Job Analysis and Job Design for Customer Care Representatives - Essay Example

Job Analysis and Job Design for Care Representatives 4th May, Table of Contents Introduction 2 Approaches to Conduct Job Analysis 3 Recommendation and Justification 5 Approaches to Job Design 5 Advantages and Disadvantages of Each Approach 6 Strategies to Attract and Retain Qualified Candidates 7 Performance Measurement of Customer Service Representatives 8 References 9 Introduction Some of the functions of human recourse are carrying out job analyses, job designs, hiring and firing, performance appraisals and formulating strategies that will attract and retain high performing employees. This paper focusses on the position of customer service representatives in a small online market retail company. This paper will look into approaches that can be used to carry out a job analysis and give recommendation for methods that can be used for this position. The second part is about approaches that can be used for job designing and recommend the best approaches for the position of a customer care representative. The third part is about strategies that can be used by the online market retail company to attract and retain competent customer service representatives and finally the performance measurement methods for customer service representatives. Approaches to Conduct Job Analysis Prior to carrying out recruitment exercise for a given job position, the human resource personnel should have adequate knowledge of what the job entails. This will guide them in the recruitment process as it will help the human resource personnel determine the requirements, qualifications and competencies required for the candidate to fill the given position. This is basically what job analysis involves. Job analysis refers to a process of gathering information that assists in determining a job description and responsibilities of a given position (Algera & Greuter, 2013). Observation is one of the approaches that can be used to perform a job analysis. This approach involves direct observation of a worker by a trained and experienced job analyst. The worker goes about their job as usual and the job analyst observes and identifies activities, behaviors and time for each activity. The job analyst can also opt to observe several workers, who are picked at random, preforming the same job. Observation method is the commonly used method of job analysis as it does not involve a lot of resources. In some instances, the job analyst might decide to interview the workers or their line managers, in addition to direct observation. The outcomes of the interview are analyzed and incorporated in the final results of the job analysis. When performing job analysis for manual jobs, the job analyst focusses more on the operations and methods used to perform given tasks. This approach has some advantages and disadvantages as well. It is commonly used because the job analyst acquires first-hand information and thus margin of error in the analysis is reduced. Observation method also gives the analyst the flexibility of carrying out a worker-related or a job related analysis. A worker related job analysis focuses on the individual performing the job under analysis and aims to determine the combination of competencies, qualifications and skill required for the job. A job related analysis focusses on the job’s working conditions. Observation method is cheap and quick to perform. It does not need a lot of resources or too much preparations like the questionnaire method. Observation method has some disadvantages such as it cannot be used to analyze jobs that are not observable. Jobs that involve a lot of brainwork are cannot be analyzed by observation method. This method is also not favored by jobs that involve tasks that take a long time to perform. It requires short repetitive jobs that will allow for more observations to be made. Observation method can be inaccurate if the worker changes their work behaviors because they are under observation. This is a major challenge with this method as being under observation can cause anxiety in the worker and hence change of working behavior. Finally this method can only be used when the worker is actually doing the job. This means that there has to be a worker or workers to be observed. Questionnaires can also be used to carry out job analysis. The job analyst prepares questionnaires that will give more information about the job under analysis. Then the questionnaires are given to workers performing the same job and once they fill them, they are taken for analysis in order to determine the nature and operations of the job. One major advantage of questionnaires is that they do not affect the worker behavior. Questionnaires are very suitable for jobs that are not observable and those that involve a lot of mental work. Questionnaire method involves a lot of preparations. The job analyst has to prepare the questionnaires and make arrangements to inform workers who are to fill the questionnaires. If the number of workers to fill the questionnaires is large, then this method can be time consuming. A job analyst can decide to use the approach of examining diaries and reference materials filled by previous or current workers for the job under analysis. An employee fills in daily activities and duties performed and other related information such as task nature and time taken. This method is closely related to questionnaire method. This method has the advantage that important information is captured and retained thus it can be used even in the absence of a worker. It is also relatively not time consuming. Diary analysis has the disadvantage of inaccuracy as the employees might record information incorrectly. It also adds extra work to the employees and it may divert some of the employees’ energies and concentration from their normal duties. The fourth approach is called functional job analysis which focus on the critical components of job. These include workers, information and equipment. Functional job analysis is guided by an organization’s objectives, the level of training involved and level of operation involved. Recommendation and Justification The job analysis being carried out is for the position of a customer service representative in an online retail company. The employee diary log is the recommended approach for job analysis for this position. This is because the position is currently vacant thus observation and questionnaire methods cannot be used. Customer service representatives always keep a record or a log of customer issues resolved and how they were resolved. The method of communication previously used can as well be used to retrieve information