week 7 job analysis and design

7/26/2019 Week 7 Job Analysis and Design

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MGMT2718

Human Resource Management

Lecture 7:

Job Analysis and Design

Introduction

• JAD the cornerstone of HRM

– Jobs are the building blocks of organisations

– JAD links into other HRM functions

• and into Workflow analysis - how jobs are linked in overall

work organisation – this affects work quality

• Ongoing interest in Quality of WorkLife movement – ‘good

work’, ‘decent work’, ‘human relations’ – Reaction to taylorism and ‘technocentric’ job design – mass

production

• Also a reaction to the view that the ‘job is whatever it takes’ –

ie no boundaries to the job – > work overload and hours – ie

increased quantity of work, and degraded quality of work

• In Australia, upsurge of interest in context of ‘reforms’

discussed last week – especially IR



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Introduction

•

Historically – considerable interest in work organisation• Two broad models

1. ‘mechanistic’, ‘tayloristic’, ‘technocratic’ – generally ‘bad’ job

quality

2.

‘human-centred’, ‘anthropocentric’, ‘reflective’, ‘enriched’ – better

job quality – associated with Scandinavian approach

• High point of (1) in Japanese ‘lean production’

– Removal of all ‘excess’ ‘fat’ in production system – ‘forced

innovation’

•

High point of (2) in 1980s-90s in Sweden – Retain some ‘fat’ – allow ‘personal breaks’

• ‘Lean’ has become dominant – at some cost in terms of

quality of worklife

Lecture Aims

• Understand workflow process principles, and implications for

quality of work

• Comprehend the importance of job analysis in human

resource management

• Evaluate the different approaches to job design

•

Comprehend the trade-offs among the various approachesto designing jobs



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1.

Job and Workflow Analysis and Design:

Basics

2.

Links to other HR Functions, and

gathering information for JAD

3. Principles and Strategies of Job Design

(1) – scientific management – ‘Lean’

4.

Principles and Strategies of Job Design(2) – Socio-technical ‘human centred’

Lecture Structure

1. Job and Workflow Analysis and Design: The

Basics•

Jobs are the ‘building blocks of organisations’ – A job is a group of related activities, which link with

other jobs within sections, branches, departments or

divisions, in a workflow

– crucial aspect of HRM is the accurate analysis and

description, and competent design of jobs, and of therelations between them

•

Job analysis is the process of obtaining information

about jobs – their essential duties, tasks and

responsibilities.

– Job content – duties and responsibilities

– Job requirements – KSAs, qualifications necessary

– Job context – purpose of job ie link to workflow



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•

Work activities, including individual behaviours and job outcomes

• Machines, tools, equipment and work aids used in

the job

• Job related tangibles and intangibles, such as

materials processed and knowledge applied

• Standards of work performance

• Job context (where the job ‘fits in’)

•

Personnel requirements – like education,experience, aptitudes (add qualifications, perhaps

licensing requirements)

JA seeks information about

Job Analysis: Two broad approaches

1.

Job-oriented, or task approach

2.

Employee-oriented (or behaviour) approach

1. > Job or position description

‘written statement explaining why a job exists,

what the job holder actually does, how they doit, and under what conditions the job is

performed’ (Stone, p. 169)

2. > Person specification

‘details the competencies and characteristics of

the person required by the job’



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JA – Job or Position Description (1)

Objective: - why the job exists – the primary purpose or objective of theposition. Describe the essence of the job in 25 words.

Duties and Responsibilities: - ‘heart’ of the JD should describe exactly

what the employee must do; what the job entails

Relationships: - with other parts of the org – what positions report to this

job? What are the job’s most frequent contacts?

Knowledge: - qualifications, KSAs, Other requirements (eg ‘excellentcommunications skills’)

Problem solving: - original and creative thinking required?

Authority:- rights and limitations that apply to the position’s decisionmaking authority. Freedom to act; ‘autonomy’ – amount that can be

spent, etc

Job or Position Description (2)

Accountability: - financial impact of job – value of assets, budgets, sales,payroll and personnel which the job/position is responsible for

Special Circumstances: - anything unusual? Hazards? Etc

Performance Standards: - standards required for effective performance,

and measures for evaluating performance. Identifies what is to be

achieved, how the job holder is to behave, and the measures of theperformance.

