Human Resource Management I

• The nature of Job Analysis

• The importance of Job Analysis
• Components of a job
• Programme Implementation
• Job Analysis Problems
• Job Description
• Job Specification

Human Resource Management in South Africa 4th Revised edition

by Pieter A. Grobler (Author), Surette Wärnich (Author), et al. ISBN 978-1-40801-951-1
 Job Analysis
It is clear that the requirements
for a job must be identified
before an individual can be
hired. To do this, HR
professionals use the job
analysis process.
 Job Analysis - Definition
The process by which management systematically
investigates the tasks, duties and responsibilities of the jobs
within an organization.

Organizations consist of jobs that have to be staffed. Job analysis is the

procedure through which you determine the duties of these positions
and the characteristics of the people to hire for them. Job analysis
produces information for writing job descriptions (a list of what the job
entails) and job specifications (what kind of people to hire for the job).
We’ll see in a moment that every manager should understand the
mechanics of analyzing jobs. Virtually every personnel-related action
you take — interviewing applicants, and training and appraising
employees, for instance — depends on knowing what the job entails
and what human traits one needs to do the job well.
 Importance of Job Analysis
It entails:
• Who does what, where and with what;
• The need to motivate and reward, find out
what they know along with traditional job
objectives;
• The impact of technology on jobs;
• Labour legislations;
• The implementation of teams.
 Components of a job
• Job Family – A category in which similar occupations are grouped together. Training
managers, compensation managers and recruitment managers can be combined
with other occupations in the field of HR and placed in the job family of HR
professionals.
• Occupation – Jobs that are combined across organizations based upon the skills,
efforts and responsibilities required by the job, e.g. compensation specialist.
• Job – A group of positions that are similar enough in their job elements, tasks and
duties to be covered by the same job analysis, e.g. payroll manager.
• Position – The combination of all the duties required of the person performing a
job. Each person in an organization holds a position, e.g. compensation policy
administrator.
• Duty – Several distinct tasks that are performed by an individual to complete a
work activity for which they are responsible, e.g. payroll processing.
• Tasks – An identified unit of work activity that is produced through the application
of methods, procedures and techniques, e.g. preparing payroll forms.
• Elements – the smallest practical unit into which work activity can be subdivided,
e.g. signing pay.
 Programme Implementation
 The standard format in conducting a job analysis generally
includes:
 Committee review – the committee must make the critical
decisions in choosing the appropriate job analysis technique
and the important job elements to be evaluated.
 Information collection – information involving job content is
collected, analysed and interpreted.
 Information review – to assemble and review the information
with the employees and the job analysis committee.
 Product completion – it involves the completion of whatever
end products are desired by management.
 Future use and updating – determining how the information
will be stored for future use.
 Job Analysis Problems
1. Employee fear – Often employees see a job analysis
as a threat to their current jobs or pay levels or both.
2. The need to update the information gathered – the
annual review is quite time consuming, employees
sometimes expect that their jobs will always be
reclassified.
3. Occurs when a job is held by only one or two
employees – employees often feel that the
description is a contract describing what they should
or should not do on the job. When asked occasionally
to do extra work or an unusual task, employees may
respond, “It’s not in my job description.”
 Job description
A job description is a
detailed summary of the
tasks, duties and
responsibilities of the job
concerned.
 Uses of job description
• Recruitment – used to develop recruitment advertisements
and to provide applicants with additional information about
job opening.
• Interviewing – used when they include job specifications as
a means of providing the interviewer with concise, accurate
information about the job.
• Orientation – new employees may be given job descriptions
to spell out job requirements and areas to be evaluated.
• Training – use job descriptions to specify both the training
an employee requires for effective performance and the
type of training current employees may need to become
promotable.
 Uses of job description
• Job evaluation – specify comparable factors for use in the
process of job evaluation so that a job evaluator can
compare various jobs and make pay decisions.
• Wage/salary survey – enables the HR administrator to
estimate whether the wages being paid for a job are
equitable in comparison with wages for similar jobs in
other organisations in the community or throughout the
country.
• Performance appraisal – may specify the basis on which
an employee will be judged during performance appraisal.
• Outplacement – may also play an important role in the
career chance process.
 Elements of job description
• Job identification – includes title of the job,
the location of the job, the title of the
immediate supervisor, the job status and the
pay grade or pay range.
• Job summary – a one to three line description
of the essence of the job.
• Job duties and responsibilities – one
paragraph describing the job or grouping the
tasks of a job and listing them separately.
 Job specification
A job specification indicates the type of person
to be appointed (qualifications and experience).
It entails:
• Knowledge – the body of information in a particular
subject area that is required by a new employee to
perform the job satisfactorily.
• Ability – any mental or physical activities required of a
new employee.
• Effort – encompass specific physical tasks the job
holder must be able to perform
• Responsibility – encompass reporting responsibility,
supervisory responsibility for inventory maintenance or
financial responsibility.