The business environment today is increasingly characterized by incredible competition and change (Hamel and Prahalad, 1994). And as noted above, organizations are responding in various ways.
Accompanying these changes has been a growing concern that traditional job analysis procedures may be unable to play a central role in the new HRM environment (Barnes-Nelson, 1996). In contrast to the traditional approach to job analysis which assumes that a job in the future will be the same as it is now, several HRM researchers have suggested the need for strategic job analysis (Schneider and Konz, 1989).
The main objective of strategic job analysis is to identify the tasks, knowledge, skills, and abilities that will be needed to perform the job in the future.
Thus, in a future-oriented job analysis the emphasis shifts from descriptions of the present to
prescriptions about what the future should be like. For example, suppose an organization has decided to downsize. Traditional job analysis could be used to identify all the tasks currently performed by
employees. Then, a future-oriented job analysis could be conducted to focus attention on which tasks in the organization should continue to be done and which tasks should be eliminated or outsourced. This same approach can be used to guide other types of organizational change. For example, future-oriented job analysis was used to help a fashion retailer redesign its floor layout, redesign jobs and create new ones, and alter its work processes (Fogli and Whitney, 1998).
Customers as SMEs
With an increased emphasis on satisfying customers as a key strategic objective, the future should see more and more organizations turning to customers as SMEs in the job analysis process. Today, however, this is seldom done. Collecting any type of information from customers has traditionally been viewed as a marketing, rather than an HRM, activity. One need only consider the fact that more and more
employees in service industries are spending increased amounts of time interacting with customers
and less and less time interacting with their immediate supervisors or managers. For jobs like these, it seems obvious that using customers as job analysis SMEs can provide valuable information about the job the employee performs or the characteristics present or needed in that employee. Thus, customers as SMEs is likely to become more common as organizations increasingly incorporate the perspectives of customers when designing jobs and assessing employee performance.
Today’s organizations can use job analysis techniques to assess their current customer role and to
develop a description of the ideal role that customers could play. For many organizations, employees are given tasks to do before they arrive on site. Once on site, the organization can ask employees to engage in some behaviors and avoid others. Job analysis procedures can help the organization identify behaviors and/or competencies that increase or decrease the probability of a successful service encounter.
SUMMARY
This chapter has attempted to convey a general idea of the practice of job analysis. Successful organizations must rely on job analysis as the building block of the HRM planning process and recognize it as the fundamental source for that process.
There are a variety of uses for job analysis information, and every HRM activity relies on the data derived from job analysis. There are also a number of sources for collecting job analysis information.
Typical sources include job incumbents, job supervisors, and job analysts. Commonly used methods of job analysis include work- and worker-oriented approaches that involve FJA, PAQ, CIT, TI/CODAP, and others.
The changing nature of jobs requires a new strategic view of job analysis, which requires HRM
personnel to take a broader and more innovative approach to the job analysis process. They must focus more on how jobs will change to meet the demands of a dynamic organizational competitive
environment. Instead of throwing out the traditional job analysis techniques developed and used over the last four decades, they must broaden and adapt them to meet this new work environment. An
environment that is increasingly dependent on the HRM function to collect information that will help organizations cultivate more productive, effective, and efficient employees will increase the likelihood of organizational success.
As May (1996) notes, job analysis may be most useful in a work world that does not include jobs, because the information it provides may enable more effective design and management of work processes. We agree with May that:
Job analysis information is the raw material that is essential to build new work processes and create efficiencies that cannot emerge any other way. This much-
maligned tool holds great promise for the future of organizations if we seize the opportunity that presents itself. (p. 100)
HRM personnel will find job analyses to be even more important in the years to come as they continue to find ways to help the organization identify those tasks it must perform to be successful.
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