Trade union and professional associations: required memership

Licenses: required?

negotiation skill: ability to compromise both sideswho have vision to look after general function rather taninvolve in every part

cannot say positive attitude:* need to have assessment whatis positive attitude* do not subject judgement,use objective assessment* potential of discrimination: focus on behaviour*

accountability: financial restraint they might have: need their own budget but also have to connect with other budgetspecial circumstances: responsibility to coordinate them, follow the flow of information

next week: personal discription



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Job or Person Specifications

•

Experience

• Qualifications

• Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (and ‘Other’)

• Personal Characteristics

• Special Requirements

• Ideal industry background

• Ideal current organization (for candidate to be

employed in)• Ideal current position

• Remuneration

• See Stone pp 169ff for egs of PDs

2. Links to other HRM functions

• JD has to ‘align’ jobs with management strategy.

• It links with other HRM functions

• Recruitment and Selection

– should detail the component duties and activities of a job and the

conditions under which it is performed

•

person specification, or a description of personal qualities(KSA – knowledge, skills and abilities) [cf KSAA adds

attitudes] the job requires

• Similarly with Selection

• Training and Development

– JA provides a ‘template’ against which job incumbents’ KSAs can

be assessed to determine training needs



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Links to other aspects of HRM

(cont)• Performance Appraisal

– Employees’ performance is assessed against the needs of the

job, and performance requirements and indicators are derived

from the JA.

– specified performance requirements must really be requirements

of the job (Validity)

• Remuneration and Reward

– JA defines the job – Job Evaluation puts a ‘value’ on it

Collecting Information for Job Analysis

• Observation

– job analyst observes someone at work, noting down what

they do, and how long it takes

– More applicable to ‘visible’ jobs – manual – less to some

aspects of customer service or professional work

• Interviews

–

Job analysts question individual employees about the job

they do

• ‘How long to learn your job?’ ‘Take me through a

typical day’

– Could also interview ‘job experts’ – managers, etc

• JA Questionaires

– Can be more focussed



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Collecting Information for Job Analysis (2)

• Diaries or logs

– Ask employee to keep a record

• Critical Incidents

– Describe a time when you did a job well – or not!

• Focus and Consultative Groups

Job Outlook website: http://joboutlook.gov.au

–

Much useful information for JA

– Links to US O*Net website – usually skills and behaviouraldescriptors of jobs are more comprehensive, although they are

often mixed in together

Cautionary Notes

• ‘Predictive’ approach

– Assumption – ‘job’ is a stable entity – find the most

suitable candidate for it

– KSAOs – ‘other’ can be problematic

• ‘skills’ may not be recognised or codified

•

‘skills’ may include attributes of character – ‘positive attitude’; ‘initiative’; ‘endurance’; ‘sense of

humour’ – ‘aesthetic skills’ (appearance)

• ‘Other’ may be a means of incorporating into

selection criteria things that are not strictly speaking

necessary for the job but may reflect preference or

prejudice



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3. Principles of Job Design (1): Classical

‘Mechanistic’ approach

• Fundamental:

– Humans produce their ‘means of subsistence’ – by means

of technology (and seek maximum efficiency – Market

society) – ‘natural’

• Adam Smith ‘division of labour’ – principles

– Divide production process into smaller pieces

– Each requires different degrees of ‘skill’

–

Learning through practice – Preparation for automation

– Smith acknowledged that the division of labour would do

people psychological injury due to monotony

‘Commonsense’ of work org > poor quality jobs

– the price of technological progress!?

(Galbraith)

–

not technology, but socio/eco organisation of

production (capitalism) (Braverman):

•

Employment relation – labour is ‘indeterminate’ –employers have to extract as much as possible >

control

•

Competition – if they don’t they go out of business



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‘Scientific Management’

•

Application of ‘science’ to work

– Close observation: management appropriate knowledge

of production from workers

– Communicate knowledge to workers

• Taylor condemned ‘ordinary management’

– Control – Divide into smaller and smaller parts

– Moving assembly line (Fordism)

•

Ford was famous for compensating workers for bad

working conditions: ‘five dollar day’

– https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=lpTecAeYvGU&spfreload=10

4. Principles of Job Design (2) Socio-Technical, or

Human Relations Approach to JD

– SM assumption: workers motivated by money –

increasingly challenged in 1920s

– Hawthorne studies:• Workers were motivated by ‘psychological aspects’ of

work – productivity improved when researchers paidattention to them

• Socio-technical work design

– Pay attention to human needs

– ‘jointly optimise’ human and technical aspects of work

– Significance: Engagement of social science

with industry



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•

Hawthorne studies (said to) reveal needs to ‘belong’;

for ‘membership’.

