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.

Writing Job Descriptions (Gary Dessler)

The most important product of job analysis is the job description. A job description is a written statement of what the worker actually does, how he or she does it, and what the job’s working conditions are. You use this information to write a job specification; this lists the knowledge, abilities, and skills required to perform the job satisfactorily.

There is no standard format for writing a job description. However, most descriptions  contain sections that cover the following:

1. Job identification
2. Job summary
3. Responsibilities and duties
4. Authority of incumbent
5. Standards of performance
6. Working conditions
7. Job specification

Job Identification

The job identification section contains several types of information. 

The job title specifies the name of the job, such as telesales representative, or inventory control clerk. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) status section identifies the job as exempt or non exempt. (Under the FLSA, certain positions, primarily administrative and professional, are exempt from the act’s overtime and minimum wage provisions.) Date is the date the job description was approved.

There may also be a space to indicate who approved the description and perhaps a space showing the location of the job in terms of its facility/division and department. This section might also include the immediate supervisor’s title and information regarding salary and/or pay scale. There might also be space for the grade/level of the job, if there is such a category. For example, a firm may classify programmers as programmer II, programmer III, and so on.

Realigning HR to Deliver Business Results (Bradley W Hall,PHD)

Two things will help us implement the new Human Capital Strategy by realigning HR to deliver business results: 

(1) splitting the HR administrator, fixer, and strategic partner roles, and 

(2) aligning the human capital organization to deliver the four strategic objectives.

Split the HR Administrator, Fixer, and Strategic Partner Roles. 

In 1964, Chaney and Owens conducted an academic study that makes a persuasive case that individuals with different personalities tend to migrate to jobs that fit. From a sample of 900, they looked back to high school and found that engineers disliked verbal activities and courses where discussion was involved, were slow in dating and preferred to spend time reading or in problem-solving activities. Those who became sales reps were only average in math and science capabilities, dated earlier, enjoyed meeting new people and had more friends and were leaders in different activities.

Sure, there are some good “sales scientists,” but not many, and trying to make a scientist into a sales rep may result in frustration by both parties. (As the saying goes, “Don’t try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and it frustrates the pig.”) The study provides an important lesson for HR. The all-in-one HR business partner model has not and will not deliver value because it is based on an assumption that people can perform well in very different roles that require very different talents. It is time to admit defeat and completely separate the administrative, fixer, and strategic roles.

A more radical solution is to follow the Innovator’s Dilemma model of creating a stand-alone unit for the discontinuous work of strategic HR. The head of HR administration should report to the corporation’s top operations executive or CFO. This reporting relationship was very common in the days before the promise of strategic HR. It was common because it made sense. If the core capability of administrative HR is operational excellence, then operations is the right place to report. (See Figure 3-5.)

Next, build a fully separate organization reporting to the CEO that provides change leadership and organizational consulting to top leaders. Calling this organization something other than “human resources” might be wise as an HR title brings with it a set of internal customer service expectations that will no longer apply. This new “human capital” organization will comprise a set of full-time consultants who are educated and trained to improve the performance of people and organizations. Human capital business consultants should spend 100 percent of their time identifying opportunities to improve customer and shareholder satisfaction and should be evaluated by their impact to both. Their customer is external, their investment model is ROI-based, and they are business performance advocates.

Aligning the HR Structure (Bradley W Hall,PHD) - Part 2

HR Is Structured to Produce Programs and Policies Rather than Business Results

Let’s say, as a general manager, you see a leadership deficit in your business unit. Who in your HR function is accountable for improving leadership performance? The organizational development department is not; it creates competency models and assessment tools. The talent management department is not; it runs the succession planning cycle. The performance management department is responsible for appraisals, the compensation department makes pay decisions, and the training department develops and delivers courses. So which department manager will stand up and say, “My department is accountable for growing leaders”?

Today, the answer is “nobody.” 

The reason is that today’s HR is aligned by subprofession (e.g., training, staffing, compensation), the same as it was thirty years ago. Let’s call these subprofessions by their new name, Centers of Excellence (COEs). COEs are factories that produce state-of-the-art HR tools. They are not designed to produce business results and often operate as uncoordinated product development units, as indicated by Figure 3-4, which shows the COEs of one institution.

Many companies refer to both first-level (e.g., organizational development) and second-level (e.g., HR metrics) organizations as COEs. If this was an automobile engine, each COE unit  would be producing a different engine part. The problem is that there is no blueprint of what

the completed engine will look like or do. Just as it is unreasonable to build parts to an engine without a blueprint of the finished engine, it is unreasonable to build HR tools and processes without a Human Capital Strategy.

Aligning the HR Structure (Bradley W Hall,PHD) - Part 1

Today’s HR organizational structure is misaligned with a Human Capital Strategy of sustained competitive advantage through people. There are two critical areas of misalignment:

1. Strategic and administrative work remains tangled.
2. HR is structured to produce HR products and processes rather than business results.

