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Fundamentals of Human Resource Management, 8e Instructor’s Manual

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Chapter 4

Analyzing Work and Designing Jobs

This chapter discusses the analysis and design of work and, in doing so, lays out some

considerations that go into making informed decisions about how to create and link jobs. It

begins with a look at the big-picture issues related to analyzing work flow and organizational

structure. The discussion then turns to the more specific issues of analyzing and designing jobs.

Traditionally, job analysis has emphasized the study of existing jobs to make decisions such as

employee selection, training, and compensation. In contrast, job design has emphasized making

jobs more efficient or more motivating. However, as this chapter shows, the two activities are

interrelated.

Chapter Outline

Work Flow in Organizations

• Work flow analysis identifies:

• Amount and quality of a work unit’s outputs

• Work processes required to produce these outputs

• Inputs used to carry out processes and produce outputs

Job Analysis

• Includes preparation of:

• Job descriptions

• Job specifications

• Information for analyzing existing jobs often comes from incumbents and supervisors.

• Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ)

• Fleishman Job Analysis System

• Competency models

Job Design

• The nature of work and job design is changing, including:

• Viewing organizations in terms of a field of work needing to be done instead of

specific job descriptions.

• Organizations are adopting project-based structures and teamwork, which also require

flexibility and ability to handle broad responsibilities.

• According to the Job Characteristics Model, jobs are more motivating if they have greater

skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback.

• Job enlargement, including job extension and job rotation

• Job enrichment

• Self-managing work teams

• Flexible work schedules

• Telework

• The goal of ergonomics is to minimize physical strain on the worker by structuring the

physical work environment around the way the human body works.

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• Technology may have an inverse impact on productivity, thus causing more distraction,

errors, and injury.

• Job design can reduce the mental and physical strain.

Learning Objectives

LO 4-1: Summarize the elements of work flow analysis.

LO 4-2: Describe how work flow is related to an organization’s structure.

LO 4-3: Define the elements of a job analysis, and discuss their significance for human resource

management.

LO 4-4: Tell how to obtain information for a job analysis.

LO 4-5: Summarize recent trends in job analysis.

LO 4-6: Describe methods for designing a job so that it can be done efficiently.

LO 4-7: Identify approaches to designing a job to make it motivating.

LO 4-8: Explain how organizations apply ergonomics to design safe jobs.

LO 4-9: Discuss how organizations can plan for the mental demands of a job.

Society for Human Resource Management Body of Competency &

Knowledge

This chapter contains content, which may be identified within the following content areas:

• Business & HR Strategy

• Total Rewards

• Organizational Effectiveness & Design

• Talent Acquisition & Retention

Human Resource Certification Institute’s A Guide to the HR Body

of Knowledge

This chapter contains content, which may be identified within the following content areas:

• Business Management & Strategy

Fundamentals of Human Resource Management, 8e Instructor’s Manual

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• Workforce Planning and Employment

• Compensation and Benefits

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Question Guidance to Vignettes and Discussion Questions

HR Oops!

Poor Planning for Robots

1. Suppose a company receives orders by e-mail and has employees read the orders and

enter data about each one into a spreadsheet for the billing department and a planning

system for the production department. Then the employees generate e-mail messages to

each customer to acknowledge each order. Would you describe this process as efficient?

Why or why not?

2. Suppose the same company wants to use bots to automate these tasks. How should the

company go about planning for this change in inputs?

HRM Social

Skills of a Social-Media Specialist

1. Suppose an organization wants to add a social-media specialist to its marketing team.

How can the information provided here help with HR planning and selection?

2. Suppose a small business has a salesperson who enjoys written communication and has

been handling social-media posts. The company considers whether she could expand this

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role into a more strategic approach to the company’s social-media presence. How can it

use the information here to help the salesperson with the necessary career planning?

Best Practices

Navicent Health Gets Lean for the Sake of Its Patients

1. What inefficiencies did the emergency medical service identify? How did the response

change employees’ jobs?

