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CHAPTER TW0
Managing Work Flows
&
Conducting Job Analysis
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Chapter Objectives

Review Work from the
Following Perspectives:
 Organizational
 Group
 Individual
Understand the Significance
of Job Analysis in the
Workplace
 Review the Basic Elements of
a Job Description
 Examine some of the current
elements involved with
creating a ‘flexible’
workforce


Review Key Terms
 Boundaryless
Organization
 Bureaucratic Organization
 Business Process Reengineering
 Flat Organization
 Goal-Setting Theory
 Human Resource Information
Systems
 Job Analysis
 Job Characteristics Theory
 Organizational Structure
 Two-Factor Theory
 Work Adjustment Theory
 Work flow
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Work: Organization Structure
Organizational structure: refers to the formal or informal
relationship between people in an organization.
Work Flow: the way work is organized to meet the organization’s
production or service goals
To establish their long term goals companies analyze environmental
opportunities and threats and conduct a realistic appraisal of how
the business can deploy its assets to compete most effectively –
this includes its human assets.
When companies change their business strategies they should also
change their HR strategies – Defender vs. Prospector
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Work: Organizational Structures
Bureaucratic Organization: consist of hierarchies with many
levels of management and are driven by a top-down, or command
and control approach in which managers provide considerable
direction and have considerable control over others.
Flat Organization: have only a few levels of managers and
emphasize a decentralized approach to management which
encourages high employee involvement in business decisions.
Boundaryless Organization: enable organizations to form
relationships (joint ventures, intellectual property, marketing
distribution channels, or financial resources) with customers,
suppliers, and/or competitors.
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Work: The Organizational Perspective
Bureaucratic Organization
Bureaucratic Organizations are based on:
Top-down approach w/many levels of management
 Hierarchical career paths within one function
 Functional Division of Labor
 Work Specialization
 Employees working independently

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Work: The Organizational Perspective
Bureaucratic Organization
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Work: The Organizational Perspective
Bureaucratic Organization
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Work: The Organizational Perspective
Flat Organization
Flat Organization are based on:
Rapid respond to customers' needs or changes in the business
environment
 Useful for organizations that are implementing a total quality
management (TQM) strategy
 Strong emphasis on teams
 Broadly defined jobs
 Fewer levels of management
 General job descriptions

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Work: The Organizational Perspective
Flat Organization
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Work: The Organizational Perspective
Boundaryless organizations
Companies often use a boundaryless organizational
structure to:
Collaborate with customers or suppliers to provide better
quality products or services
 Enter foreign markets that have entry barriers to foreign
competitors
 Need to manage the risk of developing an expensive new
technology.

Boundaryless organizations share many of the
characteristics of flat organizations, with a strong
emphasis on teams, which are likely to include
employees representing different companies in the joint
venture.
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Work: The Organizational Perspective
Boundaryless Organizations
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Work Flow Analysis




Managers perform work flow analysis in order to examine how
work creates or adds value to the ongoing processes in a business.
Work flow analysis looks at how work moves from the customer
(the demand source) through the organization to the point at which the
work leaves the organization as a product or service for the
customer (to meet the demand).
Work flow analysis often reveals that some steps or jobs can be
combined, simplified, or even eliminated.
In other cases, it results in the reorganization of work so that teams
rather than individual workers are the source of value creation.
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Work Flow Analysis
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Work Flow Analysis
Business Process Reengineering
Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is different from
restructuring in that its focus is not just on eliminating layers of
management, but rather a fundamental rethinking and radical
redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements
in costs, quality, service, and speed.
 Uses work flow analysis to identify a company’s core
processes involved in producing its product or delivering its
service to the customer.
 Then the company organizing its human resources around
those core processes to improve organizational performance.
 Through this analysis, jobs are identified that can be eliminated
or recombined to improve company performance.
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Work Flow Analysis
Business Process Reengineering

Proponents


Allows for reinventing a company by making it ‘lean and
mean’
Critics

Hammer of ‘Champy and Hammer’ actually says "don't
automate; obliterate." To many critics, reengineering’s greatest
weakness is its lack of a human side, or its depersonalization.
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Work: The Group Perspective

Self-Managed Teams: responsible for producing an entire
product, a component, or an ongoing service - often, these teams
are trained in technical, administrative, and interpersonal skills.
Members are cross-trained on the different tasks assigned to the
team.

