Chapter Four
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Introduction
 Key elements and their considerations are at the
heart of analyzing work.
 Through the process of work flow design,
managers analyze the tasks needed to produce a
product or service.
 A job is a set of related duties.
 A position is the set of duties performed by one
person.
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Work Flow Analysis
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Work flow analysis identifies:
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The outputs of the process
The activities involved
Three categories of inputs:
 Raw inputs (materials and information)
 Equipment
 Human resources
Ideally, the organization’s structure brings together people
who must collaborate in order to efficiently produce the
desired outputs. The structure may do this in two ways:
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Centralized – authority is concentrated in a few people at the top
of the organization
Decentralized – authority is spread among many people
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Developing a Work-Unit
Activity Analysis
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Job Analysis
 Organizations must understand and match job
requirements and people.
 Job analysis is the process of getting detailed
information about jobs.
 Analyzing jobs and understanding what is required
to perform a job provides essential knowledge for:
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Staffing
Training
Performance appraisal
Many other HR functions
 A job description is a list of tasks, duties, and
responsibilities (TDRs) that a job entails.
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Sample Job Description
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Job Specifications
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Whereas the job description
focuses on the activities
involved in carrying out a job, a
job specification looks at the
qualities of the person
performing the job.
A job specification is a list of
the knowledge, skills,
abilities, and other
characteristics (KSAOs) that
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an individual must have to
perform the job.
Job specifications should reflect
the unique requirements of the
job.
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Sample Job Specifications
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Sources of Job Information
 Information for analyzing an existing job comes
from:
 Incumbents
 Observers, such as supervisors
 The government provides background information
for analyzing jobs:
 Dictionary of Occupational Titles
 Occupational Information Network (O*NET)
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Position Analysis
Questionnaire
 One of the broadest and best-researched instruments for analyzing
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jobs is the Position Analysis Questionnaire. This is a standardized
job analysis questionnaire containing 194 items to represent:
 Work behaviors
 Work conditions
 Job characteristics
The questionnaire organizes these items into six sections concerning
different aspects of the job:
 Information input
 Mental processes
 Work output
 Relationships with other persons
 Job context
 Other characteristics
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Task Analysis Inventory
 Another type of analysis
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method, the task analysis
inventory focuses on the
tasks performed in a
particular job.
This method has several
variations.
Task analysis inventories
can be very detailed,
including 100 or more
tasks.
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Fleishman Job Analysis System
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To gather information about worker requirements, the
Fleishman Job Analysis System asks subject-matter
experts, typically job incumbents, to evaluate a job in terms of
the abilities required to perform the job.
The survey is based on 52 categories of abilities ranging from
written comprehension to deductive reasoning, manual
dexterity, stamina, and originality.
When the survey has been completed in all 52 categories, the
results provide a picture of the ability requirements of a job.
This information is especially important and useful for
employee:
 Selection
 Training
 Career development
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Examples of an Ability from the
Fleishman Job Analysis System
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Importance of Job Analysis
 Job analysis is so important to HR managers that it has been called
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the building block of everything that personnel does.
Almost every HRM program requires some type of information that
is gleaned from job analysis: Work redesign, Human resource
planning, Selection, Training, Performance appraisal, Career
planning, Job evaluation.
Job analysis is important from a legal standpoint.
Job analysis helps supervisors and other managers carry out their
duties in the following ways:
 Identify types of work in a unit
 Provide information about work flow processes
 Supports mangers in hiring decisions, performance reviews, and
reward recommendations
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Trends in Job Analysis
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Organizations are beginning to
appreciate the need to analyze jobs in
the context of the organization’s
structure and strategy.
Organizations are recognizing that
today’s workplace must be adaptable
and is constantly changing.
Job analysis must detect changes in
jobs as time passes.
Dejobbing consists of viewing
organizations as a field of work needing
to be done rather than a series of jobs
held by individuals.
Organizational structures require the
broader understanding that comes from
an analysis of work flows.
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Job Design
 Job design is the process of defining the way work
will be performed and the tasks that will be required
in a given job.
 Job redesign refers to changing the tasks or the
way work is performed in an existing job.
 The four approaches used in job design are:
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mechanistic approach
motivational approach
biological approach
perceptual-motor approach
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Mechanistic Approach
 Has its roots in classical industrial engineering.
 Focuses on designing jobs around the concepts of task
specialization, skill simplification, and repetition.
 Scientific management, one of the earliest mechanistic
approaches, sought to identify the one best way to perform
the job through the use of time-and-motion studies.
 The scientific management approach was built upon in later
years and resulted in a mechanistic approach that calls for
the job to be designed very simply.
 New employees can be trained to perform the job quickly
and inexpensively.
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Biological Approach
 Comes primarily from the sciences of biomechanics, or
the study of body movements
 Is referred to as ergonomics, or the concern with
examining the interface between individuals'
physiological characteristics and the physical work
environment.
 The goal of this approach is to minimize the physical
strain on the worker by structuring the physical work
environment around the way the body works.
 Focuses on outcomes such as physical fatigue, aches
and pains, and health complaints.
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Perceptual-Motor Approach
 Has its roots in the human-factors literature.
 Focuses on human mental capabilities and
limitations.
 The goal is to design jobs in a way that ensures that
they do not exceed people's mental capabilities.
 Tries to improve reliability, safety, and user
reactions by designing jobs in a way that reduces
the information processing requirements of the job.
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Motivational Approach
 The motivational approach to job design focuses on
the job characteristics that affect the psychological
meaning and motivational potential of job design.
 A focus on increasing job complexity through job
enlargement, job enrichment, and the construction
of jobs around sociotechnical systems.
 A model of how job design affects employee
reaction is the “Job Characteristics Model”.
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Designing Jobs That Motivate
 A pure focus on efficiency will
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not achieve human resource
objectives.
Job design should take into
account factors that make jobs
motivating to employees.
Job Characteristic Model
describes jobs in terms of five
characteristics:
 Skill variety
 Task identity
 Task significance
 Autonomy
 Feedback
 Job enlargement refers to
broadening the types of tasks
performed.
 Job extension is enlarging jobs
by combining several relatively
simple jobs to form a job with a
wider range of tasks.
 Job rotation does not actually
redesign the jobs, but moves
employees among several
different jobs.
 Job enrichment is empowering
employees by adding decisionmaking authority to their jobs. It
comes from the work of
Frederick Herzberg.
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Designing Jobs That Motivate
 Self managing work
teams have authority
for an entire work
process or segment.
 Flexible work schedules
offer alternatives to the
8-5 work job.
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Flextime
Job sharing
Compressed workweek
Telework
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The study of the interface
between individual’s
physiology and the
characteristics of the physical
environment is called
ergonomics.
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Goal is to minimize
physical strain on the
workers by structuring the
physical work environment
around the way the human
body works
2001 OSHA regulations
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Designing Jobs That Meet Mental
Capabilities and Limitations
 Just like the body, the mind too has capabilities and
limitations.
 There are several ways to simplify a job’s mental
demands:
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Limit the amount of information and memorization the job
requires
Provide adequate lighting
Provide easy-to-understand gauges and displays
Provide simple-to-operate equipment
Provide clear instructions
 A recent source of job complexity is the flood of e-mails
received.
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Approaches to Job Design
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