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Job analysis a guide to assessing work activities
A step-by-step practitioner's guide to conducting job analysis through the job inventory (task inventory) approach, centered on the computer-aided Work Performance Survey System (WPSS) developed at AT&T.
A profile of this book is on the way.
What it’s about
Job Analysis: A Guide to Assessing Work Activities is a comprehensive, hands-on manual for anyone who needs to understand and document exactly what tasks are performed in specific jobs and how workers perform them. Drawing on decades of U.S. Air Force research and AT&T's development of the Work Performance Survey System (WPSS), Sidney Gael walks the reader through the entire lifecycle of a job analysis project: planning and managing the effort, deriving accurate task statements, writing well-structured questionnaires, interviewing incumbents and supervisors, distributing and collecting surveys, computerizing and analyzing the data, and interpreting the results to support training, selection, job design, and job evaluation. Assuming no prior experience, the book provides concrete guidelines, examples, and even a complete computer user manual, plus a shortcut version for small organizations. It is the rare 'how-to' text in a field where procedural guidance is scarce, enabling readers to produce objective, accurate, and complete information about a job or set of jobs with minimal reliance on consultants.
The through-line
- Who it’s for
- A human resource specialist, manager, researcher, or consultant who wants to produce objective, accurate, and complete information about a job or set of jobs.
- The problem
- They need detailed, quantitative data about the tasks performed in specific jobs to support training, selection, job design, and evaluation decisions, but published 'how-to' guidance on collecting and computerizing such data is scarce. They feel confused by conflicting definitions, uncertain about which method to use, and daunted by the prospect of managing a complex, data-intensive project without prior experience.
- The plan
- Plan the project: define objectives, select jobs, determine resources, and set a schedule.
- Derive and write task statements using document review, observation, and interviews.
- Develop, pretest, and finalize a WPSS questionnaire with appropriate task attribute questions.
- Distribute questionnaires to a representative sample and collect completed responses.
- Computerize and analyze the data using the WPSS interactive programs.
- The payoff
- The reader produces objective, accurate, and complete job descriptions and task data. · Job analysis results support multiple programs — training, selection, job design, evaluation — from a single application. · Data are stored, easily retrieved, and updated periodically at a fraction of the original cost.
See our guide
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Additional reading
- Design, Implementation and Evaluation of Assessment and Development Centres; Best practice guidelines · British Psychological Society (BPS)
Cited by the author as an authoritative source for best practice, covering key issues like fairness, design, and evaluation that are central to the book's guidance.
- Assessment Centres (3rd edn) · C Woodruffe
Recommended for readers seeking a broader overview and history of the assessment centre method.
- The big five personality dimensions and job-performance; a meta-analysis · Barrick, M R and Mount, K M
Provides the empirical support for the book's caution against over-relying on personality tests in selection, a key topic in Chapter 5.
- A theory of the validity of predictors in selection · M Smith
Offers a theoretical framework for understanding why different selection tools have varying levels of effectiveness, underpinning the book's core argument.
- Competence at Work · Spencer, L M and Spencer, S M
A foundational text on the concept of competence, relevant to Chapter 2 on developing a competence framework.
- Development and Assessment Centres · Charles Woodruffe
Cited as a key text for readers wanting a more recent and in-depth exposition of assessment centre work, a core topic of the book.
- Performance Management: The new realities · Michael Armstrong and Angela Baron
The book uses Armstrong and Baron's definition of performance management as its foundation, making their work a primary source for understanding this core concept.
- The Competent Manager: A model for effective performance · R. F. Boyatzis
The author attributes the current usage and definition of 'competency' to Boyatzis, making this a foundational text for a central theme of the book.
- Appraisal and Feedback: Making performance review work · Clive Fletcher
Fletcher is cited as an authority on appraisals, a key one-to-one interaction within performance management, providing deeper insight into this specific practice.
- The Easy Guide to Repertory Grids · D. Jankowicz
The book presents the repertory grid as a powerful technique for developing interview models; this book is recommended as a highly accessible introduction to the method.