Problem-Solving Teams: do not affect an organization's
structure because they exist for only a limited period. They are
often used when organizations decide to pursue a TQM effort by
making improvements in the quality of a product or service.
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Work: The Group Perspective

Special-Purpose Teams: consist of members who span
functional or organizational boundaries and whose purpose is to
examine complex issues such as introducing new technology,
improving the quality of work process, or encouraging cooperation
between labor and management in a unionized setting.

Virtual Teams: uses interactive computer technologies such as
the internet to work together despite being separated by physical
distance. Virtual teams allow organizations to position individuals
who might not be otherwise available to teams.
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Work: The Individual Perspective
Motivation Theories

Motivation: that which energizes and sustains human behavior
 Work
Adjustment Theory: which says that motivation
and job satisfaction depend on the fit between the employee's
abilities or needs and the job and organizational characteristics
 Two-Factor
Theory: which lists the factors that are
satisfying and dissatisfying (motivators & maintenance). Two
basic premises:


Jobs should be designed to provide as many motivators as possible
In the long run hygiene factors alone just are not enough
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Work: The Individual Perspective
Motivation Theories - Two-Factor Theory

Motivators
The work
 Achievement
 Recognition
 Responsibility
 Opportunities for
advancement


Maintenance (Hygiene)
Company policies
 Working Condition
 Job security
 Salary
 Employee benefits
 Relationships

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Work: The Individual Perspective
Motivation Theories

Goal-Setting Theory: which suggests that employees' goals
explain motivation and performance

Job Characteristics Theory: which states that employee
motivation depends on job characteristics such as skill variety, task
identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback
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Work: The Individual Perspective
Motivation Theories - Job Characteristics Theory
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Designing Jobs &
Conducting Job Analysis
Job Design: the process of organizing work into tasks required to
perform a specific job


All theories of employee motivation suggest that jobs can be designed to
increase motivation and performance.
Three important influences on job design: work flow analysis; the strategy
of the business and the organizational structure that best fits that strategy.
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Designing Jobs &
Conducting Job Analysis
Job Design Approaches:

Work Simplification (versus work elimination)




Job Enlargement & Job Rotation




Can reduce fatigue and boredom
Expands job duties
Limited in that it focuses on only one aspect of job motivation
Job Enrichment



Simple, repetitive task that maximize efficiency
Assigns most of the thinking to managers & supervisors
Can lead to high degrees of specialization that is not value added and can not
readily adapt to a changing environment
More opportunities for job autonomy and feedback
Limited by technology and employee capabilities
Team-Based Job Design


Focused on team rather than individual
Cross training used w/Flat & Boundaryless organizational structures
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Designing Jobs &
Conducting Job Analysis
A work flow analysis is followed by a job design and the
communication of job expectations to job incumbents.
Job Analysis: systematic data gathering and information
organization with respect to a job. It identifies the tasks,
duties and responsibilities of a particular job.
Job analysis is useful for recruitment, selection,
performance appraisal, compensation, training, and
career development activities.
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Conducting Job Analysis
Job Analysis –what it is:
 It
is a systematic method for gathering information
 It focuses on work behaviors, tasks, and outcomes
 It identifies the personal qualifications necessary to
perform the job and the conditions under which work
is performed
 It reports the job as it exists at the time of analysis;
not as it was in the past nor as it exists in another
organization
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Conducting Job Analysis
Job Analysis –what it is not:
 It
is not an analysis of thought processes, attitudes,
traits, or aptitudes
 It is not a time and motion study
 It is not an analysis of an individual position
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Conducting Job Analysis
Methods for Gathering Job Information
Conducting Job Analysis: the people who participate in job analysis
should include, at a minimum, the employee and the employee’s
immediate supervisor.





