Industrial and Organizational Psychology

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Job Analysis and Job Evaluation

Job Analysis and Job Evaluation

Job Analysis

Importance and function of Job Analysis

• JOB ANALYSIS is a process where a practitioner or researcher undertakes to

determine the core tasks of a certain job. It lists down essential competencies that an
individual should possess in order to do the job adequately. The product of a job analysis
is a job description that would narrate the position’s tasks, needed knowledge, skills and
other requirements as deemed necessary to perform the function. It should be noted that
when doing job analysis that great focus should be on the job and not on the person doing
the job.
• Job analysis is useful for determining concretely what should be expected of the
employee that is hired for the job.
a. The use of the JOB DESCRIPTION allows the employer and the employee to agree on
expectations which would later on be used in the employee’s performance appraisal.
o This would contain the job title, job summary, duties and responsibilities.
o Job descriptions may also contain competencies needed to do the job with proficiency
ratings accompanying it that would serve as a basis for hiring employees.
o It may also contain trainings and other preferences that would help the employee be
successful in the job.
o Job descriptions are helpful especially in informing people who are not familiar with
the job on what needs to be done.
b. Another purpose for job analysis is JOB CLASSIFICATION / SPECIFICATION
o This is done to know which jobs can be banned together.
o Job classification is normally done per job function (ie. Engineering function may be
composed of mechanical engineers, electric engineers, industrial engineers, etc).
o This also determines the appropriate pay for employees based on a job evaluation as
well as aid in transferring employees from one job to another.

I/O Psychology
Methods of Conducting Job Analysis

There are several ways on how to conduct a job analysis. A practitioner may employ any of the
following techniques or a combination of to do a job analysis.

• Individual/Group interviews
- a practitioner may interview an incumbent on his daily tasks and consolidate this in a job
description.
- This has to be vetted and agreed upon by the incumbent.
- Another way of doing this is setting up an interview with the superior of the job and record
expectations/description of the job.
• Questionnaires
- This may come in open-ended or structured form where the worker would have to answer
several questions that may come in a checklist or essay form.
- The practitioner would then consolidate answers to form a job analysis.
- This method is widely used for its ease as it can be done quickly and without cost.
- This also allows for easy comparison of jobs across functions
• Time and motion studies
- where the practitioner/incumbent records and observes the daily grind of the worker.

In a job analysis, it is necessary to get information on the following as these are pertinent components of
a job description.

• Duties and Responsibilities – contains the tasks associated with the job that may include occurrence
of certain tasks, complexity of the work, equipment used, standards to be observed, etc.
• Environment – this states the working conditions that the worked will be place in which should
spell out any safety concerns such as exposure to chemicals, site visits, etc.
• Tools and Equipment – would enumerate any tools to be used as necessitated by the work. This
applies mostly for technical jobs such as engineering, medical, etc.
• Relationships – indicates the reporting relationships of the worker as well as people/group to be
handled
• Other requirements – this may include preferences for the job as stated by the employer such as
college courses, background, etc.
 Industrial and Organizational Psychology
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Job Analysis and Job Evaluation

I/O Psychology
Job Evaluation

Importance and function of Job Evaluation

• JOB EVALUATION is the process by which one determines the worth of the job.
• An evaluation would entail looking at the components of the job description that includes the
duties and responsibilities, knowledge, skills, competencies and other things that may be of
value to the employer.
• One may also look at the organizational context and the value of the job.
• The purpose of such process allows for an objective way of determining the right salary for
employees in an organization.
• This can be defined by the organization’s compensation philosophy as well as compensable
factors determined by the employer.
• Evaluating jobs would help organizations maintain internal equity where one job’s pay does
not vary greatly from a similar job’s pay.
• Most organizations operate on pay scale ranges (Government) which would allow employees
to be compensated fairly.
• Job evaluations are normally done for every position present in the organization in order to
ensure that companies are hiring based on expected outcomes of the jobs.
• This being said, job evaluations should be based on current roles and deliverables.

Methods of Conducting Job Evaluation

There are four methods of how to evaluate jobs as described below:

• Job ranking
- jobs are compared to one another and are ranked highest to lowest based on its relevance to
the company.
- Though this is the simplest method, this is limited to organizations that only have 100
positions or less.
- It is important to note that objective evaluation is an important aspect of job ranking to take out
subjectivity in managerial evaluation.
• Job classification
- putting together similar jobs based on pre-defined classifications mostly based on function,
skill and difficulty.
- JOB GRADES are normally made as references.
 Industrial and Organizational Psychology
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Job Analysis and Job Evaluation

• Point factor
- makes use of pre-determined compensable factors that are deemed important to the
organization.
- A point system is devised where the total score will correspond to a particular pay grade.
• Factor comparison
- a combination of the point factor system and the job ranking system.
- The organization would have to benchmark similar jobs to the marked and assign compensable
factors and rank jobs according to this.

It is important to note that several other factors come into play when doing job evaluations and a
highly seasoned professional should oversee the process.

Factors such as internal equity, market competition, organizational capability, and legal constraints and
regulations should be taken into consideration.

It is good practice for an organization to constantly be abreast with the market and participate in
compensation and job surveys in order to keep their hiring and retention strategies competitive.

This would allow the organization to limit attrition and focus on growing its people.

Glossary

Job analysis – process where a practitioner or researcher undertakes to determine the core
tasks of a certain job

Job description – document that included the job summary, duties and responsibilities,
competencies and skills required of the job

Job summary – brief description of what the job is

Job title – denotes persons distinction in the company

Job classification – putting together similar jobs

Job function – a classification of jobs that are related to one another

Job evaluation - process by which one determines the worth of the job

I/O Psychology
References
Books
Riggio, R. E. (2013). Introduction to industrial and organizational psychology
(6th ed.). London: Routledge.
Weiner, I. B.; Highhouse, S.; Schmitt, N. (2013). Series: handbook of psychology
(2nd ed.). Chichester : Wiley.
Online Resources
HR Guide Website. Retrieved from: http://www.job-analysis.net/G000.htm; May
2, 2017
Case Western Reserve University Website. Retrieved from:
https://case.edu/finadmin/humres/compensation/spprocess.html; May 2, 2017
Society for Human Resource Management. (2016, October 27). Retrieved from:
https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-
samples/toolkits/pages/performingjobevaluations.aspx; May 2, 2017
Online Video
Job analysis; https://www.coursera.org/learn/recruiting-hiring-onboarding-
employees/lecture/g9lv0/1-4-1-job-analysis; May 2, 2017