about the job position. E-mails used for communication can be retrieved as well as telephone call logs. Approaches to Job Design There exists four job design approaches which include: Mechanistic, motivational, biological and perceptual job design approaches. In the case under focus, motivational and biological job designs will be considered. Motivational job design approach involves creating a combination of job duties and responsibilities that can be performed well by a motivated employee. The jobs designed using this approach involve a lot of training for the workers, rewards and job satisfaction. One of the challenges that is associated with this method is that it requires lengthy training. Training involves significant resources and some of the trainings might not be fully used to perform the job. The second challenge with the motivational approach is that the rewards used to motivate staff might create pressure for them. This can easily result in stress. Tasks that are highly engaging mentally can result in mistakes when there is too much work (Tims & Bakker, 2013). Biological job design approach is used for job designs where the jobs involve some degree of risk on the workers. These are designed so as to ensure that the job’s duties and responsibilities do not overwhelm the worker and that the workers mental and physical capabilities can match the duties and responsibilities. One challenge associated with this approach is that the jobs involved are not highly engaging thus can encourage absenteeism and lateness. The second challenge is that the approach is quite expensive especially when there is a change in the job environment. Changes in the job environment will necessitate a redesign of the job under focus (Tims &Bakker, 2013). Advantages and Disadvantages of Each Approach One of the advantages of motivational job design approach is that it brings efficiency at work. This is brought about by the motivational packages for the workers that increases their productivity. A customer service representative who is highly motivated will not mind working hard to meet the set organizational targets. The second advantage of this approach is that there is higher job satisfaction levels and thus employee will not skip reporting to their duties. The customer service representative in the online marketing business will have a job that has increased duties and a broader scope. This will utilize their skill and they will feel that there are growing in their careers and this will result to them being satisfied with the job they are doing. One advantage of the biological method is that there are little chances of employee stress or fatigue as the job is designed to favor the workers’ health. In a customer service representative’s job that is designed using this approach they working environment will be conducive and this is another form of employee motivation. The second advantage is that there is reduced absenteeism as the worker is comfortable in their working environment. Strategies to Attract and Retain Qualified Candidates The first strategy would be to use the mechanical approach of job design to design a job that would involve less training. Some employees feel that they have the required training and experience to handle a particular job this they perceive training to be a waste of time. The mechanistic approach would ensure that candidates recruited for the job are prequalified and with the right set of skills. Once they are recruited as customer care representatives, they can then be introduced to motivational package and rewards skills. This is one of the proven people management skills that has been successfully used to retain highly performing employees. Reward schemes will make the employees work efficiently and they will also want to improve their skills while on the job without need for further training (Holbeche, 2013). The second strategy would be to use perceptual, biological and motivational job design approaches to create a customer service representative’s job that has a motivating environment with the right employee. A perceptual approach would be used to match the job requirements to the employee skills. The recruitment process would be focused on recruiting a candidate who had the needed qualifications and competencies for a customer service representative. Sourcing for such a candidate would ensure that there is less time used for training and that the candidate perfectly matches the job. Once such a candidate is recruited, the necessary motivation package can be used so as to boost the candidate’s performance as well as keep them on the job (Holbeche, 2013). Performance Measurement of Customer Service Representatives As mentioned earlier, job analysis provide more information about a particular job. This information can be used to create benchmarks and ways of measuring a worker’s performance. The information from the job analysis of customer service representatives reveals the duties and responsibilities of the employees. Performance measurement can involve determining how efficiently and effectively are these duties performed by the employees. Data from questionnaire can be cross-checked against the employees finished tasks so as to determine how they were performed (Bititci et al, 2012) Data from logs and diary can also be used for performance measurement. Logs can include information on customers’ feedback on how they were served by a particular customer service representative. This feedback can be used to determine whether the customer service employees are providing proper and adequate service to the online shoppers. Observation can also be used for performance measurement. A job analyst can observe a customer service representative while performing their duties and be able to evaluate their performance while considering the job analysis results. An observer can be able to determine whether the customer service representatives are able to use their skills to bring satisfaction to the customers (Bennet et al, 2014). References Algera, J. A., & Greuter, M. A. (2013). Job analysis. A Handbook of Work and Organizational Psychology: Volume 3: Personnel Psychology. Bennett, W., Lance, C. E., & Woehr, D. J. (Eds.). (2014). Performance measurement: Current perspectives and future challenges. Chicago: Psychology Press. Bititci, U., Garengo, P., Dörfler, V., & Nudurupati, S. (2012). Performance measurement: Challenges for tomorrow*. International Journal of Management Reviews, 14(3), 305-327. Holbeche, L. (2013). Aligning human resources and business strategy. London: Routledge. Tims, M., & Bakker, A. B. (2013). 7 Job design and employee engagement. Employee Engagement in Theory and Practice. Read More