CHAPTER 2: Job Analysis and Evaluation

JOB ANALYSIS
Importance of Job Analysis
- A thorough job analysis is the foundation for almost all
human resources activities.
- It is difficult to imagine how one could write a job
description, select employees, evaluate performance,
or conduct training programs without knowing the tasks
an employee performs, the conditions under which they
are performed, and the competencies needed to
perform the tasks.
- A thorough job analysis provides such information.

Writing Job Descriptions

- One of the written products of a job analysis is a job
description
- A brief, two- to five-page summary of the tasks and job
requirements found in the job analysis.
- In other words, the job analysis is the process of
determining the work activities and requirements, and
the job description is the written result of the job
analysis.
- Job analysis and job descriptions serve as the basis
for many HR activities, including employee selection,
evaluation, training, and work design.

Employee Selection
- It is difficult to imagine how an employee can be
selected unless there is a clear understanding of the
tasks performed and the competencies needed to
perform those tasks.
- By identifying such requirements, it is possible to select
tests or develop interview questions that will determine
whether a particular applicant possesses the necessary
knowledge, skills, and abilities to carry out the
requirements of the job.
- Many non–job-related variables are often used to select
employees.
- Examples are height requirements for police
officers, firm handshakes for most jobs, and
physical attractiveness for airline flight
attendants.
Training
- Job analyses yield lists of job activities that can be
systematically used to create training programs.
Personpower Planning
- One important but seldom employed use of job analysis
is to determine worker mobility within an organization.
That is, if individuals are hired for a particular job, what
other jobs can they expect to eventually be promoted
and become successful?
- Many organizations have a policy of promoting the
person who performs the best in the job immediately
below the one in question.
- Although this approach has its advantages, it can result
in the so-called Peter Principle: promoting employees
until they eventually reach their highest level of
incompetence.
- For example, consider an employee who is the
best salesperson in the company. Even though
this person is known to be excellent in sales, it
is not known what type of supervisor he or she
will be. Promotion solely on the basis of sales
performance does not guarantee that the
individual will do well as a supervisor.
- Suppose, however, that job analysis results are
used to compare all jobs in the company to the
supervisor’s job.
- Instead of promoting the person in the job
immediately below the supervisor, we promote
the best employee from the most similar
job—that is, a job that already involves much of
the same knowledge, skills, and abilities as the
supervisor’s job. With this approach, there is a
better match between the person being
promoted and the requirements of the job.

Performance Appraisal
- Another important use of job analysis is the
construction of a performance appraisal instrument.
- As in employee selection, the evaluation of employee
performance must be job related.
- Employees are often evaluated with forms that use
such vague categories as “dependability,” “knowledge,”
and “initiative.”
- The use of specific, job related categories leads to
more accurate performance appraisals that are better
accepted not only by employees but also by the courts.
- In addition, when properly administered and utilized,
job-related performance appraisals can serve as an
excellent source of employee training and counseling.
Job Classification
- Job analysis enables a human resources professional
to classify jobs into groups based on similarities in
requirements and duties. Job classification is useful
for determining pay levels, transfers, and promotions.
Job Evaluation
- Job analysis information can also be used to determine
the worth of a job. Job evaluation will be discussed in
greater detail later in this chapter.

Job Design
- Job analysis information can be used to determine the
optimal way in which a job should be performed. That
is, what would be the best way for an employee to sit at
her computer or what would be the best way for a
warehouse person to lift boxes?
- By analyzing a job, wasted and unsafe motions can be
eliminated, resulting in higher productivity and reduced
numbers of job injuries.
- A job design was mentioned in Chapter 1 with the
example of Frank Gilbreth, who, after studying the
inconsistency with which brick masons did their work,
was able to reduce the number of motions needed to
lay a brick from 18 to 4 ½.

Compliance with Legal Guidelines

- Any employment decision must be based on job-related
information. One legally acceptable way to directly
determine job relatedness is by job analysis.
- No law specifically requires a job analysis, but several
important guidelines and court cases mandate job
analysis for all practical purposes.
1. First, the Uniform Guidelines on Employee
Selection Procedures - the HR principles
designed to ensure compliance with federal
standards—contain several direct references to
the necessity of job analysis. Even though the
Uniform Guidelines are not law, courts have
granted them “great deference”
2. Second, several court cases have discussed the
concept of job relatedness.
- For example, in Griggs v. Duke Power,
employment decisions were based in
part upon applicants’ possession of a
high school diploma.
- Because a higher percentage of blacks
than whites did not meet this
requirement, smaller percentages of
blacks were hired and promoted.
- Thus, a suit was filed against the Duke
Power Company charging that a high
school diploma was not necessary to
carry out the demands of the job.
- The court agreed with Griggs, the
plaintiff , stating that the company had
indeed not established the job
relatedness of the high school diploma
requirement.
 - Although not specifically mentioning the
term job analysis, the decision in Griggs
was the first to address the issue of job
relatedness. Subsequent cases such as
Albemarle v. Moody and Chance v. The
Board of Examiners further established
the necessity of job relatedness and the
link between it and job analysis.

Organizational Analysis
- During the course of their work, job analysts often
become aware of certain problems within an
organization.
- For example, during a job analysis interview, an
employee may indicate that she does not know
how she is evaluated or to whom she is
supposed to report.
- The discovery of such lapses in organizational
communication can then be used to correct problems
and help an organization function better.
- For example, while conducting job analysis
interviews of credit union positions, job analyst
Deborah Peggans discovered that none of the
workers knew how their job performances were
evaluated. This let the organization know it had
not done an adequate job of communicating
performance standards to its employees.

