Lakesha Eaton
HRM-590
Professor Brett Gordon
Job Analysis
Literature Reviews
March 19, 2015

Job Analysis and Job Description are closely interrelated. The information gathered on each job through job analysis is subsequently organized and compiled in a Job Description. The adequacy of the Job Description therefore depends heavily upon the extent of information obtained through Job Analysis.
For the remainder of this paper I will focus on the process of job analysis by discussing the definition and literature reviews on this topic.
"Job analysis is the process of defining the specific job duties, educational requirements, work experience, and skills to fulfill a vacant position." Job analysis provides information to organizations which helps to determine which employees are best fit for specific jobs. Through job analysis, the analyst needs to understand what the important tasks of the job are, how they are carried out, and the necessary human qualities needed to complete the job successfully.

The first article I found on job analysis is by Chelan David, titled “ How Conducting a Job Analysis Improves Your Business Efficiency, Growth, and Innovation.” According to this author, “ conducting a job analysis is important because organizations are being asked to work leaner and more efficiently while developing growth and innovation.” It’s essential to be conscious of the significant responsibilities for each position, particularly those that are believed intentional in “nature,” and those that impact the customer and the bottom line. In addition to deciding the critical tasks related to each job, it’s important to classify the desired knowledge, abilities, skill sets and other desired characteristics.
Chelan David continues to explain in this article that Job analysis serves as the foundation for helping select the right people into an organization, in terms of job fit as well as cultural fit. A job analysis permits organizations to not only develop better selection systems, but also form effective training development programs, compensation and talent management systems. Time and again organizations hire for practical ability and fire for character flaws. “Organizations should consider hiring for both experience and cultural fit. Job analysis provides the needed data.” In the next article titled Job Analysis (What is it and How it is used), the author Lysaght R, helped me to understand the challenges of conducting a Job analysis. The author explained that it can be complicated to precisely define job demands and the physical requirements to perform them.” Even if there are defined outputs and expected performance levels for a job, the actual approaches and nuances associated with executing the job demands may result in very different actions, depending on the worker and how he or she gets the job done.” The job itself may vary in terms of demand levels or activities performed, depending on workload, work flow, teamwork, and variety in the services, products or activities that are the focus of the job at any point in time.
A number of things correlated with the measurement process can challenge the validity and reliability of job analyses. “One of these is the properties of the rating scales in use, including content validity across job types, definitions used for the scale items, and clarity of the rating procedures” (Lysaght, 2015). An additional lies in the value of information collected through worker or supervisor report based on the ability or willingness to provide accurate descriptions. Examined data may be compromised through lack of familiarity with the job type or inability to observe sufficient and representative time samples of the job, especially one that is highly variable.
The third article titled Job Analysis featured in English Articles, captures the how motivation, behaviors and physical ability of a worker impacts job analysis. It states that the complexities of of worker motivation affected the field of job analysis by broadening the area of study to motivational, social, and organizational considerations in addition to the tasks associated with performing the job. Information about the tasks or behaviors associated with a particular job can be collected in a variety of ways. Typical methods of collecting data include observation of the person performing the job; interviews with the job incumbent, the incumbent’s peers, immediate supervisor, or other supervisory personnel in the organization. Another approach to job analysis is to focus on the physical abilities associated with successful job performance. ‘This approach considers strength, cognitive abilities, stamina, and other factors required by a specific job. Physical abilities, job analysis have been particularly important in addressing gender issues in personnel recruitment and selection.” Lastly, the significant occurrences method of job analysis studies jobs by having “incumbents and other knowledgeable individuals provide real workplace examples of successful and unsuccessful job performance.” From these examples, job analysts identify the abilities and behaviors necessary to perform a job successfully. From the perspective of job design, the writing of task statements and identifying functions of a job is one of the most important parts of a job analysis. Tasks generally refer to an action that changes an input to an output. From the identification of functions and tasks, the job analyst should be able to draw a fairly accurate picture of what a job entails.

References:
David, Chelan (2011). How conducting a job analysis improves your business’s efficiency, growth, and innovation. Retrieved on March 19, 2015 from http://www.sbnonline.com/article/how-conducting-a-job-analysis-improves-your-business’s-efficiency-growth-and-innovation/
English Article (2013). Job Analysis. Retrieved on March 19, 2015 from http://www.englisharticles.info/
Lysaght, Rosemary (2015). Job Analysis: What is it and How it is used. Retrieved on March 19, 2015 from http://cirrie.buffalo.edu/encyclopedia/en/article/268/