The main topics we’ll cover in this chapter include the talent management process, the basics of job analysis, methods for collecting job analysis information, writing job descriptions, and writing job specifications.
We want to explore what it takes to analyze jobs and manage employee talent effectively. So, we will do the following:
Explain why talent management is important.
Discuss the nature of job analysis, including what it is and how it’s used.
Use at least three methods of collecting job analysis information, including interviews, questionnaires, and observation.
You will also be able to:
Write job descriptions, including summaries and job functions, using the Internet and traditional methods.
Write a job specification.
Explain competency-based job analysis, including what it means and how it’s done in practice.
The usual process of talent management consists of the following steps:
Decide what positions to fill
Build a pool of job candidates
Application forms
Use selection tools
Make an offer
Orient, train, and develop
Appraise
Reward and compensate
We can define talent management as the goal-oriented and integrated process of planning,
recruiting, developing, managing, and compensating employees.
Effectively managing talent means that managers:
Understand that talent management tasks are parts of one unified process.
Ensure talent management decisions such as staffing, training, and pay are goal-directed.
Consistently use the same “profile” of competencies, traits, knowledge, and experience for potential employees.
The approach requires that employers proactively manage recruitment, selection, development, and rewards.
Realize an effective talent management process integrates all underlying talent management activities such as recruiting, developing, and compensating employees.
The usual process of talent management consists of the several steps such as building an applicant pool, conducting appraisals, and rewarding employees. More recently, however, managing talent is considered more of a unified process. It is a goal-oriented and integrated process of planning, recruiting, developing, managing, and compensating employees. All managers must use the same set of criteria in managing talent effectively. Managers must be proactive in the application of talent management principles and successfully integrate all talent management activities into a coherent whole.
For this learning objective, we will look more closely at a variety of important considerations such as:
What job analysis information typically is used for
How to conduct a job analysis
Job analysis guidelines
How to collect job analysis information
Talent management begins with understanding what jobs need to be filled, and the human traits and competencies employees need. Job analysis is the procedure through which you determine the duties of the positions and the characteristics of the people to hire for them.
The information collected through a job analysis is used help manage all aspects of an effective HR program.
In terms of recruitment and selection information about what duties the job entails and what human characteristics are required helps in hiring decisions.
Job analysis is crucial for validating all major human resources practices, especially when it comes to legal compliance. You may recall from our earlier discussion of federal laws that care must be exercised in all areas related to employees such as hiring under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
A job analysis helps compare each employee’s actual performance with his or her duties and performance standards in performance appraisals.
Compensation often depends on the job’s required skill and education level, safety hazards, degree of responsibility, and other factors you assess through job analysis.
The job description, which is created from a job analysis, lists the job’s specific duties and skills—and therefore the training—that the job requires.
Conducting a job analysis requires multiple steps.
Step 1: Decide how you’ll use the information.
Step 2: Review relevant background information such as organization charts, process charts, and job descriptions.
Step 3: Select representative positions.
Step 4: Actually analyze the job by collecting data on job activities, working conditions, and human traits and abilities needed to perform the job.
Step 5: Verify the job analysis information with the worker performing the job and with his or her immediate supervisor.
Step 6: Develop a job description and job specification.
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Make the job analysis a joint effort by a human resources manager, the worker, and the worker’s supervisor.
Make sure the questions and the process are both clear to the employees.
Finally, use several different job analysis tools. Do not rely just on a questionnaire, for instance, but supplement your survey with a short follow-up interview.
The information collected through a job analysis is used help manage all aspects of an effective HR program including recruitment and selection, legal compliance, performance appraisals, compensation, and training. Elements of the job analysis process include how the information will be used, background information, selecting representative positions for analysis, verifying the data analyzing data, and then writing the job description. Since the information collected may be sensitive to the employee, it’s a good idea to make it a joint effort, clarify the questions and process, and use a variety of job analysis tools.
We will discuss the most important and most often used methods of collecting information for use in job analysis procedures.
Job analysis interviews range from completely unstructured interviews to highly structured ones. We will discuss interviews in more detail on the next slide.
Having employees fill out questionnaires to describe their job-related duties and responsibilities is another popular way to obtain job analysis information.
Direct observation is especially useful when jobs consist mainly of observable physical activities—assembly-line worker and accounting clerk are examples.
Another method is to ask workers to keep a diary/log of what they do during the day. For every activity engaged in, the employee records the activity (along with the time) in a log.
Qualitative methods like interviews and questionnaires are not always suitable. You may need to say that, in effect, “Job A is twice as challenging as Job B, and so is worth twice the pay.” Now, of course, you must be able to prove such a claim quantitatively. The position analysis questionnaire (PAQ) is a very popular quantitative job analysis tool, consisting of a questionnaire containing 194 items. The 194 items (such as “written materials”) each represent a basic element that may play a role in the job.
Experts at the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) did much of the early work developing job analysis. The DOL method uses a set of standard basic activities called worker functions to describe what a worker must do with respect to data, people, and things.
For internet-based job analysis, the HR department can distribute standardized job analysis questionnaires to geographically disbursed employees. Such questionnaires may be sent via company intranets, and include instructions to complete the forms and return them by a particular date.