Writing a Good Job Description

- A job description is a relatively short summary of a job
and should be about two to five pages in length.
- This suggested length is not really typical of most job
descriptions used in industry; they tend to be only one
page.
- But for a job description to be of value, it must describe
a job in enough detail that decisions about activities
such as selection and training can be made. Such
decisions probably cannot be made if the description is
only one page long.
- Though I/O psychologists believe that job descriptions
should be detailed and lengthy, many professionals in
organizations resist such efforts.
- These professionals worry that listing each
activity will limit their ability to direct employees
to perform tasks not listed on the job
description.
- The concern is that an employee, referring to the job
description as support, might respond, “It’s not my job.”
- This fear, however, can be countered with two
arguments.
- The first is that duties can always be added to a
job description, which can, and should, be
updated on a regular basis.
 - The second is that the phrase “and performs
other job-related duties as assigned” should be
included in the job description.
- In fact, Virginia Tech has a policy stating
that the university can require
employees to perform any duties not on
the employees’ job descriptions for a
period not to exceed three months.
- After three months, the duty must either
be eliminated or permanently added to
the employee’s job description, at which
time a review will also be made to
determine if the addition is significant
enough to merit a salary increase.
- Job descriptions can be written in many ways, but the
format discussed here has been used successfully for
many jobs and is a combination of methods used by
many organizations and suggested by several
researchers.
- A job description should contain the following eight
sections:
● job title, brief summary, work activities, tools and
equipment used, work context, performance
standards, compensation information, and
personal requirements.
Job Title
- An accurate title describes the nature of the job.
- When industrial psychologist David Faloona started a
new job at Washington National Insurance in Chicago,
his official title was “psychometric technician”.
- Unfortunately, none of the other workers knew
what he did. To correct that problem, his title
was changed to “personnel assistant,” and
supervisors then began consulting with him on
human resources–related problems.
- Another example. After analyzing the position
of “ secretary” for one credit union, I found that
her duties were actually those of a position that
other credit unions labeled “loan officer.” This
change in title resulted in the employee
receiving a higher salary as well as vindication
that she was indeed “more than a secretary.”

- An accurate title also aids in employee selection and

recruitment. If the job title indicates the true nature of
the job, potential applicants for a position will be better
able to determine whether their skills and experience
match those required for the job.
- In the example given in the previous paragraph,
applicants for a secretary’s job in the usual sense might
not possess the lending and decision-making skills
needed by a loan officer.
 - When conducting a job analysis, it is not unusual for an
analyst to discover that some workers do not have job
titles.
- Job titles provide workers with some form of identity.
- Instead of just saying that she is a “worker at
the foundry,” a woman can say that she is a
“welder” or a “machinist.”
- Job titles can also affect perceptions of the status and
worth of a job.
- For example, job descriptions containing
gender-neutral titles such as “administrative
assistant” are evaluated as being worth more
money than ones containing titles with a female
sex linkage such as “executive secretary”

- Jobs with higher-status titles were evaluated as being

worth more money than jobs with lower-status titles.
- Some authors, however, have questioned the
gender effects associated with titles
- Though many of the dot-com companies allow
their employees to create their own titles, it is
important that employees who are doing the
same job have the same title and that the title
accurately reflect the nature of the job
Brief Summary
- The summary need be only a paragraph in length but
should briefly describe the nature and purpose of the
job.
- This summary can be used in help-wanted
advertisements, internal job postings, and company
brochures.
Work Activities
- The work-activities section lists the tasks and activities in
which the worker is involved.
- These tasks and activities should be organized into
meaningful categories to make the job description easy to
read and understand.
- The category labels are also convenient to use in the brief
summary.
- As you can see in the sample job description in Table
2.1, the work activities performed by the bookkeeper
are divided into seven main areas: accounting,
clerical, teller, share draft, collections, payroll, and
financial operations.
TABLE 2.1 on page 40-41
Tools and Equipment Used
- A section should be included that lists all the tools and
equipment used to perform the work activities
- Even though tools and equipment may have been mentioned
in the activities section, placing them in a separate section
makes their identification simpler. Information in this section
is used primarily for employee selection and training.
- That is, an applicant can be asked if she can operate an
adding machine, a computer, and a credit history machine.

Job Context
- Describe the environment in which the employee works
and should mention stress level, work schedule,
physical demands, level of responsibility, temperature,
number of coworkers, degree of danger, and any other
relevant information.
- This information is especially important in providing
applicants with disabilities with information they can
use to determine their ability to perform a job under a
particular set of circumstances.

Work Performance
- The job description should outline standards of
performance.
- This section contains a relatively brief description of
how an employee’s performance is evaluated and what
work standards are expected of the employee.

Compensation Information
- Contain information on the salary grade, whether the
position is exempt, and the compensable factors used
to determine salary.
- The employee’s actual salary or salary range should
not be listed on the job description.

Job Competencies
- Contains what are commonly called job specifications
or competencies.
- These are the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other
characteristics (KSAOs) (such as interest, personality,
and training) that are necessary to be successful on the job.
- Job specifications are determined by deciding what types of KSAOs
are needed to perform the tasks identified in the job analysis. These
KSAOs can be determined through a combination of logic,
research, and use of specific job analysis techniques.
- The competencies section should be divided into two subsections.
1. The first contains KSAOs that an employee must have at
the time of hiring.
- used for employee selection
2. The second subsection contains the KSAOs that are an
important part of the job but can be obtained after being
hired.
- used for training purposes
Preparing for a Job Analysis
- Prior to conducting a job analysis, several decisions
must be made that will influence how it is conducted.

Who Will Conduct the Analysis?

- A job analysis is conducted by a trained individual in
the human resources department, but it can also be
conducted by job incumbents, supervisors, or outside
consultants.
- If job incumbents or supervisors are used, it is
essential that they be thoroughly trained in job
analysis procedures.
- The Uniform Guidelines state that a job analysis must
be “professionally conducted,” and a job analyst
certainly cannot be called a professional unless she
has been trained.
- In addition, research indicates that analysts who have
been trained produce slightly different results from
those produced by untrained analysts.
- Time is always an issue when using supervisors or
incumbents.
- Telling a supervisor to “write job descriptions in
your spare time” is not likely to go over well.
- Thus, supervisors and employees will need to
be released from other duties—a situation that
is seldom possible.

- The state of Virginia developed a system in which all

employees were asked to follow set guidelines and
write their own job descriptions.
- The system itself was well conceived, but
employees were not given enough job analysis
training, which resulted in substantial confusion
and, in some cases, inaccurate job descriptions.
- Consultants are a good choice for conducting a job
analysis because they are well trained and have
extensive experience.
- The main drawback, though, is their expense.
Consultants typically charge between $50 and
$250 per hour based on their degree,
experience, and reputation.
- Given that hours is probably the least amount
of time that will be spent analyzing the simplest
job, and the most complex jobs can take weeks
of analysis, an organization must carefully
weigh the benefits of consultants against their
cost.
- An interesting alternative to consultants is the use of
college interns.
- Graduate students from I/O psychology
programs tend to have job analysis training and
experience and can be employed for a relatively
small cost (often, at no cost).
 - In fact, Radford University operates the
Community Human Resource Center in which
graduate students obtain job analysis
experience by conducting job analyses free of
charge to such local nonprofit agencies as
school systems, towns, and hospitals.
- In this way, graduate students obtain
experience, and the nonprofit organizations
receive professional-quality job analyses and
job descriptions at no cost.

