Because human resources represent one of the costs in business, managers must have current and systematized information on all jobs in order to produce products and services efficiently. The myriad of laws, guidelines, and court decisions concerning equal employment opportunity make job analysis necessary.

What is job analysis?

Job analysis is the processes of collecting job-related data. It refers to the process of collecting information about a job. The process of job analysis results in two sets of data: (1) Job description and (2) Job specification. The focus is on the job, not on the individual holding the job (however individuals are consulted).

Job analysis has its impact on all functions of Human Resource Management. Job analysis will enhance all the effectiveness of all Human Resource activities. Job analysis benefits an organization by laying the foundation for human resource planning, employee hiring, training and development, performance appraisal, salary and wage fixation, and for safety and wealth.

Following is the process of job analysis:

Þ   Strategic choices

Þ   Information gathering

Þ   Information processing

Þ   Job description and

Þ   Job specification

In strategic choices an organization makes at least these choices: the extent of employee involvement in job analysis, the level of details of the analysis, timing and frequency of analysis and sources of job data.

Information gathering involves decision on three issues-

(1) what type of data is to be collected?

(2) what methods are to be employed for data collection?

(3) who should collect the data?

Once the job information has been collected, it needs to be processed, so that it would be useful in various personnel functions like job description, performance appraisal, training and development.

Thus we can conclude that Job Analysis is an inevitable part in Human Resource Planning. It can’t be ignored. 

Definitions

The following is a list of commonly used job analysis terms.

• Job duty - a single specific task.
• Knowledge - a body of information applied directly to the performance of a duty.
• Skill - a present, observable competence to perform a learned activity.
• Ability - a present competence to perform an observable behavior or a behavior that results in an observable product.
• Physical characteristics - the physical attributes employees must have in order to perform job duties; unaided or with the assistance of a reasonable accommodation.
• Credentials and Experience - the minimal acceptable level of education, experience, and certifications necessary for employment.
• Other Characteristics - duties, knowledge, skills, and abilities that do not have a logical place in the job description.

Training and development

In the field of human resource management, training and development is the field concerned with organizational activity aimed at bettering the performance of individuals and groups in organizational settings. It has been known by several names, including employee development, human resource development, and learning and development.

Training and development encompasses three main activities: training, education, and development. Training and Development are often considered to be synonymous. However, to practitioners, they encompass three separate, although interrelated, activities.

Training: This activity is both focused upon, and evaluated against, the job that an individual currently holds.

Education: This activity focuses upon the jobs that an individual may potentially hold in the future, and is evaluated against those jobs.

Development: This activity focuses upon the activities that the organization employing the individual, or that the individual is part of, may partake in the future, and is almost impossible to evaluate.

Conventional 'training' is required to cover essential work-related skills, techniques and knowledge, and much of this section deals with taking a positive progressive approach to this sort of traditional 'training'.

In terms of learning, training and development, what's good for people is good for the organizations in which they work. What's good for people's development is good for organizational performance, quality, customer satisfaction, effective management and control, and therefore profits too.

Profit is an outcome of managing and developing people well. People and their development enable profit. Enable people and you enable profit.

Organizations which approach training and development from this standpoint inevitably foster people who perform well and progress, and, importantly, stay around for long enough to become great at what they do, and to help others become so.

Training is a very commonly used word,  but learning is in many ways a better way to think of the subject, because learning 'belongs' to the learner, whereas training traditionally 'belongs' to the trainer or the organization.

Training should be about whole person development - not just transferring skills, the traditional interpretation of training at work.

Being realistic, corporate attitudes and expectations about what 'training' is and does cannot be changed overnight, and most organizations still see 'training' as being limited to work skills, classrooms and power-point presentations.