Unit 3

Question 1

1. How is job analysis performed?

Answer 1

1. The purpose of job analysis is to collect accurate information about what a job requires (i.e., knowledge, skills, and abilities), what it entails (activities), and what it contributes (outputs)

Question 2

2. Why might employees resist job analysis?

Answer 2

1. Workers’ reluctance to be fully transparent about their work reflects that worker knowledge is a form of power. Workers know that job analysis is part of an employer’s broad strategy to maximize its return on each worker hired. That is to say, job analysis is an exercise of employer power. Consequently, workers may choose to obfuscate what they do (or can do) to maintain the existing wage-effort bargain.

Question 3

3. How can job analysis and design negatively affect women?

Answer 3

1. Carol Gilligan (1982) asserts that women have traditionally been taught a moral outlook that emphasizes solidarity, community, and caring, which explains why these tasks typically fall to women. Although the activities that contribute to solidarity, community, and caring may be organizationally useful or necessary, these activities tend to be ignored, trivialized, or undervalued, in part because the influence and power of women in the workplace has been limited.
2. Emotional labour is rarely mentioned in job analyses and, consequently, is rendered invisible. This omission may reflect that emotional labour tends to be the (unpaid) province of women, and that it occurs mostly in the home (i.e., it is part of the social reproduction we read about in Unit 1).

Question 4

o Abilities

Answer 4

o possession of the means or skill to do something.

Question 5

o Competencies

Answer 5

o Competence is the set of demonstrable characteristics and skills that enable, and improve the efficiency or performance of a job

Question 6

o family status

Answer 6

o Family status” is defined as “the status of being in a parent and child relationship.” This can also mean a parent and child “type” of relationship, embracing a range of circumstances without blood or adoptive ties but with similar relationships of care, responsibility and commitment.

Question 7

o job

Answer 7

o A job is a set of related duties performed by a worker, the purpose of which is to achieve an organizational goal.

Question 8

o job analysis

Answer 8

o Job analysis is the process of obtaining information about jobs by determining the duties, tasks, or activities of those jobs.

Question 9

o job description

Answer 9

o A job description is a statement of the tasks, duties, and responsibilities of a job

Question 10

o job design

Answer 10

o job design, which reflects subjective opinions about the ideal requirements of a job

Question 11

o job specification

Answer 11

o A job specification is a statement of the knowledge, skills, and abilities required of the person performing the job.

Question 12

o Knowledge

Answer 12

o facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.

Question 13

o position

Answer 13

o A position consists of different duties and responsibilities performed by only one employee. In a city library, for example, four employees (four positions) may be involved in reference work, but all of them have only one job (reference librarian).

Question 14

o Skills

Answer 14

o Skills relevant to a job include education or experience, specialized training, personal traits or abilities, and manual dexterities.

Question 15

o work flow

Answer 15

o A work flow is a sequential series of tasks that must be completed to achieve an organizational goal.

Question 16

1. What is the purpose of job analysis? How does it inform other HRM functions?

Answer 16

2. When completed, job analysis results in a written report summarizing the information obtained from the analysis of 20 or 30 individual job tasks or activities. HR managers use these data to develop job descriptions and job specifications. These documents, in turn, are used to perform and enhance the different HR functions, such as the development of performance appraisal criteria or the content of training classes. The ultimate purpose of job analysis is to improve organizational performance and productivity.

Question 17

2. What are job descriptions and job specifications? What does job analysis contribute to them?

Answer 17

1. A job description is a statement of the tasks, duties, and responsibilities of a job
2. A job specification is a statement of the knowledge, skills, and abilities required of the person performing the job.
3. The job descriptions and job specifications developed through job analysis should be as accurate as possible if they are to be of value to those who make HRM decisions. These decisions may involve any of the HR functions—from recruitment to termination of employees.

Question 18

3. Identify three sources of information that can be used in job analysis. What are the pros and cons of each source of information?

Answer 18

1. Interviews, questionnaires, observation, and diaries.
2. A job analyst should be alert for employees who tend to exaggerate the difficulty of their jobs to inflate their egos and their paycheques. When interviewing employees or reviewing their questionnaires, the job analyst must look for any responses that do not agree with other facts or impressions the analyst has received.

Question 19

4. What is job design? And how is it related to job analysis?

Answer 19

1. Job design, which is an outgrowth of job analysis, is concerned with structuring jobs to improve organization efficiency and employee job satisfaction. Job design is concerned with changing, modifying, and enriching jobs to capture the talents of employees while improving organizational performance.

Question 20

5. What are two major approaches in job design? How do the priorities of these approach converge and conflict?

Answer 20

1. The job enrichment model and the job characteristics model have long been popular with researchers and practitioners as ways to increase the job satisfaction of employees.
2. Any effort that makes work more rewarding or satisfying by adding more meaningful tasks to an employee’s job is called job enrichment. Originally popularized by Frederick Herzberg, job enrichment is touted as fulfilling the high motivational needs of employees, such as self-fulfillment and self-esteem, while achieving long-term job satisfaction and performance goals.
3. Their job characteristics model proposes that three psychological states of a jobholder result in improved work performance, internal motivation, and lower absenteeism and turnover.

Question 21

6. How might human-rights considerations be incorporated into job analysis and design?

Answer 21

1. Although virtual teams have many benefits, they are not without problems.30 Paulette Tichenor, president of Organizational Renaissance, a team-training organization, notes these concerns with virtual teams: language and cultural barriers, unclear objectives, time conflicts due to diverse geographic locations, and selecting people who can work in a collaborative setting.