Job Analysis

7 Pages 1675 Words

In the years ahead, employers face an unprecedented set of

challenges. To remain viable or to grow and prosper, they must be efficient. At the same time they must be seen by the users of their goods or services, and by the public who keeps them in business, as productive and responsive to consumer or public needs (Bemis, 1983). Furthermore, they must meet legal and social demands to employ a diverse and representative work force, which often means employing member of minority groups or women in jobs traditionally held by whites or men, and vice versa. In short, organizations must be more productive while meeting complex, often contradictory, legal social, administrative and economic demands (Bemis, 1983).
There is no single or simple solution to these interacting pressures on employers, but a focal point for addressing them is at the level of the jobs that people perform in the organization. An understanding of how a job is designed, how people are sought and selected for a position and how they are evaluated and rewarded by an organization is critical for efficient human resource management (Kimeldorf, 1997). The first step in looking at jobs for human resource management purposes is job analysis (Bemis, 1983)
Job Analysis is “the process of determining and reporting pertinent information relating to the nature of a specific job. It is the determination of the tasks which comprise the job and of the skills, knowledge, abilities and responsibilities required of the holder for successful job performance.” (Byars, 1994) Put another way, job analysis is the process of determining, through observation and study the pertinent information relating to the nature of a specific job.
Job analysis serves as the cornerstone of all human resource functions. Jobs must be analyzed before many of the other human resource functions can be performed. For example, effective recruitment is not possible unless the recru...