– ‘irrational’ needs? Consultation, ‘meaning’

– Could be manipulated – Tom Peters – origins of

‘soft’ HRM

– OR ‘natural’ work groups might ‘restrict output’ –

important to control them

Human Needs?

Hackman and Oldham’s job characteristic

model• there were three key ‘psychological states’ that

workers ‘needed’ from their work. These were

* a sense of ‘meaning’

* responsibility for the process

*

a sense that the process was producing results – aneed to see something real at the end



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Hackman and Oldham’s job characteristic

model• Skill variety – the degree to which the job requires different

skills

• Task identity – the degree to which the job involves

completing a whole identifiable piece of work rather than

simply a part of it

• Task significance – the extent to which the job has an impact

on other people, either inside or outside the organization

• Autonomy – the extent to which the job allows job-holders to

exercise choice and discretion in their work

• Feedback from the job – the extent to which the job itself (as

opposed to other people) – provides job-holders with

information on their performance

Jobs high in these dimensions - intrinsically motivating.

Job Design Strategies

• Usually there is some ‘strategic choice’ about job

design – although reference has to be made to

overall organisational strategy

• If the goal is to respond to ‘human needs’ at work, the

approach would ‘anthropocentric’ – ‘human centred

•

Job Enlargement

• Increase number and variety of tasks

• Job Rotation

• Move from one job to another

• Job Enrichment• Make work more ‘meaningful’

because expansion of the job involves tasks at the same level as thosepreviously performed. led to see the job enlargement as a way of simplygetting employees to do more job.

moving employees around a range of jobs within the organisation. it has dual benefit of making employees, especiallythose new to the organisation, aware of all area and activities performed within the firms and providing employee greatertask variety. common practices for new employees.

make job more interesting and boost motivation. involves vertical expansion of job by adding higher responsibilitiesand more meaningful tasks. by increasing employee involvement in planing, decision making, organising andcontrolling their work.



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Teamwork

•

Fulfill ‘human need’ to work together cooperatively• Highly ‘laden’ term (sporting connotations)

• ‘Lean’ teams

• overcome problems of ‘line balancing’

• Workers interchangeable skill sets

• ‘self managing’ teams (‘Scandi-Euro’)

• Complementary expertise – not interchangeable

• In both – dangers of ‘peer surveillance’ and

monitoring• Dangers especially if ‘group incentives’ are used

• Crucial = role of team leader. Elected? Appointed?

Union member?

Literature Polarises

• Around ‘lean’ vs ‘human-centred’ production

• Japanese vs Swedish

• Lean

• Elimination of ‘waste’ – ‘Just in Time’ production

•

‘Uddevalla’ experiments

• Car manufacture without the assembly line

• Teams of workers assemble whole car in one place

• Closed down – controversial circumstances



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Dimension of

production

Mass/

Lean (Japanese)

Human Centred

(‘Swedish’)

Length of job cycle Short Long

Level of discretion /

autonomy

Low High

Level of integration

(pacing)

High Low

Level of Skill Low/Med High

Power of unions Low High

Quality of Work Low High

Conclusion

• ‘Good Work’ – ‘JQ’ – associated with skills and

engagement – ‘high involvement’, ‘high commitment’,

‘high performance’ work systems

• Work design – choice of the form of work which

affects job quality

• Reviewed History

• Classical ‘Mechanistic’ period (Scientific management)

• Socio-technical (human relations)

• Enlargement and Enrichment

• Interest in Swedish experiments – overtaken by

‘lean’ approaches to work organisation



References

Kramar, ch 6

Kramar and Syed, Ch 7.

Stone Ch. 5

Supplementary readings

Harry Braverman (1974) called Monopoly Capitalism: the Degradation of Work in the

20 th Century, US: Monthly Review Press (passim)

Parker, S and T. Wall (1998) Job and Work Design: Organizing Work to Promote

Well-Being and Effectiveness, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage

Sandberg, A (ed) (1994/2007) Enriching Production, Swedish Institute for Work LifeResearch, Stockholm. [also Digital Edition]

week 7 job analysis and design

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