other
4. Autonomy
a. The degree to which a job provides freedom
5. Feedback
a. The degree to which a job provides clear information about the effectiveness in
their performance
Employee empowerment
- The process of allowing employees to alter their jobs
- A technique of involving employees in their work through inclusion
- Encourages employees to become innovative
Job crafting
- The process of employees slowly molding their jobs to fit their strengths]
Industrial engineering considerations
- Making the business as efficient as possible by reducing wasted time, money, energy or
other important resources
- Making things as efficient as possible is an important aspect of job design
Ergonomic considerations
- Ergonomics is the study of people at work and the practice of matching jobs to the
limitations of human capability
- It is about making sure jobs are designed for safe and efficient work for the human
body
- For example, a job cannot focus too heavily on sitting down, because it will cause back
problems, this is a ergonomic consideration
Job crafting and carving
- Job crafting is the process of altering a job to fit the strengths of an employee
- By changin the tasks done in the job
- By changing the relationship within the job
- A employee may create a relationship with another employee and choose to
separate the work evenly based upon strengths and weaknesses
- They can also change the work by changing their philosophy towards the work
- The job of a zoo keeper is to feed and clean for animals, but many of
them tell themselves what they are doing is morally correct
- They can also change their philosophy to emphasize what they like about their
job and avoid thinking about what they dislike
Job carving
- The process of a management role changing a job to make it accommodating for a
disability
Designing work for groups and teams
- To design a group to work together, hr must enhance collaboration and increase
synergy
Employee involvement groups
- Groups of 5 to 10 employees doing similar or related work who meet regularly to
identify, analyze and suggest solutions to shared problems are called employee
involvement groups
- They foster communication among the team
- Starts with brainstorming about the issue at hand
- Eventually certain ideas are picked and tried as solutions, if they work the EIG gets
benefited accordingly
Employee teams
- A group of people whos work is structured for a group rather than individual people
- People who work side by side that share complementary skills to complete a task
- They share credit and responsibility
- Team work also leads to synergy, the process of a greater benefit working together
compared to doing the task by oneself
Virtual teams
- A team with widely dispersed members linked through technology
- Can be hard for team member to bond
- Harder for informal leader to surface
- Harder to create a work culture
- To fix this companies can create virtual team building activities
- Camp games/challenges on zoom
Flexible work schedules
- The process of allowing employees to work in time periods preferred by them
Compressed workweek
- Fewer days to work, but more hours put in
Pros:
- Recruitment and retention of employees
- Constraining time encourages quality time
- Reduced stress
- Improved work life balance
- Increased productivity
Flextime:
- The process of permitting employees to choose when they work
Pros:
- Generally there is still a core period where employees have to be working
- This allows employees to be accommodate to specific lifestyles
- Can help reduce traffic
Cons:
- Not suited for all jobs
- May force the manager to work loner to enforce their control
Job sharing
- Part time employees perform a job together that a full time employee would do instead
- Each person usually works 3 days a week
- Best suited for families where certain people need to spend time with children, elderly,
etc
- Also suited for elderly workers who cannot work fulltime anymore, but still have skills
of value
- Also limits layoffs
- Also people have time to accommodate for their personal needs, meaning when they
are at work, they are completely focused on the work
Cons:
- Added burden to train and recruit 2 people
- Boundaries of distribution are often unclear
Telecommuting
- Using tech to do work at home that is traditionally done at work
- Things like virtual office
Pros
● increased flexibility for employees
● Reduced absents
● Decreased turnover
● Retention of valued employees
● Reduced carbon footprint
● Increased productivity
● Increased engagement at the individual level
● Lower overhead costs and reduced office space
● Decreased prevalence a depression
● Increased organization
● More autonomy
● Increased efficiency
● Decreased work interference with family
Cons:
- Loss of productivity in mundane tasks
- Hard to develop metrics for success
- hard to allocate resources
- Harder for collaborating
- etc
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