How Often Should a Job Description Be Updated?

- This is a tough question, and the typical answer is that
a job description should be updated if a job changes
significantly.
- With high-tech jobs, this is probably fairly often.
- With jobs such as package handling, the job might not
change substantially for years.
- An interesting study compared the stability of
job descriptions at intervals of 1,6,10,12, and
20 years. After one year, 92 % of the tasks
listed in the old and updated job descriptions
were the same, dropping to 54 % after years.
- As one would expect, the stability of tasks
performed, the tools and equipment used, and
KSAOs needed to perform the job varied by the
complexity of the job.
- An interesting reason that job descriptions
change across time is job crafting – the informal
changes that employees make in their jobs.
That is, it is common for employees to quietly
expand the scope of their jobs to add tasks they
want to perform and to remove tasks that they
don’t want to perform. In a study of sales
representatives, 75% engaged in job crafting in
just one year

Which Employees Should Participate?

- For organizations with relatively few people in each job,
it is advisable to have all employees participate in the
job analysis.
- In organizations in which many people perform the
same job, every person need not participate.
- If every incumbent is not going to participate, the
question becomes, “How many people need to be
included in the job analysis?”
- This is a difficult question, one that I normally answer
by advising job analysts to keep interviewing
incumbents until they do not hear anything new.
- The answer to this question to some extent depends on
whether the job analysis will be committee based or
field based.
- In a committee-based job analysis, a group of
subject matter experts (e.g., employees, supervisors)
meet to generate the tasks performed, the conditions
under which they are performed, and the KSAOs
needed to perform them.
- In a field-based job analysis, the job analyst
individually interviews/ observes a number of
incumbents out in the field.
- Committee-based job analyses yield similar results to
field-based job analyses.

- Rouleau and Krain developed a table to estimate how

many incumbents should be included in a job analysis;
their recommendation is that a committee-based
approach should have one session of four to six
incumbents for jobs having fewer than incumbents and
two to three sessions for jobs with higher numbers of
incumbents.
- Green and Stutzman have suggested a minimum of 2
incumbents, and Gael has suggested 6 to 10.
Unfortunately, no research is available to verify the
accuracy of these estimates.
- Beatty compared the results of job analysis samples of
10, 15 , 20, and 212 incumbents in a federal law
enforcement position.
- His results indicated that the job tasks and job
requirements resulting from the use of 10 versus 212
incumbents were nearly identical. These results support
and extend those found by Fletcher, Friedman,
McCarthy, McIntyre, O’ Leary, and Rheinstein and Pass
and Robertson, who found that job analysis samples of
10 and 20 yielded comparable results.
- Mullins had 97 campus police officers at universities
generate critical incidents as part of a job analysis. The
results indicated that no new incidents appeared after
examining the incidents from the first three universities.
Furthermore, after examining the incidents supplied by
the first incumbents, no new incidents or categories
appeared.
- After the number of participants has been determined,
a decision needs to be made about which particular
employees will participate. If every employee will not
participate, the same sampling rules used in research
should be used in job analysis. That is, as discussed in
Chapter 1, participants should be selected in as
random a way as practical yet still be representative.
The reason for this, according to research, is that
employee differences in gender, race, job performance
level, experience, job enjoyment, and personality can at
times result in slightly diff erent job analysis outcomes.
Job Competence
- High-performing employees generated different job
analysis outcomes than did low-performing employees;
- Moderate differences in physical effort made by
employees with varying levels of expertise
- More experienced employees rated tasks differently
than less experienced employees.
- Mailhot did not find any differences in job analysis
ratings made by employees of different performance
levels.
- If higher performing employees generate
different job analysis results than lower
performing employees, a tough decision must
be made regarding which employees to include
in the job analysis.
- On the one hand, it would be nice to include a
representative sample of employees.
- On the other hand, do we really want to write a
job description and select future employees on
the basis of how poorly performing employees
do their jobs?

Race
- There are small but significant differences in the ways
in which white and African American incumbents
viewed their jobs.
- For example, Landy and Vasey found that white police
offi - cers administered first aid more often and African
American officers were more involved in sweeps and
raids related to widespread narcotics use. Interestingly,
Veres et al. found that job analysis ratings were related
not only to the race of the incumbent but to the race of
the incumbent’s coworkers.

Gender
- Landy and Vasey found possible differences in the
ways men and women viewed their jobs. Because
gender was confounded with experience, they were not
able to draw any definite conclusions.
- Schmitt and Cohen found that male middle-level
managers were more often involved in budgetary or
finance-related tasks than were their female
counterparts.
- Ansoorian and Schultz found no differences in the
physical-effort ratings assigned by male and female
incumbents.

Education Level.
- Landy and Vasey found that police officers with only a
high school diploma were less involved in court
activities than were their more educated counterparts.
Personality.
- Cucina, Vasilopoulos, and Sehgal found that the
personality of the incumbent was related to the
personality traits rated by the incumbent to be
important to the job.
- That is, extroverted incumbents rated such traits as
friendliness, leadership ability, and ambition as being
important for the job whereas conscientious
incumbents rated such traits as work ethic and
attention to detail as being important.
- Similarly, Ford, Truxillo, Wang, & Bauer found that
extroverts and people high in agreeableness were likely
to inflate task and KSAO ratings.

