From cutting hiring costs to creating diverse workplaces, there are a lot of things that employers are focused on right now to improve their overall recruitment process. Modernization has had a great impact on many companies and employees' flexibility in work schedules, work from home options and employee supportive policies. Job analysis has proven to be a big turning point for organisations. It not only creates the right job candidate fit but also enhances the success of management practices, which lay the foundation for a strong organisation.
Newman and Lyon (2009) pointed out the typical needs for generating a relevant pool for the selection of the employees is Job Analysis. Job Analysis includes developing a relevant job description and job specifications concerning knowledge, skills and abilities for the specific job. Employers also look for suitable personality qualities, attitudes and values, so that the selected employee is by an organisation need and best fit for the organisation and the job. Barber (1998) note of three decisions related to recruitment which are target population, determine the applicant source and deciding how to attract applicants to the organisation. Recruitment requires effective planning and to collaborate closely with the management, which can only be done by the job analysis.
The first step for the recruitment process is job analysis. Miyake (2002) advertising for vacant jobs is a usual process to find the right pool of candidates. Job analysis is done to create job descriptions and job specifications so that the right pool of candidates are attracted and shortlisted for further process. He further elaborated the selection tools such as conducting interviews, application blanks and reference. In addition to these tests are used to select the perfect match for the job. These tests are aptitude tests, assessment centres, personality tests and psychological tests.
Kaplan and Norton (2004) identified some issues that lead to bad employment decisions, most of them were ignorance in planning, resulting in a poor selection of employees due to poor job analysis. One of the most important aspects of recruitment and selection is choosing the best-fit candidates for the job, but poor planning and job analysis affect this aspect badly. It is essential to enhance the quality of the candidates.
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In a rush to fill vacancies, creating a job analysis is a step some business owners neglect, however, it can be a grave mistake because it means the job description and the job advert most often does not fully fit the purpose of the role. Recruiters can end up attracting the wrong candidates for the role advertised. It becomes costly, time- consuming and frustrating to deal with. According to Zoek (2019), 74% of small businesses hire the wrong person for the job, performing a job analysis is therefore crucial when it comes to recruitment and workforce planning.
What is job analysis?
Brannick and Levine (2002) described Job Analysis as a systematic process where one can discover the nature of a job. It is an in-depth study of the tasks responsibilities and skills needed to perform a job role successfully. Over the years other researchers such as Bawin and Harvey (2001) have discussed the significance of job analysis to human resource management but they found job analysis as a strategic human resource management practice having a prospective contribution in the organisational performance.
By performing a job analysis, human resources personnel can clarify the role's needs, as well as define employer expectations essentially giving you everything you need for the job description and job advert for your recruitment needs.
During processing, it follows a step-by-step approach to collect, record, analysis and interpret the information collected. (Heron 2005) It is apparent that identifying particular job duties and relevant requirements along with the importance of those duties for a given job are the key functions of job analysis, (Bartlett, 2000) and it aims to 'present a rich picture of how the world of work looks at a given moment.' (Jerrold 1987) One thing worth to know is job analysis focuses on job specifically, instead of the person employed. (Bartlett, 2000)
Based on numbers of management scholars' long-term continued contribution, current job analysis has been processed upon several fundamental principles, which include: job analysis is important for the business necessity, all jobs should be analysable and recordable; the steps involved in the job analysis process should be reasonable and simple, and could be understood both internally and externally; skills, knowledge and abilities should be operationally defined; (Clifford 1994, pp.321-327) job analysis should be designed to meet all the party's needs; and it should improve communication, accommodating frequent changes, contribute to human resource management improvement and be cost-effective. (Clifford 1994)
Validity and sufficiency about job analysis are two specifically important features, which ensure the efficiency of human resources management. Therefore, to accomplish these two features, before actually performing the job analysis, four important issues need to be considered:
- First of all, the extent of employee's involvement in the job analysis needs to be defined. Many scholars commend that "information double-check" can be realized by more than one job incumbents' participation, which ensures information's accuracy. (Anthony et al.)
- Secondly, the scope of job analysis should be determined. Different purposes lead to different requirements for the job analysis, some may extremely specific, others may quite simple; thus the analysis scope needed to be pre-determined. (Anthony et al.)
- The exact type of job, which is going to be analysed during the process needs to be identified, whether the job is newly created, or established for a while or a job currently experiencing technology updating; (Anthony et al.)
- Finally, organizations need to define the appropriate job analysis approach, whether it is a traditional job analysis or future-oriented job analysis. The former approach is used to collect information about how the current job is being performed; however, if an organization is confronting consistent growing or technology development, the latter one may be more appropriate. (Anthony et al. 1996)
Get your recruitment strategy right from the get-go
Putting your needs and expectations of the company and the role in writing as a job description may take time, but it's the most important step in the hiring process. It's the key to finding the right person to do the job, whether you do the recruiting yourself or through a recruitment platform.
Munodiwa Zvemhara is a consultant at Industrial Psychology Consultants (Pvt) Ltd a management and human resources consulting firm.
Phone +263 4 481946-48/481950/2900276/2900966 or cell number +263 783168453 or email: munodiwa@ipcconsultants.com or visit our website at www.ipcconsultants.com