Nature of job Analysis

Job analysis is the process of determining the duties of various positions at an organizations and also the specific KSA’s (Knowledge, Skill, Abilities) required to perform these duties and hence the characteristics of the employee that is to be hired for that position. the information collected through job analysis is used to prepare job descriptions and job specifications.

Job Analysis is a process to identify and determine in detail the particular job duties and requirements and the relative importance of these duties for a given job. Job Analysis is a process where judgements are made about data collected on a job.

The Job; not the person An important concept of Job Analysis is that the analysis is conducted of the Job, not the person. While Job Analysis data may be collected from incumbents through interviews or questionnaires, the product of the analysis is a description or specifications of the job, not a description of the person.

Nature of Job Analysis

1. Job analysis is a process of gathering relevant information about various aspects of a job and is concerned with the identification of tasks required to be performed as part of it.
2. It approaches the task of defining the role, context, conditions, human behavior, performance standards and responsibilities of a job systematically.
3. It helps in establishing the job’s worth to an organization. In other words, it measures the value and contribution of a job to the growth of the organization.
4. It establishes job relatedness, which is a crucial input for HR decisions involving recruitment, selection, compensation, training, health and safety.
5. It facilitates the process of understanding the impact of environmental changes on individual jobs.

Uses of Job Analysis

(i) Provide Base for different jobs Job analysis provides the base for identifying the contents of different jobs, their interrelationship and interdependence, responsibility involved in a job, and authority that may be required to perform the job.

(ii) Helps in organisational design Job analysis provides all the required information to get the framework of organisational design. Organisational design    is building a network of relationships among various functions and positions. In organisational design various jobs to be perform are identified and grouped together on the basis of similarity. This process can only be done with the help of job analysis.

(iii) Human resource planning Job analysis proves to be of great help in case of Human Resource Planning by providing information for forecasting human resource needs in terms of knowledge, skills and experience. Job analysis also helps in planning for promotions and transfers by showing relationships among different jobs laterally as well as vertically.

(iv) Recruitment and selection Job analysis provides the basic ingredient required for recruitment and selection. It is well understood that recruitment and selection, taken together, is a process of identifying the source from where the personnel can be hired, motivating them, analysing them and selecting the ones who match the concerned job. We can say that matching jobs and individuals is the whole process of recruitment and selection. And both the types of information in the form of job description and job specification are provided through job analysis.

(v) Orientation and placement job analysis also helps in orientation and placement by providing complete information about job requirements. It further helps when an individual is selected to perform number of jobs and not a specific job.

(vi) Career planning Job analysis helps in career planning by providing information about the opportunities in terms of career paths and jobs availability in the organization with the help of this information, both individuals and organisation are able to chart out their plan for career planning and development.

(vii) Training Job analysis provides valuable information to identify training and development needs of various individuals. It is obvious that training and development needs can only be determined by job analysis. It is very important for every organization to put its endeavor in the form of training and development so that the individuals are equipped to meet the requirements of their jobs.

(viii) Job evaluation Job analysis plays an important role in evaluating the job and compensating it according to its worth in comparison to other jobs in an organization. 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.

(ix) Performance appraisal Job analysis helps in evaluating the performance of any individual in the organization. Performance appraisal is done by comparing the individual’s actual job performance with what is expected of him and job analysis decides what is expected of an employee and hence, it helps in determining performance standards against which the actual job performance is measured.

(x) Employee safety Job analysis helps in taking precautions to save the employees from the hazardous environmental and operational conditions in various jobs. It is obvious that all such kind of information related to a particular job will be provided by job analysis.

(xi) Counselling Job analysis also helps in providing counselling to employees in different areas. Sometimes, employees are unable to bear the stress of a particular job, then they are advised to opt for another job, but this is only possible with the information provided by job analysis.