Viewpoint.
- It should be no surprise that people with different
perspectives on the job (e.g., incumbent, supervisor,
customer) produce different job analysis results.
- For example, Mueller and Belcher found that
incumbents (fire captains) and their supervisors
(fire chief, deputy fire chiefs, and division chiefs)
produced different task ratings during a job
analysis of the fire captain position.
- Truxillo, Paronto, Collins, and Sulzer found
differences in ratings provided by police officers
and district attorneys of the criticality of diff erent
aspects of report writing for reports written by
police officers.
- Wagner conducted a job analysis of dentists
and found that patients generated more
incidents where the patient–dentist relationship
was critical, whereas dentists reported more
technical-proficiency incidents.
- Likewise, Fisher and Greenis and Andersson
and Nilsson found differences in the critical
incidents generated by managers, incumbents,
and customers.
- The consideration of which employees are chosen to
participate is an important issue because a job can
often be performed in several ways.
- If males and females perform equally well on a
job, yet perform the job in diff erent ways, the
job analyses must contain information about
both styles.
- For example, suppose research indicates that
male supervisors lead by setting goals and
being directive and female supervisors use
more of a participative approach.
- Consequently, a job analysis conducted only on
male supervisors would result in a diff erent set
of KSAOs than a job analysis using both male
and female supervisors.
 - Because job analysis is the basis for every
personnel decision, it can be seen that equal
opportunity efforts begin as early as the job
analysis.
- The issue of using the best employees or the
typical employees is also important.
- During a job analysis at a large printing factory,
it was discovered that one employee performed
his job differently from the employees on the
other two shifts.
- Further investigation revealed that the one
employee was also rated much higher in job
performance than the other two. Thus, it
appeared that the logical thing to do was write
the job analysis results based on the way the
best employee performed the job and then
retrain the other two.

What Types of Information Should Be Obtained?

- That is, should the job analysis break a job down into
very minute, specific behaviors (e.g., “tilts arm at a
-degree angle” or “moves foot forward three inches”), or
should the job be analyzed at a more general level
(“makes financial decisions,” “speaks to clients”)?
- Although most jobs are analyzed at levels somewhere
between these two extremes, there are times when the
level of analysis will be closer to one end of the
spectrum than the other.
- For some jobs that involve intricate work, extensive and
expensive efforts have been undertaken to identify the
optimal way in which tasks should be performed.
- For example, in a window manufacturing plant,
job analysis determined that many more
windows could be mounted in frames by lifting
the glass just six inches and then sliding it into
place, than by lifting the glass higher and
placing it in the frame. In such a situation, the
work obviously must be performed in a specific
manner for the greatest financial savings.
- Thus, the job analysis is more effective at a more
detailed level. A related decision addresses the issue of
formal versus informal requirements.
- Formal requirements for a secretary might
include typing letters or filing memos.
- Informal requirements might involve making
coffee or picking up the boss’s children from
school. Including informal requirements has the
advantages of identifying and eliminating duties
that may be illegal or unnecessary.
 -For example, suppose a job analysis reveals
that a secretary in one department picks up the
boss’s children from school and takes them to a
day-care center.
- This is an important finding because the
company may not want this to occur. However,
because the manager makes $130, 000, per
year, the company may prefer that the
lower-paid secretary rather than the higher-paid
executive take an hour a day to pick up the
children.
- If this task is in the job description, an applicant
will know about this duty in advance and can
decide at the time of hire whether it is
acceptable.
- In addition, informal requirements (e.g., picking
up mail) may need to be made more formal to
reduce potential confusion regarding who is
responsible for the task.
- At one credit union, a continued source of
bickering involved whose job or whose turn it
was to pick up the mail, especially when the
weather was bad and post office parking
became limited.
- This problem could have been eliminated if the
task were assigned to one individual.
Conducting A Job Analysis
- Although there are many ways to conduct a job
analysis, the goal of most job analyses is to identify the
tasks performed in a job, the conditions under which
the tasks are performed, and the KSAOs needed to
perform the tasks under the conditions identified.
- This section will begin with a commonly used strategy
for conducting a job analysis and conclude with
descriptions of alternative methods.

Step 1: Identify Tasks Performed

- The first step in conducting a job analysis is to identify
the major job dimensions and the tasks performed for
each dimension, the tools and equipment used to
perform the tasks, and the conditions under which the
tasks are performed. This information is usually
gathered by obtaining previous information on the job,
interviewing job incumbents, observing performance, or
actually performing the job itself.