2. What inefficiencies did the emergency department identify? How did the response

change employees’ jobs?

HR How To

Devising a Plan for Workplace Flexibility

1. If an organization values flexibility, why not just let each manager decide how to

implement it with each employee? What could go wrong?

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decisions are left to manager discretion, then perceived inequity and favoritism may

occur.

2. How do the ideas for planning flexible arrangements address the concerns you identified

in your answer to question 1?

Did You Know?

Health Care Workers Need Ergonomic Job Design

1. What challenges do health care facilities face in addressing ergonomic job design for

nurses and nursing assistants? How can meeting these challenges benefit these facilities?

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End of Chapter Questions and Cases

Thinking Ethically

How Can You Ethically Design a Dangerous Job?

1. How do the basic human rights defined in Chapter 1—free consent, privacy, freedom of

conscience, freedom of speech, and due process—apply to professional football players

and the safety risks described here?

2. Will making football players’ jobs safe achieve the ethical goal of the greatest good for

the greatest number of people? Why or why not? Is there an ethical level of safety in

football?

Review and Discussion Questions

1. Assume you are a manager of a fast-food restaurant. What are the outputs of your work

unit? What are the activities required to produce those outputs? What are the inputs? (LO

4-1)

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student approaches and ideas given in response to this question should provide for lively

discussion and in-depth thinking processes.

2. Based on Question 1, consider the cashier’s job in the restaurant. What are the outputs,

activities, and inputs for that job? (LO 4-1)

3. Consider the “job” of college student. Perform a job analysis on this job. What tasks are

required in the job? What knowledge, skills, and abilities are necessary to perform those

tasks? Prepare a job description based on your analysis. (LO 4-3)

4. Discuss how the following trends are changing the skill requirement for managerial jobs

in the United States. (LO 4-5)

a. Increasing use of social media

b. Increasing international competition

c. Increasing work-family conflicts

5. Suppose you have taken a job as a trainer in a large bank that has created competency

models for all of its positions. How could the competency models help you succeed in

your career at the bank? How could the competency models help you develop the bank’s

employees? (LO 4-5)

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could provide a roadmap for employees to identify the types of competencies that they

want to acquire and develop in order to make successful lateral or upward career moves.

This could benefit everyone in the organization.

6. Consider the job of a customer service representative who fields telephone calls from

customers of a retailer that sells online and through catalogs. What measures can an

employer take to design this job to make it efficient? What might be some drawbacks or

challenges of designing this job for efficiency? (LO 4-6)

7. How might the job in Question 6 be designed to make it more motivating? How well

would these considerations apply to the cashier’s job in Question 2? (LO 4-7)

8. What ergonomic considerations might apply to each of the following jobs? For each job,

what kinds of costs would result from addressing ergonomics? What costs might result

from failing to address ergonomics? (LO 4-8)

a. A computer programmer

b. A UPS delivery person

c. A child care worker

9. Modern electronics have eliminated the need for a store’s cashiers to calculate change

due on a purchase. How does this development modify the job description for a cashier?

If you were a store manager, how does this affect the skills and qualities of job candidates

you would want to hire? Does this change in mental processing requirements affect what

you would expect from a cashier? How? (LO 4-9)

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operation of an electronic cash register. A manager would want to hire individuals with

these skills and abilities or the readiness to learn them. The expectations would not

change, as the job must still be completed effectively and efficiently. However, the

weight of certain job description criteria could be impacted.

10. Consider a job you hold now or have held recently. Would you want this job to be

redesigned to place more emphasis on efficiency, motivation, ergonomics, or mental

processing? What changes would you want and why? (Or why do you want the job to be

redesigned?) (LO 4-9)

Answer: Student responses will vary. However, all answers should demonstrate the

Taking Responsibility

Mayo Clinic Prescribes a Dose of Efficient Work Design

1. What responsibilities were added to the jobs of doctors and nurses at Mayo Clinic? What

impact do you think those changes had on the motivational aspect of the work?

