Job Analysis at InterClean - Report Example

Job Analysis at InterClean of Phoenix Connie Johnson 2/8/2009 In the business world of the 21st century there is a lot of competition. Inorder for companies to differentiate themselves they must have superior human capital in their organizations. A human resource practice that can help companies optimize the performance of its staff is job analysis. Job analysis can be defined as a procedure used to collect and classify information about tasks the organization needs complete (Schermerhorn & Hunt & Osborn, 2003, p.129). Job analysis helps managers and recruiters determine the skills and capabilities the company seeks in its employees. Such information is instrumental in the selection process. The topics discussed in this paper include: job analysis, human resource planning, and selection methods. The paper also describes the profiles of five employees and the reasons they were selected to become a part of the work team. Job analysis provides valuable information that can be used to make business decisions. It assists in the understanding of job activities required in a work process and helps define jobs, aptitude and ability, and personality needed to perform these jobs (Schermerhorn, et. al. 2003, p.129). Managers can establish easy to understand job descriptions that specify the work tasks and responsibilities employees can follow. The job requirement for a position must specify the educational and experience needed to perform the job adequately. Job analysis also helps companies deal with legal requirements. For example if a job requires a person to lift 175 pounds, choosing women over men is not a discriminatory action if the women cannot lift the weight specified in the job description. Five popular job analysis methods are job performance, observation, interviews, critical incident, and structured interviews (Cascio, 2005, p.167). Job performance works well on easy jobs that do not require extensive training. Observation can provide greater insight into the work an employee is performing. When people perform job duties in which thinking is part of the process the utilization of observation is ineffective. An advantage of interviews is that it gives the company a chance to get to know the candidate and test their communication skills. A disadvantage of interviews is that sometimes there is miscommunication between the interviewer and candidate which leads to confusion and to an ineffective evaluation of the candidate. Critical incidents have advantages such as being measurable and observable. A weakness of the method is that it takes time for the incidents to occur. A good attribute of structured interviews is that they are cheap, but an issue with them is that they are time consuming. InterClean is currently in a transition phase. As the new sales manager one of my first tasks is to build a new sales team. I am going to be choosing five people to compose my team. The optimal size of a team is between five and eight members. I evaluated various employee profiles before selecting my team. I liked the fact that EnviroTech sales representatives believe in developing a long term relationship with their customers. The new model of selling all-inclusive solutions requires greater involvement between the employees and the customers. I would like to hire employees that are flexible, creative, disciplined, good interpersonal relationships, and that have good communication skills both written and verbally. The five employees I chose to become a part of my new sales team were Donna, Mark, Eric, Ving, and Terry. I choose Donna and Mark because they are both youthful and energetic. Since they are young professional they have not yet pickup any bad habits that occur when people get complacent at their jobs. Mark has an aggressive sales attitude. This attribute can be used in different sales scenarios such as closing a sale. I like Donna sales style and aggressive nature. Both of these employees needed an intensive training to improve their skills and capabilities. I would start them right away on a training initiative using online learning tools. These tools are cheaper and can be customized to meet the needs of the individual user. Both of these employees should be placed on a career path to that enhances their skills and leadership abilities. Mark has the greatest potential between the two. During the next six months I would closely monitor his performance. After that time period if his performance is excellent Mark should be placed in managerial training program. Eric Borden has a lot of knowledge of the sanitation industry. He should be immediate assigned leadership responsibilities since in the past he has flourish in working environments in which he led teams. In my team I would give him an opportunity to become the team leader. His career path most be geared towards finding ways for the employee to share his knowledge with others. Eric needs greater challenge and an opportunity to help others. Ving Hsug is a great team player. He was chosen as part of my team because he has shown superb ability at handling customer affairs. Due to his experience I think Ving should be used as an educator of other employees. Prior to using Ving in that capacity he would received advance training sessions given by external consultants. Terry is an excellent team player that has prior experience as an educator. She should work closely with Ving to develop an educational program to train the staff on important aspects of the sanitation industry. Workforce planning refers to the planning of people that will do organizational work, but who are not necessarily the employees (Cascio, 2005, p.172). The diversity of the staff will help the organization achieve greater penetration of international markets. There are lots of opportunities for expansion in the solution based selling of sanitation products in the international markets because there is barely any competition. The demand for these products is higher than the supply of available companies that can provide a quality service. If the company does a good job with the customer the chances of achieve customer retention are high. The value of customer retention lies in the fact that a company achieves repeated business without the necessity of spending additional marketing dollars. In order to achieve success in the competitive business environment of today companies have to optimize the work performance of its employees. A way to better understand and evaluate the contributions of employees is through the use of job analysis. As the new sales manager of InterClean I had the task of choosing a sales team. My sales team was created based on find a combination of youth and experience with an integration of diversity. Training & development was utilized to improve the capabilities of the sales team. The long term goal is for the sales team to become a model that be replicated through the organization to formulate many productive work teams. References Cascio (2005). Managing Human Resources: Productivity, Quality of Life, Profits (7th ed.). New York: McGraw Hill Company. Schermerhorn, J., Hunt, J., Osborn, R. (2003). Organizational Behavior (8th ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons. Read More