WORK ANALYSIS, PART
1
WHAT IS WORK ANALYSIS?
 From Sanchez & Levine (2012): “the process through which
one gains an understanding of the activities, goals, and
requirements demanded by a work assignment”
 Renamed “work analysis” from “job analysis” to reflect lack of
defined “job” for many workers
 Shifting boundaries and responsibilities
 View of work as product of both worker and responsibilities
 Job implies existence of “job” independent of person performing it
USES OF WORK ANALYSIS
 Description
 Description of job, including tasks, requirements, accountabilities,
and other basic information
 Job classification
 Grouping jobs based on similarity
 Often used to determine pay
 Job evaluation
 Determining how much job is worth to employer
 Based on what employee does, and what outcomes of these tasks do for
employer
 Helps ensure fair pay
 Job design and redesign
 Need to know what key responsibilities of job are so that work can be
re-designed to be more efficient
USES OF WORK ANALYSIS
 Selection
 Determining what to select for
 Validating selection tools
 Performance management
 Need to know key tasks and responsibilities of job in order to
evaluate performance
 Training
 What new employees should be trained to do
 What current employees need to be trained to do if org/job
restructuring occurs
 Legal requirements
 Having up-to-date job analysis makes it possible to demonstrate
employment practices (selection, performance management, etc.)
are tied to job requirements
USEFUL TERMS
 Element: smallest unit of work that has clear beginning and
end point
 Example: write email
 Activity: cluster of elements that are necessary to fulfill a
work requirement
 Example: answer student questions
 Task: collection of activities that fulfill work objective
 Example: work with students to address issues and concerns
regarding courses
 Duty: collection of tasks aimed at fulfilling goal
 Example: Interact with students
USEFUL TERMS
 Position: set of duties, tasks, activities, and elements
performed by one worker
 Natalie Wright, Assistant professor in department of psychology
 Job: group of positions similar enough to one another in terms
of work and goals that they are lumped together
 Assistant professor in department of psychology
DECISION POINTS IN WORK ANALYSIS
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Kinds of data collected
Methods of gathering data
Sources of job information
Units of analysis
DESCRIPTORS
 Organizational philosophy and structure
 How does job fit within the organization as a whole?
 Example: is assistant professor expected to mentor and teach
students, or focus primarily on research?
 Licensing and other mandated requirements
 What licenses or certifications are required to perform the job?
 Example: does an assistant professor in clinical psychology need to
be licensed by the state?
 Responsibilities
 What authority does the job have? Who do incumbents report to?
 Example: can assistant professor verify that degree requirements
have been met for graduation?
DESCRIPTORS
 Professional standards
 Does job require adherence to professional standards and
guidelines?
 Example: does assistant professor of psychology have to adhere to
APA ethical guidelines when conducting research?
 Job context
 What kind of environment does the job take place in?
 Example: do assistant professors work indoors?
 Products and services
 What do the incumbents produce?
 Example: do assistant professors produce peer-reviewed
publications?
DESCRIPTORS
 Machines, tools, and work equipment
 What kinds of equipment are necessary for the job?
 Example: assistant professors use computers
 Work performance indicators
 What performance standards are required by the organization?
 Example: how many publications do assistant professors need to get
per year?
 Personal job demands
 What kinds of physical, cognitive, and emotional demands does job
place on worker?
 Example: do assistant professors work unusual hours?
DESCRIPTORS
 Elemental motions
 Individual elements that make up task
 Example: what movements are required for a pitcher to throw the
ball?
 Worker activities
 From worker’s point of view, what is job about?
 Example: assistant professors analyze student papers in order to
determine what grade is deserved
 Work activities
 Observable activities of worker
 Example: assistant professors give lectures to groups of students
DESCRIPTORS
 Worker trait requirements
 What KSAOs are required to perform job adequately?
 Example: assistant professors teaching I/O need to have knowledge
of validation strategies, work analysis, worker motivation, and other
I/O content areas
 Future changes
 What changes (mission, technology, procedural, etc.) are on the
horizon for job?
 Example: university pushing to add more online courses, which
assistant professors must teach
 Critical incidents
 Examples of very good or very poor performance on job
 Example: assistant professor worked with graduate student to help
them identify and apply to jobs in their area of interest
METHODS
 Observing: work analyst watches worker perform job
 Gives very in-depth understanding of job
 Workers may appreciate fact that analyst tried to understand their
job
 Difficult to obtain adequate sample of behavior (some tasks are
important but happen infrequently)
 Worker may perform differently because they know they’re being
watched
 Interviewing individuals: analyst asks incumbents, and often
supervisors, about job
 Usually based on predetermined time period (last week, last month,
etc.)