Gathering Existing Info

- Prior to interviewing incumbents, it is always a good
idea to gather information that has already been
obtained. For example, one might gather existing job
descriptions, task inventories, and training manuals.
This information might come from the organization with
which you are working, other organizations, trade
 publications, and journal articles. Examples of external
sources are occupational and career information
systems such as O*NET, employment advertisements,
certification and training resources, and technical and
research reports (Dierdorff, 2012).
Interviewing Subject-Matter Experts
- The most common method of conducting a job analysis
is to interview subject-matter experts (SMEs). SMEs
are people who are knowledgeable about the job and
include job incumbents, supervisors, customers, and
upper-level management.
- Job analysis interviews differ greatly from employment
interviews in that the purpose of the job analysis
interview is to obtain information about the job itself
rather than about the person doing the job. Job
analysis interviews come in two main forms: individual
and group.
- In the individual interview, the job analyst interviews
only one employee at a time. In the group interview, or
SME conference, a larger number of employees are
interviewed together. As mentioned earlier in the
chapter, individual interviews tend to yield similar
results to group interviews.
- Regardless of whether individual or group interviews
are used, certain guidelines should be followed that will
make the interview go more smoothly.
1. Prepare for the interview by announcing the job
analysis to the employees well in advance by
selecting a quiet and private interview location.
2. Open the interview by establishing rapport,
putting the worker at ease, and explaining the
purpose of the interview.
3. Conduct the interview by asking open-ended
questions, using easy to understand vocabulary,
and allowing sufficient time for the employee to
talk and answer questions. Avoid being
condescending and disagreeing with the
incumbent.
- Most workers are proud of their jobs and are willing to
talk about them in great detail.
- Once the initial apprehensions and jitters are over,
most job analysis interviews go well.
- A good way to start the actual interview is by asking
the employee to describe what she does from the
moment she first enters the parking lot at work to the
moment she arrives back home.
- A question such as this provides some structure for the
employee in recalling the various aspects of her job
and also provides the interviewer with many follow-up
questions and areas that will provide additional
information.
 - With a committee-based approach, a committee of
SMEs meets to brainstorm the major duties involved in
a job.
- Once this has been done, the committee identifies the
tasks (work-related activities) that must be completed
for each of the duties. The results are then summarized
in job descriptions or a job analysis report.
- An excellent job analysis interview technique was
developed by Ammerman (1965) and reported by
Robinson (1981). The basic steps for the Ammerman
technique are as follows:
1. Convene a panel of experts that includes
representatives from all levels of the
organization.
2. Have the panel identify the objectives and
standards that are to be met by the ideal
incumbent.
3. Have the panel list the specific behaviors
necessary for each objective or standard to be
attained.
4. Have the panel identify which of the behaviors
from step 3 are “critical” to reaching the
objective.
5. Have the panel rank-order the objectives on the
basis of importance.
- The results of these procedures will yield a set of
important objectives and the behaviors necessary to
meet them.
- These behaviors can be used to create employee
selection tests, develop training programs, or evaluate
the performance of current employees.
Observing Incumbents
- Observations are useful job analysis methods,
especially when used in conjunction with other methods
such as interviews.
- During a job analysis observation, the job analyst
observes incumbents performing their jobs in the work
setting.
- The advantage to this method is that it lets the job
analyst actually see the worker do her job and thus
obtain information that the worker may have forgotten
to mention during the interview.
- This is especially important because many employees
have difficulty describing exactly what they do; to them,
performing their job is second nature and takes little
thought.
- A good demonstration of this point is people’ difficulty
in naming the location of keys on a typewriter or the
location of gears when they drive. We all type and shift
gears without thinking (well, most of us do), but quickly
describing to another person the location of the V key
on our keyboard or “Reverse” on our manual
transmission console is difficult.
 - The method’s disadvantage is that it is very obtrusive.
Observing someone without their knowing is difficult.
Think of the jobs at which you have worked; there is
seldom anyplace from which an analyst could observe
without being seen by employees.
- This is a problem because once employees know they
are being watched, their behavior changes, which
keeps an analyst from obtaining an accurate picture of
the way jobs are done. When I was in college and
working third shift at a bookbinding factory, the
company hired an “efficiency expert” to analyze our
performance.
- The expert arrived in a three-piece suit, armed with a
stopwatch and clipboard. He stuck out like a sore
thumb! You can bet that for the two weeks the
efficiency expert observed us, we were ideal
employees (I can even remember calling my supervisor
“sir”) because we knew he was watching.
- Once he left, we went back to being our normal
time-wasting, soda-drinking, wise-cracking selves.
Job Participation
- One can analyze a job by actually performing it. This
technique, called job participation, is especially
effective because it is easier to understand every
aspect of a job once you have done it yourself.
- The technique is easily used when the analyst has
previously performed the job. An excellent example
would be a supervisor who has worked her way up
through the ranks. As mentioned earlier, the problem
with using a supervisor or an incumbent is that neither
has been trained in job analysis techniques.
- A professional job analyst can also perform an
unfamiliar job for a short period of time, although this,
of course, is limited to certain occupations that involve
quick training and minimal consequences from an error.
Brain surgery would probably not be good to analyze
using this method.
- The analyst should spend enough time on the job to
properly sample work behavior in addition to job
difficulty. Yet spending long periods of time can be very
expensive and still not guarantee that all aspects of
behavior will be covered.
- Psychologist Wayman Mullins used job participation
techniques to analyze the job of a firefighter. Mullins
spent two weeks living at the fire station and performing
all the duties of a firefighter.
- The only problem during this two-week period—no
fires. If Mullins had not already had a good idea of what
a firefighter did, he would have concluded that the most
important duties were sleeping, cleaning, cooking, and
playing cards!
Step 2: Write Task Statements
- Once the tasks have been identified, the next step is to
write the task statements that will be used in the task
inventory and included in the job description.
- A properly written task statement must contain an
action (what is done) and an object (to which the action
is done).
- Often, task statements will also include such
components as where the task is done, how it is done,
why it is done, and when it is done.
● One action should be done to one object. If the
statement includes the word and, it may have
more than one action or object. For example,
the statement “Types correspondence to be
sent to vendors” has one action and one object.
However, “Types, files, and sends
correspondence to vendors” contains three very
different actions (types, files, sends).
● Task statements should be written at a level that
can be read and understood by a person with
the same reading ability as the typical job
incumbent.
● All task statements should be written in the
same tense.
● The task statement should include the tools and
equipment used to complete the task.
● Task statements should not be competencies
(e.g., “Be a good writer”).
● Task statements should not be a policy (e.g.,
“Treats people nicely”).
● The statement should make sense by itself.
That is, “Makes photocopies” does not provide
as much detail as “Makes photocopies of
transactions for credit union members,” which
indicates what types of materials are
photocopied and for whom they are copied.
● For those activities that involve decision making,
the level of authority should be indicated. This
level lets the incumbent know which decisions
she is allowed to make on her own and which
she needs approval for from a higher level.
- It has also been suggested that a few tasks not part of
a job be placed into the task inventory; data from
incumbents who rate these irrelevant tasks as part of
their job are removed from the job analysis due to their
carelessness (Green & Stutzman, 1986). Including
“bogus tasks” is probably a good idea. Pine (1995)
included five such items in a 68-item task inventory for
corrections officers and found that 45% reported
performing at least one of the bogus tasks.

Step 3: Rate Task Statements

 - Once the task statements have been written (usually
including some 200 tasks), the next step is to conduct a
task analysis—using a group of SMEs to rate each task
statement on the frequency and the importance or
criticality of the task being performed.
- For example, consider the task of accurately shooting a
gun. For a police officer, this task occurs infrequently,
but when it does, its importance is paramount. If a
frequency scale alone were used, shooting a gun might
not be covered in training.
- Although many types of scales can be used, research
suggests that many of the scales tap similar types of
information (Sanchez & Fraser, 1992); thus, using the
two scales of frequency of occurrence and importance
shown in Table 2.3 should be sufficient.
- In fact, rather than asking for ratings of frequency of
occurrence or relative time spent on a task, some
researchers advise that the task inventory should
simply ask, “Do you perform this task?” (Wilson &
Harvey, 1990). Raters tend to agree on ratings of task
importance but not on time spent (Lindell, Clause,
Brandt, & Landis, 1998).
- After a representative sample of SMEs rates each task,
the ratings are organized into a format similar to that
shown in Table 2.4. Tasks will not be included in the job
description if their average frequency rating is 0.5 or
below.
- Tasks will not be included in the final task inventory if
they have either an average rating of 0.5 or less on
either the frequency (F) or importance (I) scales or an
average combined rating (CR) of less than 2.
- Using these criteria, tasks 1, 2, and 4 in Table 2.4
would be included in the job description, and tasks 2
and 4 would be included in the final task inventory used
in the next step of the job analysis.
Step 4: Determine Essential KSAO’s
- Once the task analysis is completed and a job analyst
has a list of tasks that are essential for the proper
performance of a job, the next step is to identify the
KSAOs needed to perform the tasks.
● Knowledge-A body of information needed to
perform a task.
● Skill-The proficiency to perform a learned task.
● Ability-The basic capacity for performing a wide
range of tasks, acquiring knowledge, or
developing a skill.
● Other characteristics-Factors that are not
knowledge, skills, or abilities such as
personality, willingness, interest, and degrees.
- Currently, KSAOs are commonly referred to as
competencies (Campion et al. 2011). In the old days,
KSAOs were called job specifications (job specs).
 - Though there may be some disagreement among I/O
psychologists, the terms “KSAOs,” “competencies,” and
“job specs” can be used interchangeably and there is
no real difference among the three (other than which
term is in vogue).
- When competencies are tied to an organization’s
strategic initiatives and plans rather than to specific
tasks, the process is called competency modeling.

