Job Analysis in Public or Non-Profits: Implications in Human Resources Management (research paper)

Analysis of Job in Public and Non-Profit Organizations

Table of Contents

BACKGROUND
TURNOVER, SERVICE ISSUES, AND JOB QUALITY
TURNOVER
SERVICE
JOB QUALITY
ESTABLISHING FIT AND DEVELOPING JOB DEFINITION AND REQUIREMENTS
FIT
DEVELOPING JOB DEFINITIONS
ESTABLISHING JOB REQUIREMENTS
JOB ANALYSIS
IMPLICATIONS AND FINDINGS
CONCLUSION AND SUMMARY
REFERENCES

Job Analysis in Public or Non-Profits: Implications in Human Resources Management

This paper addresses the process and importance of job analysis in public or non-profit organizations and the implications for public or non-profit human resources management. In today's very tight economy, both public agencies and non-profits must run in as efficient and cost-effective manner as possible. The danger of budget cuts looms in every venue, and organizations which have an adequate and accurate understanding of the job process are more likely to succeed budget cuts and public scrutiny. This project investigates not only the process of job analysis in public or non-profit organizations, but also the implications for public and/or non-profit human resources management.

Background

Before beginning a discussion of job analysis, it is helpful to define what job analysis is, and why it is important. Understanding what employees do and why they do it is critical to understanding how the organization operates and whether or not it could be operating more effectively. Understand these levels of operation are critical to meeting the organization's strategic goals. Employees who do not have a clear understanding of their jobs and what is expected of their performance are more likely to fail to meet job requirements, resulting in voluntary or involuntary turnover.

Organizations today can ill afford the massive financial cost associated with employee turnover. Turnover is high, both in public employment and in private organizations. In addition, service issues that can result from a combination of poor training or job understanding, combined with high turnover, can cost an organization both money and clientele. This is particularly critical in non-profit organizations, who depend on having clientele to get funding and in government organizations, who are typically subject to some type of citizen oversight.

In the next section, the research relating to turnover and service issues is reviewed, and the link is made to turnover, service issues, and the need for job analysis.

Turnover, Service Issues, and Job Quality

Trevor and Nyberg stated that "...turnover-related financial costs, which include employee replacement, training, and outplacement are quite high, with per-leaver estimates often doubling leaver salary" (p. 261). The authors also pointed out that "recent research indicates that turnover rates are negatively associated with business unit and organizational success (Glebbeek & Bax, 2004; Kacmar, Andrews, Rooy, Steilberg, & Cerrone, 2006; McElroy, Morrow, & Rude, 2001; Shaw, Gupta, & Delery, 2005)" (Trevor & Nyberg, 2008, p. 262).

Turnover

The Georgia Budget and Policy Institute reported that turnover cost the state of Georgia $475 million for the fiscal year of 2005. The combination of staffing costs, costs of having vacancies that result in lowered productivity by other employees, and training costs for new employees can be prohibitive. Even the most highly qualified applicants will have a learning curve in the new employment situation, and costs associated with overtime and allocation of resources will mount up during the transition time (Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, 2006). The state estimates that for every percentage point decrease in turnover, Georgia state taxpayers save over $28 million. This level of savings would be a boon for any organization, public or private.

Ramlall (2004) pointed out that all companies today face retention problems. The situation described by the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute is multiplied many times over throughout public and private agencies. Ross (2005) reported that in 2004, the turnover rate total across the United States exceeded 23%. Complicating the issue is a lack of well-trained potential hires; the US Department of Labor projected labor shortages until 2012 (Ross 2005). There are clearly two issues involved: first, employees must be retained, and second, employees hired to fill openings must be carefully selected. Although the steps of hiring take time and represent added expense, it is only by careful matching of employee to job that an employer, public or private, can ensure that the employee is qualified to do the job and is interested in doing the job.

Each step of the hiring process takes money. It is expensive to do a background check; drug testing costs money; references must be checked. The company or organization has expectations that employees will remain with their company, but as the statistics show it is all too often that the process simply begins again. The key may be to determine why they leave.

Herzberg's (2003) work suggested that there were a number of specific conditions that led to job dissatisfaction. He was able to establish seven principles that contribute to job satisfaction:

- Developing a system that allowed the employee to work without supervision, yet remain accountable
- Increasing the necessity for personal accountability, for people to act as their own quality control and supervision
- Assigning entire portions of work to accomplish rather than small sections
- Allowing employees the authority to make job decisions
- Having reports go directly to the employee rather than to the supervisor first
- Increasing the level of challenge in the work
- Assigning individuals the task of becoming a "local expert" on their work.