Managers may conduct individual interviews with each employee, group interviews with groups of employees who have the same job, and/or supervisor interviews with one or more supervisors who know the job. Some typical interview questions include the following:
What is the job being performed?
What are the education, experience, skill, and certification and licensing requirements?
What are the job’s physical demands? The emotional and mental demands?
And many others
Many managers use a structured format to guide the interview to ensure consistency and be certain key elements are not overlooked.
The interview’s wide use reflects its advantages. It’s a simple and quick way to collect information, including information that might not appear on a written form.
Distortion of information is the main problem—whether due to outright falsification or honest misunderstanding.
The basic interviewing guidelines include:
Quickly establish rapport.
Use a structured guide.
Ask the worker to list his or her duties in order of importance and frequency of occurrence.
Review the information with the worker’s immediate supervisor and with the interviewee.
The key methods for collecting useful job analysis data include both structured and unstructured interviews, both of which have advantages and disadvantages.
Questionnaires also may be structured or unstructured, depending on the situation and job under review.
Observation, while extremely useful is very time-consuming in that one individual will be needed to observe the worker for extended periods of time. In addition, the observer may miss some key job activities if they are not performed regularly.
Diaries and logs require the worker to make entries into his or her journal at regular times.
Quantitative techniques include the Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ) and the Department of Labor (DOL ) technique.
Internet-based analysis allows the HR department to send questionnaires to geographically disbursed employees and receive information in a timely manner. This procedure also allows electronic or voice follow-up,
The most important product of job analysis is the job description. A job description is a written statement of what the worker actually does, how he or she does it, and what the job’s working conditions are. Let’s discuss how a job description should be written.
The job description is one of the main outcomes of conducting a job analysis. The job identification section (on top) contains several types of information. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) status section identifies the job as exempt or nonexempt with respect to being exempt or non-exempt from FLSA overtime rules. Exempt and non-exempt status also is used to help plan compensation strategies for a firm. The “Date” is the date the job description was actually approved. The job summary should summarize the essence of the job, and include only its major functions or activities.
There may be a “relationships” statement that shows the jobholder’s relationships with others inside and outside the organization. Responsibilities and duties are the heart of the job description. This section should present a list of the job’s significant responsibilities and duties. This section may also define the limits of the jobholder’s authority.
A “standards of performance” section lists the standards the company expects the employee to achieve for each of the job description’s main duties and responsibilities.
Working conditions include the location, tools, environment (hot, cold, etc.) and the like.
More employers are turning to the Internet for their job descriptions. The process is simple. Search by alphabetical title, keyword, category, or industry to find the desired job title. This leads you to a generic job description for that title which you may then customize as needed. The Internet, particularly O*NET can help you create the “human requirements” of the job for the job specification. We will discuss job specifications next.
We will now discuss what elements to consider while writing a job specification.
Writing job specifications for trained employees is relatively straightforward. Here your job specifications might focus mostly on traits like length of previous service, quality of relevant training, and previous job performance. The problems are more complex when you’re filling jobs with untrained people. Here you must specify qualities such as physical traits, personality, interests, or sensory skills that imply some potential for performing or for being trained to do the job.
When writing specifications based on judgment, one basic question must be answered. The question is, “What does it take in terms of education, intelligence, training, and the like to do this job well?”
Basing job specifications on statistical analysis is the more defensible approach, but it’s also more difficult. The aim here is to determine statistically the relationship between (1) some predictor, and (2) some indicator or criterion of job effectiveness. Predictors include items such as a human trait – height, intelligence, or finger dexterity. Indicators include items such as performance as rated by the supervisor.
Finally, each of a job’s task statements shows what the worker does on one particular job task, how the worker does it, and for what purpose.
The most important product of job analysis is the job description. A job description is a written statement of what the worker actually does, how he or she does it, and what the job’s working conditions are. You use this information to write a job specification; this lists the knowledge, abilities, and skills required to perform the job satisfactorily. There is no standard format for writing a job description. However, most descriptions contain sections that cover:
Identification
Summary
Relationships
Responsibilities and duties
Performance standards & working conditions
Writing job specifications must include considerations for:
Trained vs. untrained employees
Judgment
Statistical analysis
Task statements
A job is traditionally a set of closely related activities carried out for pay, but the concept of a job is changing. These changes include management practices such as organizing around work teams, which create different challenges we will now discuss.
Competencies are observable and measurable behaviors of the person that make performance possible. Competency-based job analysis means describing the job in terms of measurable, observable, behavioral competencies. Such competencies are usually grouped into general competencies, leadership competencies, and technical competencies.
Defining the job’s competencies and writing them up is similar in most respects to traditional job analysis. However, instead of compiling lists of job duties, you will ask, “In order to perform this job competently, the employee should be able to…”
The key to writing competency-based job descriptions is being able to observe effectively and measure results. A job is traditionally a set of closely related activities carried out for pay, but the concept of a job is changing. Many changes are related to the nature of work, such as the growth of using work teams. In such circumstances, relying on a list of conventional job duties can be counterproductive, because the person’s job changes frequently. In such cases, job profiles are preferred. Job profiles list the competencies, traits, knowledge, and experience that employees must be able to exhibit to get multiple jobs done.