Step 5: Selecting Tests to Tap KSAOs

- Once the important KSAOs have been identified, the
next step is to determine the best methods to tap the
KSAOs needed at the time of hire.
- These methods will be used to select new employees
and include such methods as interviews, work samples,
ability tests, personality tests, reference checks,
integrity tests, biodata, and assessment centers.
Using Other Job Analysis Methods
- In the previous pages, the most common method for
conducting a job analysis was discussed. Though this
method provides great information, it can be rather
lengthy and unstructured.
- To save time, increase structure, or supplement
information obtained from interviews, observations, and
task analysis, other job analysis methods are available.
- These methods tend to provide information on one of
four specific factors that are commonly included in a job
description: worker activities, tools and equipment
used, work environment, and competencies.
Methods Providing General Information About Worker
Activities
- Using the strategy discussed previously yields specific
information about the tasks and activities performed by
an incumbent in a particular job. Though such detailed
information is ideal, obtaining it can be both
time-consuming and expensive. As an alternative,
several questionnaires have been developed to
analyze jobs at a more general level.
- This general analysis saves time and money and
allows jobs to be more easily compared with one
another than is the case if interviews, observations, job
participation, or task analysis is used.
Position Analysis Questionnaire
- A structured instrument developed at Purdue University
by McCormick, Jeanneret, and Mecham (1972), and is
now available from PAQ Services in Bellingham,
Washington.
- The PAQ contains 194 items organized into six main
dimensions: information input, mental processes, work
output, relationships with other persons, job context,
and other job-related variables such as work schedule,
pay, and responsibility
- That is, the PAQ tells us if a job involves interviewing
but does not indicate the type of interviewing that is
performed (interviewing job applicants versus
interviewing a witness to a crime) or how the interview
is conducted.
- Thus, the results would be difficult to use for functions
such as training or performance appraisal.
-
Critical Incident Technique (CIT)
- developed and first used by John Flanagan and his
students at the University of Pittsburgh in the late
1940s and early 1950s
- used to discover actual incidents of job behavior that
make the difference between a job’s successful or
unsuccessful performance
- The CIT is an excellent addition to a job analysis
because the actual critical incidents can be used for
future activities such as performance appraisal and
training cannot be used as the sole method of job
analysis
- The PAQ offers many advantages. It is inexpensive and
takes relatively little time to use. It is one of the most
standardized job analysis methods, has acceptable
levels of reliability, and its results for a particular
position can be compared through computer analysis
with thousands of other positions.
- Although the PAQ has considerable support, research
indicates its strengths are also the source of its
weaknesses.
- The PAQ’s instructions suggest that incumbents using
the questionnaire have education levels between
grades 10 and 12. Research has found, however, that
the PAQ questions and directions are written at the
college graduate level (Ash & Edgell, 1975); thus, many
workers may not be able to understand the PAQ.
- This is one reason developers of the PAQ recommend
that trained job analysts complete the PAQ rather than
the employees themselves.
- In addition, the PAQ was designed to cover all jobs; but
limited to 194 questions and six dimensions, it has not
proven very sensitive.
- For example, a homemaker and a police officer have
similar PAQ profiles (Arvey & Begalla, 1975). Similar
 profiles also are obtained regardless of whether an
analyst actually observes the job or just looks at a job
title or a job description (Brannick, Levine, & Morgeson,
2007).
- Finally, having a large amount of information about a
job yields the same results as having little information
(Surrette et al., 1990). Although these studies speak
favorably about the reliability of the PAQ, they also
provide cause for worry because the PAQ appears to
yield the same results regardless of how familiar the
analyst is with a job.
Job Structure Profile
- A revised version of the PAQ was developed by Patrick
and Moore (1985). The major changes in the revision,
which is called the Job Structure Profile (JSP), include
item content and style, new items to increase the
discriminatory power of the intellectual and
decision-making dimensions, and an emphasis on
having a job analyst, rather than the incumbent, use the
JSP. Research by JSP’s developers indicates that the
instrument is reliable, but little research has been
conducted on the JSP since 1985.
Job Elements Inventory
- Another instrument designed as an alternative to the
PAQ is the Job Elements Inventory (JEI), developed by
Cornelius and Hakel (1978). The JEI contains 153
items and has a readability level appropriate for an
employee with only a tenth-grade education (Cornelius,
Hakel, & Sackett, 1979). Research comparing the JEI
with the PAQ indicates that the scores from each
method are very similar (Harvey, Friedman, Hakel, &
Cornelius, 1988); thus, the JEI may be a better
replacement for the difficult-to-read PAQ. But as
mentioned with the JSP, much more research is
needed before conclusions can be confidently drawn.
Functional Job Analysis
- It was initially designed by Sidney Fine (1955) as a
method that could be used by the federal government
to analyze and compare thousands of jobs.
- The FJA process begins in a similar manner to many
job analysis methods: a small group of subject matter
experts meets to identify the key functions of a job
(what gets done) as well as the tasks performed to
complete each function (Cronshaw, 2012).
- What makes FJA unique, is that once the SMEs have
identified these functions and tasks, they assign a
percentage of time the incumbent spends on three
functions: data (information and ideas), people (clients,
customers, and coworkers), and things (machines,
tools, and equipment). An analyst is given 100 points to
allot to the three functions. The points are usually
assigned in multiples of 5, with each function receiving
a minimum of 5 points.
Methods Proving Information About Tools and
Equipments
Job Components Inventory
- Methods Providing Information About Tools and
