What do you mean by Job Specification?
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| What do you mean by Job Specification and Job Design? |
The job specification states the minimum acceptable
qualifications that the incumbent must possess to perform the job successfully.
Based on the information acquired through job analysis, the job specification
identifies the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to do the job
effectively. Individuals possessing the personal characteristics identified in
the job specification should perform the job more effectively than individuals
lacking these personal characteristics. The job specification, therefore, is an
important tool in the selection process, for it keeps the selector’s attention
on the list of qualifications necessary for an incumbent to perform the job and
assists in determining whether candidates are qualified.
According
to Dale Yoder, “The job specification, as such a summary properly described
is thus a specialized job description, emphasizing personnel requirement and
designed especially to facilitate selection and placement.”
Flippo has
defined job specification as “Job specification is a statement
of the minimum acceptable human qualities necessary to perform a job properly
………….. It is a standard of personnel and designates the qualities required for
acceptable performance.”
It is clear from the above definitions that job specification
is a statement of summary of personnel requirements for a job. It may also be
called “standard of personal for the selection”
A Job
Specification should include:
(i)
Physical
characteristics, which include health, strength, endurance, age,
height, weight, vision, voice, eye, hand and foot coordination, motor
coordination, and color discrimination.
(ii)
Psychological
and social characteristics such as emotional stability, flexibility, decision-making ability, analytical view, mental ability, pleasing manners, initiative,
conversational ability, etc.
(iii)
Mental
Characteristics such as general intelligence, memory, judgment,
ability to concentrate, foresight, etc.
(iv)
Personal
Characteristics such as sex, education,
family background, job experience, hobbies, extracurricular activities, etc.
All these characteristics must be classified into three
categories:
•
Essential attributes which a person must possess.
•
Desirable attributes which a person ought to possess.
•
Contra indicators that will become a handicap to
successful job performance.
What do you mean by Job Design?
Job design is of comparatively recent origin. The human
resource managers have realized that the design of a job has considerable
influence on productivity and job satisfaction; poorly designed jobs often
result in boredom for the employees, increased turnover, job dissatisfaction,
low productivity, and an increase in overall costs of the organization. All
these negative consequences can be avoided with the help of proper job design.
According
to Jon Werner and DeSimone, “Job design is the development and
alteration of the components of a job (such as the tasks one performs, and the
scope of one’s responsibilities) to improve productivity and the quality of the
employees’ work life.”
Job design has been defined by Davis (1966) as: “The specification of the contents, methods, and
relationships of jobs to satisfy technological and organizational
requirements as well as the social and personal requirements of the
job-holder.”
Milkovich
and Boudreau defined job design as, “Job design integrates work
content (tasks, functions, and relationships), the rewards (extrinsic and
intrinsic) and the qualifications required (skills, knowledge, abilities) for
each job in a way that meets the needs of employees and the organization.”
Michael
Armstrong has defined job design as “the process of deciding on the
content of a job in terms of its duties and responsibilities, on the methods to
be used in carrying out the job, in terms of techniques, systems, and
procedures, and on the relationships that should exist between the job holder
and his superiors, subordinates, and colleagues.”
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Job
design is an attempt to create a match between job requirements and human
attributes. It involves organizing the components of the job and the
interaction patterns among the members of a workgroup. It helps in developing the appropriate design of jobs to improve efficiency and satisfaction.
Principles
of Job Design:
Principles are the basis of the approach used in job design.
Robertson and Smith (1985) have suggested the following five principles of job
design:
•
To influence skill variety, provide opportunities for
people to do several tasks and combine tasks.
•
To influence task identity, combine tasks from
natural work units.
•
To influence task significance, form natural work
units, and inform people of the importance of their work.
•
To influence autonomy, give people responsibility for
determining their own working systems.
•
To influence feedback; establish a good relationship and
open feedback channels.
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