Questionnaires: the job analyst administers a structured
questionnaire to employees who identify the tasks they perform in
accomplishing the job.
Observation: the job analyst usually inspects the work being
performed and records his or her observations.
Interviews: interviewing both the employee and the supervisor.
Employee recording: gathered by having the employees describe
their daily work activities in a diary or log.
Combination of methods: likely, no one job analysis method will
be used exclusively. A combination is often more appropriate.
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Conducting Job Analysis
Reasons for Gathering Job Information





Staffing (recruitment and selection) – outlines tasks, duties and
responsibilities – allowing the recruiter to know key qualifications need to
perform the job.
Training and development - if the specification suggests that the job
requires a particular knowledge, skill, or ability, and the person filling the
position does not possess all the qualifications required, training and/or
development is probably in order.
Compensation and benefits - the relative value of a particular job to the
company must be known before a dollar value can be placed on it. From an
internal perspective the more significant its duties and responsibilities, the more
the job is worth.
Safety and health - information derived from job analysis is also valuable in
identifying safety and health considerations.
Legal considerations - having properly accomplished a job analysis is
particularly important for supporting the legality of employment practices.
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Conducting Job Analysis
Reasons for Gathering Job Information
Legislation requiring thorough job analysis includes the
following acts:





Fair Labor Standards Act - employees are categorized as exempt or
nonexempt, and job analysis is basic to this determination.
Equal Pay Act - if jobs are not substantially different, similar pay must be
provided. When pay differences exist, job descriptions can be used to show
whether jobs are substantially equal in terms of skill, effort, responsibility, or
working conditions.
Civil Rights Act - job descriptions may provide the basis for adequate
defenses against unfair discrimination charges in initial selection, promotion,
and all other areas of human resource administration.
Occupational Safety and Health Act - job descriptions are required to
specify elements of the job that endanger health or are considered unsatisfactory
or distasteful by the majority of the population.
Americans with Disabilities Act - employers are required to make
reasonable accommodations for workers with disabilities.
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Designing Jobs &
Conducting Job Analysis - Techniques

Task Inventory Analysis:

Task analysis is conducted to identify the details of specified
tasks, including the required knowledge, skills, abilities, (KSA)
and personal characteristics required for successful task
performance.

Three Steps:
 Interview
 Survey
 Generation


of a Task by a KSA matrix
Two major benefits: Systematic & tailor-made
Weakness: Can have sole reliance on subject matters expert opinions in
generating elements
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Designing Jobs &
Conducting Job Analysis - Techniques
Functional Job Analysis:

Uses three systems:



Department of Labor System
Sidney Fine's Functional Job Analysis
Job Information Matrix System.
All three systems contain elaborate definitions and examples of
each item in the worker functions
 This method is based on the theory that all job situations call
for some involvement on the part of the worker with data,
people and things. Positions are analyzed according to these
elements.
 Strengths: most established system of job analysis comprehensive, simple to use and expandable.
 Weakness: simplicity of some of its scales as well as the rating
activity

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Job Descriptions
A job description is a portrait of a job. It may be specific (a detailed
summary) or general (associated with work flow strategies that
emphasize innovation, flexibility, and loose work planning).
Regardless, it is a written document that identifies, defines, and
describes a job in terms of its duties, responsibilities, working
conditions, and specifications.
Job descriptions have four key elements:




identification information
job summary
job duties and responsibilities
job specifications and minimum qualifications
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The Flexible Workforce
Core Workers or Contingent Workers
Core Workers: those having full-time jobs with an employer
Contingent Workers: those having a tentative relationship with
an employer – include:
 Temporary Employees
 Part-Time Employees
 Outsourcing/Subcontracting
 Contract Workers
 College Interns
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The Flexible Workforce
Advantages and Disadvantages of Outsourcing
Advantages


Provide better-quality
people with most current
skills
Cost savings with
economies of scale
Disadvantages


Could lose control of
important activities
May result in losing an
opportunity to gain
knowledge and
information helpful to
company processes
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The Flexible Workforce
Flexible Work Schedules
 Flexible
 Core
Work Hours
time/flextime
 Compressed
Workweeks
 Telecommuting
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Human Resource Information Systems
(HRIS)

Human Resource Information Systems: systems used to collect,
record, store, analyze, and retrieve data concerning an organization's human
resources.
 HRIS Applications: hardware and software applications that work together
to help managers make HR decisions – include:








employee information
applicant tracking
hiring procedures
goal setting systems
skills inventory
Payroll
benefits administration.
HRIS Security and Privacy

The HR department must develop policies and guidelines to protect the
integrity and security of the HRIS so that private employee information
does not fall into the wrong hands.