 Need structured interview to obtain best information
METHODS
 Group interviews: group of workers and supervisors brought in
to discuss job
 More efficient
 Less information for analyst to integrate
 Sometimes discussions that happen in group setting yield useful
information
 Meeting with experts: meet with experts in particular area to
understand function and importance of job
 Example: meeting with physicist to understand how MRI works in
order to understand equipment MRI technologist uses
METHODS
 Questionnaires: workers given questionnaire regarding
whether particular tasks are performed
 Additional information, like importance or difficulty of tasks, are also
included
 Need to make sure that questionnaire is inclusive of all potential
tasks
 Needs to be easy to understand
 Incumbents need to be able to make meaningful distinctions
 Example: O*NET level and importance scales
O*NET SKILLS QUESTIONNAIRE
METHODS
 Diaries: incumbents keep track of all the activities that they
perform
 May ask them to record information every time they switch tasks, or
record what was done in specific period of time (past half hour, etc.)
 Usually done for 2-3 weeks
 Can be tiresome for incumbents and analyst
 Equipment-based methods: use equipment to measure the job
activities or job requirements
 Examples: camera to monitor worker activities, pulse recording
equipment to track heartrate for physically demanding job
METHODS
 Reviewing records: organizational records such as
performance appraisals and job descriptions often have
useful information about job
 Problem: may not work well if job has changed substantially, or if
new job is being created
 Reviewing literature: may find information outside
organization that is relevant (job analyses from other
organizations, job descriptions for similar jobs, research using
similar job)
 Doing the job: analyst performs job
 In-depth understanding
 Time consuming
 Often not possible, particularly if job has high training requirements
(i.e., neurosurgeon, nuclear engineer)
SOURCES OF INFORMATION
 Job incumbents: people holding the job
 Do work every day, so good understanding of tasks and activities
 Know how work is, rather than should, be done
 Should be used when:
 Much of the work is unobservable (knowledge -based)
 Other sources aren’t available
 Organization won’t accept work analysis without input
 Words of caution:
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Look at varying levels of experience
Don’t choose top performers
Don’t let managers nominate employees
Beware that there may be self-presentation issues
SOURCES OF INFORMATION
 Supervisors: direct work of incumbents
 Can provide information on requirements of work (KSAOs)
 Can describe how work should be done
 May have better understanding of how work fits with org strategy or
goals
 Should be used when:
 They directly observe the work
 Incumbent sources not possible
 Org won’t accept without supervisory input
 Words of caution:
 May be self-presentation concerns
 Supervisors may not see some aspects of the work
SOURCES OF INFORMATION
 Trained work analysts: education and experience allows them
to objectively observe work and work requirements
 Can provide KSAO and work context information
 Should be used when:
 Need judgments about KSAOs and context
 Other sources may be motivated to provide inaccurate information
 Other sources can’t be obtained due to time/resource constraints
 Words of caution:
 Have to familiarize themselves with the job, which takes time
 Organizational outsiders
SOURCES OF INFORMATION
 Other organizational members: people in the organization who
aren’t directly involved in job, but may interact with
incumbents
 Can describe how job fits in with other jobs in the organization (i.e.,
how do others in org use output from job?)
 Example: detective uses reports generated by patrol officers
 Can describe how their work is used by incumbents in job under
consideration
 Example: patrol officers go to high-risk areas identified by detective
 Should be used when:
 Lots of interaction across units in organization
 Interdependent work
SOURCES OF INFORMATION
 External customers or clients: come into contact with
organization’s products and services
 As consumers of products and services, good perspective on what
output of organization should look like
 Should be used when:
 Work is customer-focused
UNITS OF ANALYSIS
 Need to determine how much to aggregate
 Example: are you interested in reporting information about specific
tasks, or aggregating these tasks into work activities and reporting
that information
 Level of specificity needed depends on purpose of work
analysis
 Examples:
 Job redesign requires specific task information
 Training needs analysis requires specific task information
 Job classification requires aggregated work activities and job dimensions
(example: “analyzing data” or “communicating with customers”)
UNITS OF ANALYSIS
 Some considerations:
 Generally higher accuracy when more specific aspects of work (such
as tasks) are rated
 Example: easy to determine how often you need to check email at work,
but it’s less easy to accurately rate the importance of written
communication
 You can always aggregate up, so better to err on the side of collecting
more specific data
 If you have sources rate abstract aspects of work, you can’t decompose
these ratings into more specific parts of job
BASIC T YPES OF WORK ANALYSIS
 Work-oriented methods: focus on tasks and activities of the
job itself
 Examples:
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Time-and-motion study
Functional job analysis (data, people, things)
Task inventories
Critical incident technique
BASIC T YPES OF WORK ANALYSIS
 Worker-oriented methods: focus on worker characteristics
required to do the job
 Examples:
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Job element method (worker behaviors)
Position analysis questionnaire (PAQ -rating of human attributes for job)
Ability requirement scales
Cognitive tasks analysis: cognitive components of unobservable,
knowledge-based behavior