Herzberg (2003) suggested that giving the employee responsibility and recognition were very important in the development of motivation and the desire to remain on the job. One of the big challenges is how to give the employee responsibility while establishing job requirements.

A great deal of research has been accomplished which suggests that turnover is an even greater issue in tight economic times, when marginal employees may have already been downsized. There is a tendency in organizations to release marginal employees, employees with a great deal of sick time, or disciplinary issues. The organizational goal is to keep the best employees. It becomes even more critical to the organization if a "good" employee leaves, because the remaining employees may be doing the workload of more than one personal already.

Trevor and Nyberg's (2008) study suggested that the best way to mitigate loss of employees was to determine and strengthen "embeddedness." Embeddedness was defined, in part, as consisting of the fit of the employee to the organization to the job. Thus developing robust job descriptions can assist human resources managers in hiring the appropriate individuals. An accurate job description helps the employer know what type of employee to look for, and helps the prospective employee know if they can do the job the employer expects. Further, an accurate job description can help evaluate the employee's performance and make annual review process much easier.

Service

In 2003, Blanchard and Bowles (pg. 11) stated that today, service in some organization has gotten so bad that customers or clients simply expect to be abused. Collins suggests that the inability of employees to take responsibility for things that go wrong contributes to this negative expectation of customer service. Collins (2001) suggested that one of the greatest issues in business today is the inability to accept responsibility for things that go wrong. Companies must establish a series of mechanisms that will draw the attention of management in order to examine situations within the organization that may lead to detrimental reactions from clients or the public.

Job Quality

The organization's "brand" can suffer in a number of ways but by establishing a mechanism for oversight and review, brand failure can be limited. Companies with low turnover and high knowledge have established a clear pattern of flow throughout the organization so that employees know what to, when to do it, and how to do it. Judge and Ferris (1992) pointed out that companies who wish to have this type of flow must begin with the assurance that employees who are being hired will fit into the company. Fit must be based on rational staffing and deliberate hiring.

Establishing Fit and Developing Job Definition and Requirements

The process of job analysis answers the question so of who, what, where, when, why, and how. While there is more than one method of analysis, there is typically only one goal: to define the job, match it to the organization's needs, and define the requirements for the conduction of the job. A job description is the result of the analysis. The description is a step by step list of what the job requirements are. The job description is very important from a legal standpoint because it defines what the employer expects for any given job.

Fit

The job analysis, and subsequent description, can be utilized in conducting the employee's job review and for hiring new employees. According to Aswathapa (2002), the description identifies a title for the job, establishes the duties, sets the conditions, lists any hazards, and suggests a relationship to other jobs within the organization, thus establishing a path for promotion or advancement. Most importantly, the analysis and description establish the initial fit between the candidate and the company, or the candidate and the job.

Developing Job Definitions

The description, or definition, of the job evolves from the job analysis. The description itself defines the job, the work, and the context of the job within the organization. The clarified description is utilized in establishing fit, in maintaining consistency of job, defining promotion requirements, and establishing training and recruitment needs. Job descriptions can be used to establish legal requirements and to negotiate with collective bargaining.

Establishing Job Requirements

Gatewood, Field, and Barrick suggested that there are three primary methods of job analysis: interviews, questionnaires and inventories, and job expert evaluations. The job analysis interview collects data gathered from interviewing employees who are in the position. Core competencies for the jobs are established. In 1998, Olesen, Tse, and West suggested that there were certain stable areas within the organization, referred to as core competencies, which should be utilized in developing the job analysis:

- The types of contact between employees and customers
- The type of information that is exchanged between the employee and the customers
- The way that employees and customers communicate
- The behaviors that employees have when working with customers
- The amount of time that employees spend with customers
- The level of input the customer has in product development (or service development)
- The trust levels that the employees establish with customers
- The methods of feedback that are set up
- The level of employee autonomy in dealing with problems
- The level of personalization required in any interaction with customers or clients
- The customers' needs to be recognized, and
- The intensity and degree of labor required (p. 182).

These items, the contact, information, communication, behaviors, time, level of input, trust levels, methods of feedback, employee autonomy, personalization, customers' needs, and intensity and degree of labor impact the organization's "bottom line" whether the organization is a for-profit organization or a public or non-profit. If having the correct employee in a position is critical to the operation of the organization, then establishing an accurate job specification is critical because it is the basis for the selection of that employee.

Job Analysis

Gatewood et al. pointed out that a job analysis interview should be conducted by someone experienced in the task. The analyst asks questions about the job duties and responsibilities and the worker's experiences in the job. The knowledge, skills, and aptitudes (KSAs) that are required for the job are explored, and any equipment needed for the job is noted. The information is collected for the job and for jobs within the same class (for instance, administrative jobs, or janitorial jobs). Experienced employees should be interviewed, because they have done the job and understand who it should be conducted. The interview itself can be strictly structured, or it can be unstructured. However, the structured interview is likely to net information that will be more likely to stand up to legal challenge.