Equipment
- To take advantage of the PAQ’s strengths while
avoiding some of its problems, Banks, Jackson,
Stafford, and Warr (1983) developed the Job
- Components Inventory (JCI) for use in England. The
JCI consists of more than 400 questions covering five
major categories: tools and equipment, perceptual and
physical requirements, mathematical requirements,
communication requirements, and decision making and
responsibility.
- It is the only job analysis method containing a detailed
section on tools and equipment. Published research on
the JCI is not abundant. But it does appear to be a
promising technique, with research indicating that it is
reliable (Banks & Miller, 1984), can differentiate
between jobs (Banks et al., 1983), can cluster jobs
based on their similarity to one another (Stafford,
Jackson, & Banks, 1984), and, unlike the PAQ, is
affected by the amount of information available to the
analyst (Surrette et al., 1990).
Methods Proving Information About the Work
Environment
● The techniques discussed so far provide information
about the activities that are performed and the
equipment used to perform them.
● The job analyst still needs information about the
conditions under which the activities are performed. For
example, two employees might perform the task
“deliver mail,” yet one might do it by carrying 50-pound
mail bags in very hot weather whereas the other
delivers mail by driving a golf cart through an
air-conditioned warehouse.
● To obtain information about the work environment, a job
analyst might use the AET, an acronym for
“Arbeitswissenschaftliches Erhebungsverfahren zur
Tätigkeitsanalyse” (try saying this three times!), which
means “ergonomic job analysis procedure.”
● By ergonomic, we mean that the instrument is primarily
concerned with the relationship between the worker
and work objects. Developed in Germany by Rohmert
and Landau
● (1983), the AET is a 216-item, standardized
questionnaire that analyzes a job along the dimensions
shown in Table 2.7.
● Sample items from the AET can be found in Table 2.8.
Although the AET appears to be a promising method
for obtaining certain types of job analysis information,
there has not been enough published research to draw
any real conclusions.
Methods Providing Information About Competencies
Occupational Information Network
- It is a national job analysis system created by the
federal government to replace the Dictionary of
Occupational Titles (DOT), which had been in use since
the 1930s (Peterson et al., 2001). O*NET is a major
advancement in understanding the nature of work, in
large part because its developers understood that jobs
can be viewed at four levels: economic, organizational,
occupational, and individual.
- As a result, O*NET has incorporated the types of
information obtained in many job analysis techniques.
- A chart comparing O*NET with other job analysis
methods is located on this text’s webpage. O*NET
includes information about the occupation (generalized
work activities, work context, organizational context)
and the worker characteristics (ability, work style,
occupational values and interests, knowledge, skills,
education) needed for success in the occupation.
- The O*NET also includes information about such
economic factors as labor demand, labor supply,
salaries, and occupational trends. This information can
be used by employers to select new employees and by
applicants who are searching for careers that match
their skills, interests, and economic needs.
O*NETbased information can be obtained at
http://online.onetcenter.org.
Critical Incident Technique
- It was developed and first used by John Flanagan and
his students at the University of Pittsburgh in the late
1940s and early 1950s.
- The CIT is used to discover actual incidents of job
behavior that make the difference between a job’s
successful or unsuccessful performance (Flanagan,
1954).
- This technique can be conducted in many ways, but the
basic procedure is as follows:
1. Job incumbents each generate between one
and five incidents of both excellent and poor
performance that they have seen on the job.
These incidents can be obtained using
logbooks, questionnaires, or interviews;
research has shown that the method used
makes little difference although questionnaires
are usually used because they are the easiest.
A convenient way to word requests for critical
incidents is by asking incumbents to think of
times they saw workers perform in an especially
outstanding way and then to write down exactly
what occurred. Incumbents are then asked to do
the same for times they saw workers perform
poorly.
 2. Job experts examine each incident and decide
whether it is an example of excellent or poor
behavior. This step is necessary because
approximately 5% of incidents initially cited as
poor examples by employees are actually good
examples and vice versa (Aamodt, Reardon, &
Kimbrough, 1986). For example, in a recent job
analysis of the position of university instructor, a
few students described their worst teachers as
those who lectured from material not included in
their textbooks. A committee of faculty members
and students who reviewed the incidents
determined that lecturing from non text material
actually was excellent. Thus, the incidents were
counted as examples of excellent rather than
poor performance.
3. The incidents generated in the first stage are
then given to three or four incumbents to sort
into an unspecified number of categories. The
incidents in each category are then read by the
job analyst, who combines, names, and defines
the categories.
4. To verify the judgments made by the job analyst
in procedure 3, three other incumbents are
given the incidents and category names and are
asked to sort the incidents into the newly
created categories. If two of the three
incumbents sort an incident into the same
category, the incident is considered part of that
category. Any incident that is not agreed upon
by two sorters is either thrown out or placed in a
new category.
5. The numbers of both types of incidents sorted
into each category are then tallied and used to
create a table similar to Table 2.10. The
categories provide the important dimensions of
a job, and the numbers provide the relative
importance of these dimensions.
- The CIT is an excellent addition to a job analysis
because the actual critical incidents can be used for
future activities such as performance appraisal and
training. The CIT’s greatest drawback is that its
emphasis on the difference between excellent and poor
performance ignores routine duties. Thus, the CIT
cannot be used as the sole method of job analysis.

