Capitulo 2 - Job Analysis & Job Design

Question 1

How workflow is set up in organizations?

Answer 1

• Workflow design: Process of analyzing tasks necessary for production of a product or service.
• Position: Set of job duties performed by a particular person.
• Job: Set of related duties.

Question 2

What is workflow design? And organization’s structure?

Answer 2

Within an organization, units and individuals must cooperate to create outputs.
The organization’s structure brings together people who must collaborate to efficiently produce desired outputs: Centralised, decentralised, functional, product or customer.

Question 3

What is job analysis?

Answer 3

Process of getting detailed information about jobs.

Question 4

What are the results of job analysis?

Answer 4

Results are job description and job specification.

Question 5

What is job description? And what are the key components of job description?

Answer 5

A list of tasks, duties, and responsibilities (TDRs) that a particular job entails.
Key components: Job title; brief description of the TDRs; list of the essential duties with detailed specifications of the tasks involved in carrying out each duty.

Question 6

What are job specifications?

Answer 6

List of knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAO needed to perform a particular job).
- Knowledge: Factual or procedural information necessary for successfully performing a task.
- Skill: An individual’s level of proficiency at performing a particular task.
- Ability: A general enduring capability that an individual possess.
- Characteristics: Job-related licensing, certifications, or personality traits.

Question 7

What are the sources of job information?

Answer 7

• The incumbents: People who currently hold the position in the organisation.
• Dictionary of occupational Titles: refers to a publication produced by the United States Department of Labor which helped employers, government officials, and workforce development professionals to define over 13,000 different types of work, from 1938 to the late 1990s. It has been replaced by the O*NET.
• Occupational information Network (O*NET): An online job description database developed by the Labor Department.

Question 8

What is a position analysis questionnaire?

Answer 8

A standardized job analysis questionnaire containing 194 questions about work behaviours, work conditions, and job characteristics that apply to a wide variety of jobs.

Question 9

What are the key sections of a position analysis questionnaire?

Answer 9

1. Information input
2. mental processes
3. work output
4. relationships with other people
5. job context
6. other characteristics.

Question 10

What is a fleishman job analysis system?

Answer 10

Job analysis technique that asks subject-matter experts to evaluate a job in terms of the abilities required to perform the job.

Question 11

What are the categories of abilities of the fleishman job analysis system?

Answer 11

1. Written comprehension
2. deductive reasoning
3. manual dexterity
4. stamina
5. originality

Question 12

What is the importance of Job Analysis?

Answer 12

Job Analysis is so important to HR managers that it has been called the building block of all HRM functions.
Almost every HRM program requires some type of information determined by job analysis, such as: Work redesign; HR planning; selection; training; performance appraisal; career planning; job evaluation.

Question 13

What is the trend in job analysis?

Answer 13

Organizations are being viewed as a field of work needing to be done, rather than as a set series of jobs held by individuals.
“Dejobbing” - designing work by project rather than jobs.

Question 14

What is the competency model?

Answer 14

Project manager competencies:
- Organizational & planning skills - Ability to establish priorities on projects and schedule activities to achieve results.
- Communications - Ability to build credibility and trust through open and direct communications with internal and external customers.
- Financial & quantitative skills - Ability to analyze financial information accurately and set financial goals that have a positive impact on company’s bottom line and fiscal objective.

Question 15

What is job design?

Answer 15

The process of defining how work will be performed and what tasks will be required in a given job.

Question 16

what is job redesign?

Answer 16

A similar process to job design that involves changing an existing job design.

Question 17

What must a person understand to design jobs effectively?

Answer 17

The job itself and its place in the units work flow.

Question 18

What are the approaches to job design?

Answer 18

(1) Design for efficiency (Industrial Engineering)
(2) Design for motivation:
- Job enlargement
- Job enrichment
- Teamwork
- Flexibility
(3) Design for safety and health (Ergonomics)
(4) Design for mental capacity:
- Filtering information
- Clear displays and instructions
- Memory aids

Question 19

(1) Design for efficiency
What is industrial engineering?

Answer 19

Study of jobs to find the simplest way to structure work to maximise efficiency.

Question 20

(2) Design for motivation
What is the Job Characteristics Model?

Answer 20

1. Skill variety: Extent to which a job requires a variety of skills to carry out tasks involved.
2. Task identity: Degree to which a job requires completing a “whole” piece of work from beginning to end.
3. Task significance: Extent to which the job has an important impact on lives of other people.
4. Autonomy: Extent to which the job allows an individual to make decisions about the way work will be carried out.
5. Feedback: Extent to which a person receives clear information about performance effectiveness from the work itself.

Question 21

(2) Design for motivation
What are the psychological states, and individual and organizational outcomes of the Job Characteristics Model?

Answer 21

Skill Variety, Task identify and Task Significance leaves to the psychological state: “Experienced meaningfulness of work”
Autonomy leaves to the psychological state: “Experienced responsibility for outcomes of work”
Job Feedback leaves to the psychological state: “Knowledge of the actual results”
All this 3 Psychological states leaves to individual and organizational outcomes:
- High internal work motivation
- High-quality work performance
- High Satisfaction with work
- Low absenteeism & turnover

Question 22

(2) Design for motivation
What are the 4 types of jobs that broaden the scope of Design for Motivation ? (Alargam o âmbito)

Answer 22

• Job Rotation: Systemic change of workplaces.
• Job enrichment: Vertical task expansion.
• Job enlargement: Horizontal task expansion.
• Flexible Work Schedules: Flextime; Job Sharing; Compresses Workweek

Question 23

(3) Design for safety and health
What is Ergonomics? And what is its goal?

Answer 23

Study of interface between individuals’ physiology and characteristics of physical work environment.
The goal is to minimise physical strain on the worker by structuring physical work environment around the way the human body works.

Question 24

(4) Design for mental capacity
What is the point of designing jobs that meet mental capabilities and limitations?

Answer 24

Work is designed to reduce information-processing requirements of the job. Workers may be less likely to make mistakes or have accidents. Simpler jobs may be less motivating. Technology tools may be distracting employees from their primary task resulting in increased mistakes and accidents.

Question 25

What are the ways to simplify a job’s mental demands?

Answer 25

Limit amount of information and memorisation that the job requires.
Organizations can provide:
- adequate lighting
- easy-to-read gauges and displays
- simple-to-operate equipment
- clear instructions.