176 Human Resources Management for Public and Nonprofi t Organizations
development programs, but it also provides the foundation for other HRM
functions. A job analysis is essential for the development of compensation
systems, identifying job - related competencies that can objectively evaluate
employees ’ performance, restructuring work activities, and assessing risks
in the workplace. An up - to - date job analysis is required to validate the job -
relatedness of other human resources functions.
Despite the importance of a job analysis, Guion and Highhouse
(2006) offer some warnings that should be heeded. Different sources of
information may yield different information, at least some of it wrong.
Observing one incumbent rather than another may get biased informa-
tion. An unusually effective worker may do different things with different
resources. People with strong verbal skills can describe tasks and resources
more clearly than others — and perhaps say more to embellish their jobs.
Job analysis tends to yield static descriptions of “ the way we ’ ve always
done it. ” Job analysis typically describes the job as it is, not how it might
be, ought to be, or will be in the future. Job analysis should, but rarely does,
include planning for future contingencies and alternatives.
Job analyses rarely recognize alternative ways to do the job or qualify
for it. Most jobs can be done in more than one way. More attention should
be given to if - then hypotheses: if an applicant can be expected to do the
job one way, then one set of attributes will provide the best predictors, but
if the applicant is likely to do it differently, then a different set of attributes
may be better.
Job analysis is typically descriptive, not prescriptive. It might often be
useful to describe effective ways to do a job. Differences in information
from high performers and low performers can highlight the actions and
personal resources that lead to effectiveness.
No one method of job analysis is clearly superior to another. For per-
sonnel research, the purpose of job analysis is to understand the job well
enough to form sensible, rationally defensible hypotheses about the charac-
teristics of people that predict criterion variables of interest. That purpose
is not likely to be optimally met by any one method or if one uses any
method or set of methods uncritically.