Organizational Structure and the Importance of Job Analysis - Assignment Example

The human resource managers play a significant role in an organization of designing tasks and ensuring those tasks are taken by competent workers. The employees are very crucial because they ensure the organization achieves its goals and objectives. The HR managers have to ensure the employees have the relevant skills, knowledge, expertise and abilities to carry out the assigned tasks (Sanghi, 2014). The HR conducts a job analysis to determine the level of employees’ skills, skills and knowledge required to perform various tasks successfully. Job analysis is a systematic procedure used by the HR to assess the characteristics of the job and the type of employees required to perform specific tasks. Through job analysis, the organization categorizes various tasks based on their significance, determines how the various tasks will be performed and the nature of workforce required to complete the work (Cardy & Leonard, 2014). Job analysis forms the basis for recruiting and selecting the workforce. The job analysis may involve various approaches including job description, job specification, observation, interview by the HR managers.

• Examine at least three (3) approaches that you can take as the HR manager to conduct a job analysis of the Customer Service Representative position.
• Job description:

Job description involves a record of duties, roles and responsibilities for each task (Sanghi, 2014). The HR managers assign each candidate various tasks based on the organizational needs. Job description directs the job applicant on what they are supposed to do to achieve the organizational goals and objectives.

Advantages of job description

Job description helps the organization to establish standards during recruitment of the Customer Service Representative. It enables the potential applicant to examine the requirements of the job position they are about to occupy and establish whether they possess all required capabilities to deliver organizational expectations (Cummings, & Worley, 2014). Furthermore, job description gives the job applicant the basis to examine their performance based on the established standards. Also, the employer can evaluate the employee’s performance based on the standards established in the job description.

Disadvantages of job description

The job description provides a comprehensive list of various duties and responsibilities of specific job holder (Cardy & Leonard, 2014). The requirements are sometimes overwhelming to the extent that even the best candidates for the job may feel incompetent to apply for the job. Consequently, job description undermines the right candidates from applying for the job, even though the actual job involves relevant training for the job holder.

• Job Specification

Job specification focus on the qualities and skills of the job holder. Job description helps the applicant of the position of a Customer Service Representative understand the actual skills and talents they should possess when applying for the job (Schmitt, 2010). The qualification includes academic and work experience pertinent to the job.

Advantage

Job specification guides the employers in determining the level of training required to equip the employees with relevant skills.

Disadvantage

The requirement of specific skills and experience for the position of a Customer Service Representative may be hard to attain for a firm having online operations.

• Interview with HR Manager

Interview as a job analysis entails the HR manager and job applicant having a direct contact in which the manager can ask various questions and obtain immediate feedback from the applicant (Sanghi, 2014). The question could relate to applicant skills, experience, academic qualifications, personal expectations of the job, etc. The applicant can also ask any question or clarification of any issue related to the advertised job.

Advantage

The manager gets immediate feedback from the job applicant and can make immediate decision on whether to hire or not to hire the candidate. Also, the interviewer can observe the social cues such as facial expression and body language of the interviewee that can help make a quick decision on the suitability of the job candidate (Cardy & Leonard, 2014). It is easy for both interviewer and interviewee to clarify any issue that may not have been possible through other methods.

Disadvantage

The applicant may be a bit nervous when interacting with the hiring manager for the first time and could affect the outcome though this may not affect their performance if hired for the job.

Recommendation

I would recommend the manager to use face-to-face job analysis approach for a Customer Service Representative of an online business because this will enable the manager to have a direct interaction with job applicant (Sanghi, 2014). The manager can ask any question and get immediate feedback from the candidate

• Select two (2) out of the four (4) approaches to job design that is the most important for you to consider
• Job rotation.

Job rotation involves giving the employees various jobs in the organization. This is essential because it improves the performance of the employees and reduces boredom. The employees get acquainted with various roles in the organization and reduce employee’s redundancy (Schmitt, 2010). However, the challenges of job rotation include structuring tasks to suits skills and competencies of workers. Also, there is the issue of balancing the organizational needs and employees expectations.

Advantage of job design

The employees gain wide range of skills and experience that offer the managers’ high level of flexibility and allow them to make a relevant adjustment during scheduling of work and recruitment of employees.

Disadvantages

The cost of training employees to perform various jobs is high. Also, the performance of the organization may decline because of lack of employee specialization.

• Job enlargement

Job enlargement involves expanding the number of tasks the employees have to perform in a single job. The challenges of job enlargement include getting all related tasks together that an employee can perform effectively (Mankins & Garton, 2017). Also, it is a challenge to keep employees motivated and reduce employees’ turnover.

Advantages

The organization require fewer workers and employees are more empowered to achieve more for the organization.

Disadvantages

Some employees may be having challenges with adjusting to the current tasks, therefore, adding more responsibilities to those employees could compound their challenges and result in poor performance or make them leave the organization.

• Using the four (4) approaches to job design, create two (2) strategies that the organization can implement to attract and select qualified applicants for the Customer Service Representative position.

Job enrichment

Job enrichment is one of the strategies that can be used to attract and select a candidate for the job of Customer Service Representative. This approach enables the organization to offer employees and reward as an incentive for their work done in the organization (Cummings, & Worley, 2014). This means the company can train employees to perform the role and offer a reward to the employees for performing those roles. When employees get motivated by the enrichment program, they will be enthusiastic to take up the position hence save the organization the need to hire more employees from external sources.

Job rotation

Job rotation is another strategy that can be utilized to attract and select a qualified candidate for a Customer Service Representative Job using approaches to job design. Through job rotation, the company will offer training to the employees in a shift while the organizational operations continue without interruption (Mankins & Garton, 2017). Also, the management will have an opportunity to assess the employees capable of specific roles in the company from within the company.

• Propose three (3) ways that you can use the information obtained from a job analysis to measure the performance of Customer Service Representatives.

The information obtained from the job analysis can be used for evaluating the performance of the company’s Customer Service Representative in some ways such as;

• The information can also be useful during the probationary period to assess the candidate for Customer Service Representative Job and determine when the candidate fully equipped to fully occupy the position. The when the applicant can perform according to the expectations of the company the candidate will be ready to continue working as a full-time employee of the company.
• The information obtained from job analysis could also be used for performance appraisal of the employees. The company can determine the training requirement for the position of Customer Service Representative and also use the information to build the capacity of the employees to meet the company’s future needs.
• Assessing employees development; the management can use the information to assess the employee's competence and the identify knowledge gaps. The company can use the information to plan training programs for the Customer Service representatives to close the identified gaps to improve the performance of the employees.