2. What would you expect are the potential consequences of information overload in an

intensive-care unit? Why is it important for ICUs to help doctors meet this kind of mental

demand?

Answer: The concept of Analysis Paralysis should come to mind when discussing the

Managing Talent

Flexibility Drives Uber’s Growth

1. Applying the Job Characteristics Model, how motivating are Uber’s jobs for drivers?

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control any (which) of the above characteristics. Competitors to Uber (Lyft) are also

sources of competition when job characteristics are compared.

2. List the competencies you think would be important for success as an Uber driver.

Answer: Student responses will vary but may include facets of driving skill, customer

HR in Small Business

Blink UX Takes a Hard Look at Work Design

1. As described, is Blink UX’s redesigned approach to teamwork an example of a structure

based on function or one based on customers? How well does this structure fit the

company’s goals for employee empowerment?

2. Does the example of job redesign at Blink UX sound most like an example of job

enlargement, job rotation, or job enrichment? Explain your answer.

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Recommended Connect Activities

Job Analysis Techniques

Learning Objective: 04-03 Define the elements of a job analysis, and discuss their significance

for human resource management.

Activity Summary: The case analysis provides students with practice in researching job

requirements and identifying the main duties of an HR Manager.

Follow-Up Activity: Take this activity further by selecting, defining, and presenting another

occupation inside of HRM from the O*NET search. Examples could include compensation and

benefits manager, human resource specialists, or job analysis specialist. Have students identify

the TDRs and KSAOs of the position.

Job Design Applied

Learning Objective: 04-06 Describe methods for designing a job so that it can be done

efficiently.

Activity Summary: The case analysis demonstrates the job design process and the importance

of identifying the connection between the outputs needed and the knowledge, skills, and abilities

required of the job incumbent.

Follow-Up Activity: After students understand the job description, specifications, and outputs

for Bailey’s new health care position, have them consider additional training that may be

required. Working in small groups, using researched and course content, students should design a

plan that will allow Bailey to be successful in the additional training.

CHRO Conversations: Scott Weisberg, Former CHRO, Wendy’s

Learning Objective: 04-02 Describe how work flow is related to an organization’s structure.

Activity Summary: The video case demonstrates the job design process and the importance of

identifying the connection between the outputs needed and the knowledge, skills, and abilities

required of the job incumbent.

Follow-Up Activity: Deloitte did a great study on the future of HR Process in 2030 and what

those models could look like. Small groups could select one of the four identified models and

provide a synopsis of how the employee would fit in each of the scenarios.

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Classroom Exercises

Students may benefit from exercises that illustrate the concepts of the chapter. Use these along

with CONNECT activities.

1. Work Analysis and Job Description Exercise

Use the Review and Discussion questions #1, 2, and 3 as in-class discussion. Further

discussion could lead to students writing a job description from the analysis. (Use Figure

4.2 as an example.)

2. Job Design

Use the Review and Discussion question #7 to help illustrate job design and concepts of

motivation. Further, instructors may wish to expand the exercise suggested in “a” to have

students redesign the jobs according to concepts from the text.

3. Ergonomics

Use the Review and Discussion question #8 to help students understand ergonomics

within classroom discussion. Instructors may wish to have students consider ergonomics

from the suggested exercises “a” and “b.”

4. HRM Career Considerations

Instructors may wish to have students identify components in Chapter 4 within both the

Society for Human Resource Management Body of Competency & Knowledge and the

Human Resource Certification Institute’s A Guide to the HR Body of Knowledge.

Discussion could be focused on how these chapter concepts are important to the

development of their careers and potential certifications.

5. Vignette Discussions

Any of the vignettes (see above) may be employed for classroom discussion. Students

could be asked to respond as individuals or placed into groups for discussion. Individuals

and/or groups may then be asked to defend their responses and rationale when comparing

and contrasting other responses.