Writing Job Specifiactions (Gary Dessler)

The job specification takes the job description and answers the question, “What human traits and experience are required to do this job effectively?” It shows the hiring criteria for the job, in terms of what kind of person to recruit and for what qualities you should test that person. It may be one section of the job description, or a separate document. Often the

employer makes it part of the job description.

Specifications for Trained versus Untrained Personnel

Writing job specifications for trained employees is straightforward. Here your job specifications might focus mostly on traits like length of previous service, quality of relevant training, and previous job performance. The problems are more complex when you’re filling jobs with untrained people (with the intention of training them on the job). Here you must specify qualities such as physical traits, personality, interests, or sensory skills that imply some potential for performing or for being trained to do the job.

For example, suppose the job requires detailed manipulation in a circuit board assembly line. Here you might want to ensure that the person scores high on a test of finger dexterity. Employers identify such human requirements either through a subjective, judgmental approach or through statistical analysis (or both). Let’s examine both approaches.

Specifications Based on Judgment

Most job specifications come from the educated guesses of people like supervisors and human resource managers. The basic procedure here is to ask, “What does it take in terms of education, intelligence, training, and the like to do this job well?”

There are several ways to get these “educated guesses.” You could review the job’s duties, and deduce from those what human traits and skills the job requires. You can also choose them from the competencies listed in Web-based job descriptions like those at www .jobdescription.com. (For example, a typical job description there lists competencies like “Generates creative solutions” and “Manages difficult or emotional customer situations.”) O*NET online is another source. Job listings there include lists of required education and other experience and skills.

USE COMMON SENSE In any case, use common sense when compiling your list. Don’t ignore the behaviors that may apply to almost any job but that might not normally surface through a job analysis.

Industriousness is an example. Who wants an employee who doesn’t work hard? One researcher collected supervisor ratings and other information from 18,000 employees in 42 different hourly entry-level jobs in predominantly retail settings. Regardless of the job, here are the work behaviors (with examples) that he found to be important to all jobs:

Job Specifications Based on Statistical Analysis

Basing job specifications on statistical analysis is the more legally defensible approach, but it’s also more difficult. The aim here is to determine statistically the relationship between (1) some predictor (human trait, such as height, intelligence, or finger dexterity), and (2) some indicator or criterion of job effectiveness, such as performance as rated by the supervisor.

The procedure has five steps: 

(1) analyze the job and decide how to measure job performance;

(2) select personal traits like finger dexterity that you believe should predict successful performance; 

(3) test candidates for these traits; 

(4) measure these candidates’ subsequent job performance; and 

(5) statistically analyze the relationship between the human trait (finger dexterity) and job performance. Your objective is to determine whether the former predicts the latter.

This method is more defensible than the judgmental approach. For example, hiring standards that discriminate based on sex, race, religion, national origin, or age may have to be shown to predict job performance. Ideally, you do this with a statistical validation study, as in the five-step approach outlined above. But in practice, most employers probably rely more on judgmental approaches.

Using Task Statements

Although employers traditionally use job descriptions and job specifications to summarize what their jobs entail, task statements are increasingly popular. Each of a job’s task statements shows what the worker does on one particular job task, how the worker does it, the knowledge, skills, and aptitudes required to do it, and the purpose of the task.

The first step is to write a task statement for each of the job’s tasks. Thus, one task for a drycleaning store counter person might be “taking in new orders”. The task statement here might say, “accepts an order of clothes from a customer and places it into a laundry bag and provides the customer with a receipt, in order to ensure that the customer’s clothes items are together and identifiable and that the store and customer have an accurate record of the transaction.” (In contrast, the traditional job duty might say, “accepts orders of clothes from customers and places them in laundry bags; gives customers receipts).

For each task, also identify the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) needed to do each task. For the sample task above, the counter person should know how to operate the computerized cash register, be skilled at identifying fabrics so proper prices can be charged, and have the ability (for instance, cognitive ability or physical ability) to perform arithmetic computations and lift heavy laundry bags. Most jobs also require certain “other” human characteristics. For example, “conscientiousness” might be important for this and most other jobs. 

Second, the job analyst takes the resulting 12 or 15 task statements (including their KSAOs)

for the job’s say, 12-15 specific tasks, and groups them into four or five main job duties. Thus, the four main counter person job duties might include accepts and returns customer’s clothes, handles the cash register, fills in for the cleaner/spotter when he or she is absent, and supervises the tailor and assistant counter person.

Finally, the job analyst compiles all this information in a “job requirements matrix” for this job. This matrix lists the following information in 5 columns: each of the four or five main job duties in column 1; all the task statements associated with each main job duty in column 2; the relative importance of each main job duty, and the time spent on each main job duty in columns 3 and 4; and the knowledge, skills, ability, and other characteristics or competencies related to each main job duty in column 5.

Such a job requirements matrix provides a more comprehensive picture of what the worker

does and how and why he or she does it than does a conventional job description. For instance, it clarifies each task’s purpose. And, including the required knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics for each duty provides critical information for making selection, training, and appraisal decisions. Modeling and profiling, to which we turn next, is another way to compile information on the knowledge, skills, ability, and other characteristics a job requires of its incumbents.

Source : Gary Dessler. Fundamental of Human Resource Management. Third Edition. Pearson. 2014

Related Articles