FREE online courses on Job Analysis and Evaluation - Uses of Job Analysis
Good personnel management demands both the employee and the
employer to have a clear understanding of the duties and responsibilities to be
performed on a job. Job analysis helps in this understanding by drawing
attention to a unit of work and its linkage with other units of work. More
specifically, the uses of job analysis may be summarized thus:
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Human resource planning: Job analysis helps in forecasting human
resource requirements in terms of knowledge and skills. By showing lateral and
vertical relationships between jobs, it facilitates the formulation of a
systematic promotion and transfer policy. It also helps in determining quality
of human resources needed in an organization.
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Recruitment:
Job analysis is used to find out how and when to hire people for future job
openings. An understanding of the skills needed and the positions that are
vacant in future helps managers to plan and hire people in a systematic way.
For example, a company might be traditionally hiring MBA students for equity
research. A recent job analysis showed that the positions could be filled by
graduates with an analytical mind. Now, this would help the company hire equity
analysts from a greater number of available graduates by offering even a
slightly lesser salary.
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Selection:
Without a proper understanding of what is to be done on a job, it is not
possible to select a right person. If a Super bazaar manager has not clearly
identified what a clerk is to do, it is difficult to find if the person
selected must be able to position stores items, run a cash register, or keep
the account books.
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Placement and orientation: After selecting people, we have to place
them on jobs best suited to their interests, activities and aptitude. If we are
not sure about what needs to be done on a job, it is not possible to identify
the right person suited for the job. Similarly, effective job orientation
cannot be achieved without a proper understanding of the needs of each job. To
teach a new employee how to handle a job, we have to clearly define the job.
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Training:
If there is any confusion about what the job is and what is supposed to be
done, proper training efforts cannot be initiated. Whether or not a current or
potential job holder requires additional training can be determined only after
the specific needs of the jobs have been identified through a job analysis.
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Counseling:
Managers can properly counsel employees about their careers when they
understand the different jobs in the organization. Likewise, employees can
better appreciate their career options when they understand the specific needs
of various other jobs. Job analysis can point out areas that an employee might
need to develop to further a career.
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Employee safety: A thorough job analysis reveals unsafe conditions
associated with a job. By studying how the various operations are taken up in a
job, managers can find unsafe practices. This helps in rectifying things
easily.
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Performance appraisal: By comparing what an employee is supposed to be
doing (based on job analysis) to what the individual has actually done, the
worth of that person can be assessed. Ultimately, every organization has to pay
a fair remuneration to people based on their performance. To achieve this, it
is necessary to compare what individuals should do (as per performance
standards) with what they have actually done (as per job analysis).
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Job design and redesign: Once the jobs are understood properly, it is
easy to locate weak spots and undertake remedial steps. We can eliminate
unnecessary movements, simplify certain steps and improve the existing ones
through continuous monitoring. In short, we can redesign jobs to match the
mental make-up of employees.
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Job evaluation: Job analysis helps in finding the relative worth of a
job, based on criteria such as degree of difficulty, type of work done, skills
and knowledge needed, etc. This, in turn, assists in designing proper wage
policies, with internal pay equity between jobs.
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