06

Job analysis

Formal job evaluation is based on the information provided by a job description or role profile, which is prepared by means of job analysis. As described in this chapter the analysis is conducted through either structured interviews or questionnaires.

Job descriptions

Traditional job descriptions contain an overview of the job and its place in the organization structure followed by detailed descriptions of duties and responsibilities. When used to inform analytical job evaluation they should not attempt to describe the duties in too much detail. They should instead sum up the main activities briefly. They should also include an analysis of the job demands in terms of each of the factors or elements in the scheme.

If the organization already has job descriptions in place they may possibly provide a basis for evaluation. But existing descriptions are often inadequate, out of date, and unusable because they have not been written to a consistent format. Moreover, they will typically not support a point-factor or analytical matching process. It is therefore almost always necessary to start afresh by deciding on a new standard format and conducting a job analysis programme.

Table 6.1 is an example of a role profile prepared for a job evaluation exercise.

TABLE 6.1 Example of a role profile

Structured interviews

A structured interview is one that is based on a defined framework within which there is a set of predetermined questions. The purpose is to obtain the relevant facts about the job, namely the job title, organizational details (reporting relationships as described in an organization chart), a list of the tasks or duties performed by the job holder, and information about the level of the responsibilities involved and the demands made upon the job holder. The latter can cover the amount of supervision received, the degree of discretion allowed in making decisions, the typical problems to be solved, the amount of guidance available when solving the problems, the relative difficulty of the tasks to be performed, and the qualifications and skills required to carry out the work.

Job analysis interviews may be held with job holders but there is much to be said for interviewing the job holder’s manager as well in order to check on the information supplied by the job holder. The same sequence of questions can be used and, although time-consuming, such checks can increase the accuracy of the analysis.

Conducting a job analysis interview

The steps required to conduct a structured job analysis interview are:

1. Define in advance the information required and how the interview will be structured.

2. Decide on a logical sequence of questions that are likely to elicit that information. These will consist of questions to establish job content and, for an analytical scheme, questions to find out the level of demands made on job holders in each of the factors used in the job evaluation scheme. Examples of questions are given below.

3. When conducting the interview be prepared to vary the predetermined structure of questions if it is necessary to explore aspects of the job more thoroughly or unexpected features of the work emerge.

4. Probe as necessary to establish what people really do – answers to questions are often vague and information may be given by means of untypical instances.

5. Ensure that job holders are not allowed to get away with vague or inflated descriptions of their work – they would not be human if they did not present the job in the best possible light.

6. Remember that if the factor plan for the job evaluation scheme has been published, which it should have been, the job holder or the job holder’s manager may be aware of the factors that may contribute to a higher-level evaluation and adjust the information they supply accordingly.

7. Sort out the wheat from the chaff; answers to questions may produce a lot of irrelevant data that must be sifted before preparing the job description.

8. Obtain a clear statement from job holders about their authority to make decisions and the amount of guidance they receive from their manager or team leader and check this with the latter.

9. Avoid asking leading questions that make the expected answer obvious.

10. Allow the job holder ample opportunity to talk by creating an atmosphere of trust.

Job content questions

The following are typical basic questions on job content that may be put to job holders:

1. What is the title of your job?

2. To whom are you responsible?

3. Who is responsible to you? An organization chart is helpful.

4. What is the main purpose of your job in overall terms, ie what are you expected to do?

5. What are the key activities you have to carry out in your job? Try to group them under no more than eight headings.

6. For each of these activities, what authority do you have to decide what to do or how to do it?

7. What are you expected to know to be able to carry out your job?

8. What skills should you have to carry out your job?

These are the basic questions and supplementary ones may almost certainly be needed to get the information required, for example when dealing with questions five to eight.

The answers to these questions may need to be sorted out – they can often result in a mass of jumbled information that has to be analysed so that the various activities can be distinguished and refined to seven or eight key areas and the factors linked to those activities can be identified.

Factor level questions

Factor level questions such as the examples given below can be formulated by referring to the factor plan. In each case supplementary questions may have to be asked. Wherever possible, examples of what is involved should be obtained.

Knowledge and skills (general)

To what extent do any of the following statements apply to your job?

The job involves:

· The application of specific administrative or technical skills.

· The application of a range of professional, specialist, technical, administrative or operational areas of knowledge and skills.

· The application of high levels of professional, specialist, technical or administrative expertise.

· The application of authoritative expertise in a key area of the organization’s activities.

Interpersonal skills

To what extent do any of the following statements apply to your job?

The job requires:

· The skills to exert some influence over others, getting them to accept a proposal or point of view.

· The skills to frequently relate to people inside and outside the organization, providing advice and guidance, dealing with problems affecting people and exerting influence on important matters. The skills may be used in negotiations and joint problem solving on relatively straightforward issues.