Strategic and Administrative Work Remains Tangled

Several decades ago, sales and marketing organizations were commonplace. Over the years, marketing was split off into its own organization. Although the purpose of both functions is business development, each requires a different approach and skill set. The same is true with accounting and finance. Accounting is an old profession, and finance recently emerged from accounting with the rise of capital markets. The purpose of both functions is to leverage financial capital, but each uses different methods to accomplish the task. Like sales and marketing and accounting and finance, administrative and strategic HR are both about people, but each requires a different approach and skill set.

Over the past decades, the HR profession has aspired to create fundamentally different outcomes, but it has attempted to do so inside the walls of traditional HR. As the model presented in Clayton Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma (Harvard Business School Press, 1997) would predict, it is difficult to create a business that represents a discontinuous change inside an old organization: The old will strangle the new. When an organization needs new capabilities, it may need a new organizational space where those capabilities can be developed. Christensen suggests that a successful approach is to spin off an organization so that the new capabilities can be managed in a very different way than in the mainstream business. This has not happened in HR; the old is strangling the new.

Today’s Human Resources Function (Bradley W Hall,PHD)

Throughout history, virtually all breakthroughs required replacing a current model with a fundamentally different paradigm. Scientific examples include germ theory and the theory of relativity. Federal Express and Amazon.com are business examples of a paradigm shift, and W. Edwards Deming’s statistical process control is an example of a professional shift. In each case, these new paradigms emerged and completely challenged existing “truths.” The HR profession has yet to go through its paradigm change.

Think of today’s HR model as an engine with four elements:

(1) structure (i.e., who reports to whom, roles, and accountabilities),

(2) systems (i.e., performance measures, business reviews), 

(3) shared values (i.e., beliefs, values, culture), and 

(4) skills (i.e., talents, knowledge). 

The Basics Of Job Analysis (Gary Dessler)

Talent management begins with understanding what jobs need to be filled, and the human traits and competencies employees need to do those jobs effectively. Job analysis is the procedure through which you determine the duties of the jobs you are analyzing and the characteristics of the  people to hire for them. 

Job analysis produces information for writing job descriptions (a list of what duties the job entails) and job (or “person”) specifications (what kind of people to hire for the job). Virtually every personnel-related action you take—interviewing applicants, and training and appraising employees, for instance—depends on knowing what the job entails and what human traits and skills one needs to do the job well. 

The supervisor or human resources specialist normally collects one or more of the following types of information via the job analysis:

● Work activities. First, he or she collects information about the job’s actual work activities, such as cleaning, selling, teaching, or painting. This list may also include how, why, and when the worker performs each activity.

What Is Talent Management? (Gary Dessler)

Talent management is the goal-oriented and integrated process of planning, recruiting, developing, managing, and compensating employees. When a manager takes a talent management perspective, he or she:

1. Understands that the talent management tasks (including recruiting, training, and paying employees) are parts of a single interrelated talent management process. For example, having employees with the right skills depends as much on recruiting, training, and compensation as it does on applicant testing.

2. Makes sure talent management decisions such as staffing, training, and pay are goal directed. Managers should always be asking, “What recruiting, testing, or other actions should I take to produce the employee competencies we need to achieve our strategic goals?”

Strategic Human Resource Management (Gary Dessler)

Managers formulate corporate strategies, and then competitive strategies for each of their businesses. Then, we’ve seen that once a business decides how it will compete, it turns to formulating functional (departmental) strategies to support its competitive aims. One of those departments is human resource management and its functional strategies are human resource management strategies.

What Is Strategic Human Resource Management?

Every company needs its human resource management policies and activities to make sense in terms of its broad strategic aims. For example, a high-end retailer such as Neiman-Marcus will have different employee selection, training, and pay policies than will Walmart. Strategic human resource management means formulating and executing human resource policies and practices that produce the employee competencies and behaviors the company needs to achieve its strategic aims. The following Strategic Context feature illustrates this.

What Are HR Audits? (Gary Dessler)

Human resource managers often collect data on matters such as employee turnover and safety via human resource audits. One practitioner calls an HR audit “an analysis by which an organization measures where it currently stands and determines what it has to accomplish to improve its HR function.” The HR audit generally involves reviewing the company’s human resource function (recruiting, testing, training, and so on), usually using a checklist, as well as ensuring that the firm is adhering to regulations, laws, and company policies.

In conducting the HR audit, managers often benchmark their results to comparable companies’. Sample measures (metrics) might include the ratio of HR professionals per company employee. HR audits vary in scope and focus. Typical areas audited include the following:

1. Roles and head count (including job descriptions, and employees categorized by exempt/ nonexempt and full- or part-time).