Gatewood et al. suggest that a job analysis interview should investigate the major tasks of the job, the KSAs required in the job, the level of physical activities required and the nature of the activities, the environmental conditions that the job is conducted in, and frequencies and degrees to which work tasks are conducted. The employee may be asked what records and reports they use to do the job, or what reports they prepare on the job. The employee should be asked where they got (or get) the information to do their job, and how many people they supervise. Finally, they should be allowed to provide any additional information they feel appropriate.

Gatewood et al. provide the example of the US Civil Service Commission, who have developed a method of analyzing employee statements and narratives. Each statement is broken into four parts:

- What action happens
- To whom or to what does it happen?
- What is produced?
- Using what tools, equipments, aids, and processes? (Gatewood et al., 2008 p. 269).

Although the interview itself is an excellent tool for conducting the analysis, there are situations where it will either not be appropriate or should be supplemented. Job analysis questionnaires should be utilized at these points. The questionnaires may be considered less personal or less invasive by some employees and may result in answers that are more honest. Although the company's HR representative can develop questionnaires appropriate to the investigation, there are so many off-the-shelf questionnaires available that the company may well find an off the shelf package that is adequate.

According to Gatewood et al., the task analysis inventory comes in an off-the-shelf iteration that can be readily adapted for use by organizations. It asks the incumbent in the position to respond in great detail, sometimes using a Likert-style scale, to define essential activities of the job. Employees are asked to define what they do, how often they do it, and the importance of the task. The answers can be ranked and compared against other workers in similar job positions to get an accurate description of the position.

The Positional Analysis Questionnaire is an additional off the shelf package that is commonly in use with HR departments. This tool reviews how the worker gets the input for the job, the decision making process the employee uses to do the job, what the work output looks like, the relationships with others that are necessary to do the job, the social and physical context of the job, and any other information or job characteristics of the job.

The third method of job analysis is the Subject Matter Expert (SME) workshop. In this form of analysis, a group or panel familiar with the job gets together with a leader and analyze the job(s). In general, the tasks of the job are identified, and the KSAs established. The relevance of the content of the job to the job can also be addressed. Finally, work logs, diaries, and observations can be conducted. In every case, the materials are considered systematically and the final report is produced.

Implications and Findings

Cohen and Golan stated that turnover has a direct correlation to job satisfaction and commitment to the organization. With rates of turnover soaring, organizations must take steps to ensure that they can stay afloat during economic crises. An interesting application of this idea was explored by ChanLin. In this study, faculty members conducted a jobs analysis of their jobs to determine the professional skills that would be needed by student graduates in the field. A minimum competency was developed from this analysis (ChanLin, 2009).

Jackson suggested in his dissertation research that the job analysis might also be useful for assisting injured workers to return to work. He postulated that injured workers might be kept form permanent injury by carefully analyzing the job and matching the needs to that of the injured worker. This possibility is one worth exploring by organizations in the public and non-profit sectors as a way of putting people back to work rather than keeping them on injured status, when at all possible. This would allow the use of the employee's experience while protecting their health (Jackson, 2008).

Bharijoo suggests that by conducting a careful job analysis, enough detail can be obtained on the operation of a particular job that the requirements can be utilized in modifying behavior of the employees. Miller and Desmarais (2007) suggest that defining jobs through job analysis, combined with other human resources techniques, can help retain employees in an era of high turnover rates.

Rodwell and Teo (2004) investigated the use of strategic management of human resources in both profit and non-profit organizations in Australian and were able to link strategic management or organizational performance in both types of organizations. They suggested that by linking the combination of customer demands and employee commitments, both types of organizations were able to improve HR practices and enhance human capital within the organization. Lengnick-Hall, C. Lengnick-Hall, Andrade, and Drake, (2009) suggested that some of this input was to provide feedback that could be utilized in developing comprehensive job analysis information.

Conclusion and Summary

The research led the way to the conclusion that job analysis is a powerful tool of human resources management suitable for use in both private corporations and in public and not for profit organizations. When combined as part of an overall package of human resources practices, the job analysis can be used to define positions that need filled, and assist the organization in determining potential employees who will have the best fit for the organization and the specific job. In addition, a good job analysis provides information that can be used to guide the employee in achieving a high level of achievement on the job. By providing the employee with exacting information on what is expected and how to achieve it, it is expected that public organizations and non-profits would decrease turnover and increase job satisfaction, resulting in an improved bottom line.

References

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