· The skills to relate constantly to people at senior levels inside and outside the organization.

· The skills to deal with internal and external contacts at high levels, handling important and non-routine issues and involving the exercise of considerable persuasive ability, sensitivity to others and tact. The skills may be used when conducting important negotiations, dealing with difficult and sensitive cases or acting as the recognized representative of the company on key issues externally.

Complexity

To what extent do any of the following statements apply to your job?

· There is some diversity in the work, which involves a number of non-routine elements and the exercise of a variety of skills although they are quite closely related to one another.

· The work is diverse, consisting of a number of different elements which are only broadly related to one another.

· The work is highly diverse, involving many different elements which may not be closely related to one another and the exercise of a wide variety of skills.

· The work is multi-disciplinary and involves making a broad range of highly diverse decisions

Responsibility for resources

To what extent do any of the following statements apply to your job?

· Leads a small team, and/or manages a small budget or is responsible for a range of facilities or equipment.

· Leads a large team or department of more than 10 people, and/or acts as budget manager for a department or office.

· Leads a major function or range of activities and manages a commensurately sized budget.

Advantages and disadvantages of interviewing

The advantages of the interviewing method are that it is flexible, can provide in-depth information and is easy to organize and prepare. It is therefore the most common approach. But interviewing can be time-consuming, which is why in large job analysis exercises, questionnaires may be used to provide advance information about the job. This speeds up the interviewing process or even replaces the interview altogether, although this means that much of the ‘flavour’ of the job – ie what it is really like – may be lost.

Written questionnaire

Increasingly organizations are attracted by a questionnaire-based approach rather than using job descriptions or role profiles because embarking on a complete rewrite of the organization’s job descriptions may seem to be a formidable and time-consuming task. Instead a questionnaire may be used, with a commitment to review the design of job descriptions or role profiles on completion of the job evaluation project, using the information drawn from the questionnaires.

A typical questionnaire asks for narrative responses to questions that relate to each factor, evaluation criterion or element in the matching matrix. They may be given to employees for completion on the basis that they know best how the job is done, or to the line manager or, ideally, to both as a shared task to complete. An example of a questionnaire is given in Appendix C.

The risk of giving the questionnaire directly to job holders is that it allows for individuals to ‘talk up’ their roles, ie exaggerate the levels of responsibility etc involved. For this reason it is better to validate the completed questionnaire in discussion with the line manager, or to get the manager and job holder to complete the questionnaire together. Where there are multiple job holders it can be helpful to get a group of them together to generate the questionnaire responses, ideally using a facilitator to support the process, whilst allowing individuals to comment on any individual variation from the common responses.

Another approach to gathering evaluation information through questionnaires is by using a multiple choice-type questionnaire rather than obtaining a written description of the job. The questions may be based directly on the factor levels in a factor plan. This approach is used by some proprietary schemes. The questionnaire may even ask the completer of the questionnaire (typically either the job holder or manager) to make a tick against the appropriate factor level for the job. There are risks in this method because the individual is effectively evaluating the job, without any knowledge of the context. If the options are written in terms of the factor level descriptions the language can appear quite abstract to a job holder and they may feel that they have not been given sufficient opportunity to describe their job. Also, a multiple-choice questionnaire is unlikely to give enough background context about a job to be able to validate whether all the characteristics of a job are being picked up – although this may not be a problem if accurate good job descriptions or role profiles exist.

Written questionnaires may be used to speed up evaluations for a scheme that has been fully developed and tested but they are unlikely to be a satisfactory tool for use when developing a scheme.

Computer-aided analysis

Interactive computer-aided systems use a set of online questions. This enables a more sophisticated questioning approach whereby job holders are asked questions that relate directly to their job, rather than all the questions embedded in the scheme. If the same initial question on a factor is answered differently, the next question that appears will be different. This approach does not rely on job descriptions. An output of the interview is likely to be some form of job profile based on the interviewee’s answers.

However, when developing a scheme, it is likely that the initial design of the ‘paper’ scheme will use a more traditional questionnaire approach in order to test the factors before building these into the computer tool.

The parties involved in job analysis

The parties involved in job analysis may be:

· The job holder who knows how the job is done in practice.

· The job holder’s manager who should have an overview of what is required of the job holder.

· The manager’s manager who may be used in a signing-off capacity or to resolve any differences between the job holder and their manager.

· A trained analyst who may interview job holders, facilitate discussions between the job holder and line manager, and help to resolve differences; analysts may be drawn from the project team, the HR function or a broader group of trained employees.

· Trade union representatives who may be involved as observers to the job analysis process, or sit in on interviews if requested by the job holder(s).

Whoever is involved will need to be given guidance or formally trained. This will include guidance on how to conduct interviews or complete/verify questionnaires, the need to distinguish between individual performance and the job requirements, and awareness training on how to avoid discrimination.