Job Components Inventory

- addition to information about tools and equipment used
on the job, which were discussed earlier, the JCI also
provides information about the perceptual, physical,
mathematical, communication, decision making, and
responsibility skills needed to perform the job
Threshold Traits Analysis (TTA)
- An approach similar to the JCI is the Threshold Traits
Analysis (TTA), which was developed by Lopez,
Kesselman, and Lopez (1981).
- The TTA questionnaire’s 33 items identify the traits that
are necessary for the successful performance of a job.
- The 33 items cover five trait categories: physical,
mental, learned, motivational, and social.
- The TTA’s greatest advantages are that it is short and
reliable and can correctly identify important traits
- Because the TTA also focuses on traits, its main uses
are in the development of an employee selection
system or a career plan

Fleishman Job Analysis Survey (F-JAS)

- These ratings are performed for each of the 72 abilities
and knowledge. The F-JAS is easy to use by
incumbents or trained analysts, and is supported by
years of research. Its advantages over TTA are that it is
more detailed and is commercially available.

Job Adaptability Inventory (JAI)

- -132-item inventory developed by Pulakos, Arad,
Donovan, and Plamondon (2000) that taps the extent to
which a job incumbent needs to adapt to situations on
the job.
- JAI has eight dimensions:
- Handling emergencies or crisis situations
- Handling work stress
- Solving problems creatively
- Dealing with uncertain and unpredictable work
situations
- Learning work tasks, technologies, and
procedures
- Demonstrating interpersonal adaptability
- Demonstrating cultural adaptability
- Demonstrating physically oriented adaptability
- Though the JAI is relatively new, it has excellent
reliability and has been shown to distinguish among
jobs
Personality-Related Position
- Requirements Form (PPRF) was developed by
Raymark, Schmit, and Guion (1997) to identify the
personality types needed to perform job-related tasks.
The PPRF consists of 107 items tapping 12 personality
dimensions that fall under the “Big 5” personality
dimensions (openness to experience,
conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and
emotional stability). Though more research is needed,
the PPRF is reliable and shows promise as a useful job
analysis instrument for identifying the personality traits
necessary to perform a job.
Performance Improvements Characteristics (PIC)
- Similar to the PPRF, the 48 questions on the PIC help
determine which of the seven main personality traits
are needed to perform a given job. Research on the
PIC indicates that it has acceptable reliability and is
able to differentiate between jobs (Foster, Gaddis, &
Hogan, 2012.).

Evaluation of Methods
- The best method to use in analyzing a job appears to
be related to the end use of the job analysis
information. That is, diff erent methods are best for diff
erent uses—worker-oriented methods, such as the CIT,
JCI, and TTA, are the best for employee selection and
performance appraisal; job-oriented methods, such as
task analysis, are best for work design and writing job
descriptions.
- From a legal perspective, courts have ruled that job
analysis is necessary (Sparks, 1988) and that
acceptable job analyses should (1) use several
up-to-date sources, (2) be conducted by experts, (3)
use a large number of job incumbents, and (4) cover
the entire range of worker activities and qualifications
- Survey research by Levine, Ash, and their colleagues
(Levine, Ash, & Bennett, 1980; Levine, Ash, Hall, &
Sistrunk, 1983) has found the following:
- The PAQ is seen as the most standardized
technique and the CIT the least standardized.
- The CIT takes the least amount of job analyst
training and task analysis the most.
- The PAQ is the least costly method and the CIT
the most
- The PAQ takes the least amount of time to
complete and task analysis the most.
- Task analysis has the highest-quality results and
TTA the lowest.
- Task analysis reports are the longest and
job-elements reports the shortest.
- The CIT has been rated the most useful and the
PAQ the least.
- Task analysis gives the best overall job picture
and the PAQ the worst.
- job analysis methods were not included in the Levine
and Ash studies

Job Evaluation
- Once a job analysis has been completed and a
thorough job description written, it is important to
determine how much employees in a position should be
paid.
- This process of determining a job’s worth is called job
evaluation.
 - A job evaluation is typically done in two stages:
determining internal pay equity and determining
external pay equity.

Determining Internal Pay Equity

- Internal pay equity involves comparing jobs within an
organization to ensure that the people in jobs worth the
most money are paid accordingly. The difficulty in this
process, of course, is determining the worth of each
job.

Step 1: Determining Compensable Job Factors

- The first step in evaluating a job is to decide what
factors diff erentiate the relative worth of jobs. Possible
compensable job factors include:
- Level of responsibility
- Physical demands
- Mental demands
- Education requirements
- Training and experience requirements
- Working conditions
- Others argue that education is the most important. The
choice of compensable factors thus is often more
philosophical than empirical.

Step 2: Determining the Levels for Each Compensable

Factor
- Once the compensable factors have been selected, the
next step is to determine the levels for each factor. For
a factor such as education, the levels are easy to
determine (e.g., high school diploma, associate’s
degree, bachelor’s degree)

Step 3: Determining the Factor Weights

- Because some factors are more important than others,
weights must be assigned to each factor and to each
level within a factor.
- Here is the process for doing this: (page 66)

Determining External Pay Equity

- With external equity, the worth of a job is determined by
comparing the job to the external market (other
organizations)
- External equity is important if an organization is to
attract and retain employees.
- In other words, it must be competitive with the
compensation plans of other organizations.
- To determine external equity, organizations use salary
surveys
- Sent to other organizations, these surveys ask how
much an organization pays its employees in various
positions.
 - Keep in mind that job evaluation concerns the worth of
the job itself, not the worth of a person in the job.
- We have earlier discussed the amount of money a job
is worth: this amount is called direct compensation.
- Employees are also compensated in other ways, such
as pay for time not worked (e.g., holidays, vacation,
sick days), deferred income (e.g., Social Security and
pension plans), health protection such as medical and
dental insurance, and perquisites (“perks”) such as a
company car

Determining a Sex and Race Equity

- In addition to analyses of internal and external equity,
pay audits should also be conducted to ensure that
employees are not paid differently on the basis of
gender or race.
- The Office of Federal Contract Compliance
Programs (OFCCP) monitors these analyses to ensure
that they are conducted and that contractors are not
discriminating on the basis of pay
- Two types of audits should be conducted: one that
looks at pay rates of employees within positions with
identical duties (equal pay for equal work) and a
second that looks at pay rates of employees in jobs of
similar worth and responsibility (comparable worth).
- This second type of analysis is normally conducted by
comparing jobs with similar worth (salary grade) and
responsibility (job family). The OFCCP calls such gris
often in the news because some groups claim that
female workers are paid less than male workers. oups,
similarly situated employee groupings (SSEGs).
- Comparable worth is an issue very much related to
the discussion of job evaluation
- is often in the news because some groups claim that
female workers are paid less than male workers. Th is
perception of pay inequity stems from the statistic that,
on average, female workers in made only 80.2% of
what male workers were paid

Conducting a Sex and Race Equity Study

- The first step in conducting a salary equity analysis for
an organization is to place jobs into the SSEGs
mentioned previously.
- This task takes considerable time as one needs to use
salary grades to determine similarity of worth and use
job descriptions to determine similarity of duties and
responsibilities
- Two types of statistical analyses are typically used:
hierarchical regression and Fisher’s exact tests.
- For smaller SSEGs (fewer than total employees), a
Fisher’s exact test is used to compare median salaries.
- Salary adjustments are determined by entering the
merit variables for each employee into a regression
equation to estimate what the employees “should” be
making.
- for this approach to be reliable, the merit variables
should account for a statistically significant percentage
of the individual differences in salary
- An employee whose actual salary is two standard
errors below his or her predicted salary is a potential
candidate for a salary adjustment