What Do The New Human Resource Managers Do? (Gary Dessler)

For much of the twentieth century, “personnel” managers focused mostly on day-to-day activities. In the earliest firms, they took over hiring and firing from supervisors, ran the payroll department, and administered benefits plans. As expertise in testing emerged, the personnel department played a bigger role in employee selection and training. New union laws in the 1930s added, “Helping the employer deal with unions” to its list of duties. With new equal employment laws in the 1960s, employers began relying on HR for avoiding discrimination claims.

Today, employers face new challenges, such as squeezing more profits from operations. They expect their human resource managers to have what it takes to address these new challenges. 

Let’s look at 10 things today’s HR managers do to deal with these challenges.

Why Is Human Resource Management Important to all Managers? (Gary Dessler)

Perhaps it’s easier to answer this by listing some of the personnel mistakes you don’t want to make while managing. For example, you don’t want

● To have your employees not doing their best.

● To hire the wrong person for the job.

● To experience high turnover.

● To have your company in court due to your discriminatory actions.

● To have your company cited for unsafe practices.

● To let a lack of training undermine your department’s effectiveness.

● To commit any unfair labor practices.

IMPROVED PERFORMANCE Carefully studying this text can help you avoid mistakes like these. More important, it can help ensure that you get results—through people. Remember that you could do everything else right as a manager—lay brilliant plans, draw clear organization charts, set up modern assembly lines, and use sophisticated accounting controls—but still fail, for 

instance, by hiring the wrong people or by not motivating subordinates.

The Human Capital Vision (Bradley W Hall,Ph.D)

The important question to answer here is: What does success look like?

In the mid-1990s, Taco Bell, then a PepsiCo company, was one of the hottest companies on earth. In the middle of its success, John Martin, Taco Bell’s CEO, assigned seven of his highest-potential middle managers to a two-year, full-time, multidisciplinary team to rein- vent Taco Bell’s business model. Martin’s vision was “250,000 points of access by the year 2000.” He defined a point of access as “wherever someone can buy a Taco Bell product.” Taco Bell’s new vision was clear, memorable, and measurable.

Given that Taco Bell had about 4,000 stores at the time, 250,000 seemed to be an unrealistic goal. However, the team energetically be- gan work and within a few short months had created a new process that increased store openings from 700 each year to more than 1,200. Martin thanked the team but told them that while that was very good news, the goal was still 250,000 points of access.

The team decided that it needed to think more creatively. At the time, cafeterias were the only place to eat in airports. “What if we put Taco Bells in airports?” the team members wondered. “Let’s call them SPODs” (special points of distribution). Soon, Taco Bell SPODs were popping up in airports, stadiums, and strip malls. SPODs quickly added more than 1,000 points of access each year. Again, Martin was grateful but unmoved. The vision was still 250,000.

Today’s Approach to Human Capital Management (Bradley W Hall,Ph.D)

Today’s approach for improving workforce performance is failing. There are three reasons:
1. No one is accountable for year-over-year human capital performance.
2. Results require a system, not world-class programs.
3. Today’s HR model is misaligned to deliver business results.

Let’s look at each of these reasons.

No One Is Accountable

The head of manufacturing is accountable for year-over-year improvements in manufacturing productivity. The head of marketing is ac- countable for year-over-year changes in brand equity. The head of sales is responsible for revenue growth. But who is responsible for year-over- year improvements in the company’s most valuable asset—its people? Nobody. Line managers see HR as accountable, but HR sees itself ac- countable for programs that must be converted into business results by line managers. No one is in charge of human capital performance.

A Learning Organization...

· Is not a label but a philosophy to embrace;

· Nurtures new and expansive patterns of thinking;

· Sees reality objectively;

· Has the capacity to multilaterally create and focus upon a shared picture of the future;

· Has the ability for a team to synergistically produce extraordinary results through coordinated action;

· Is a workplace safe for thinking;

Match employee values to business values

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In order for a firm to achieve its cultural and value objectives, it is critical to hire employees with a personal value system consistent with the firm’s cultural and value objectives. From the employee’s perspective, if the firm’s culture (value system) is out of sync with the person an employee believes himself or herself to be, the employee will be less effective, less productive, and less committed. In addition, the firm will be creating undue stress and possible emotional damage to its employees as human beings. More specifically, if the firm’s objective is to deliver humane and kind service to its customers, employees who are treated in the same fashion will be more likely to create this environment for customers.

The people who happen to be working as an associate for some business do not go through a miraculous transformation when they walk through the doors of that business. They are the same human being they always were. Employee stress arises when associates are hired because of their personality of wanting to please customers and yet the business has many restrictions that inhibit their ability to please customers. If an associate is empowered to please their customers, they will be a happier and a more content associate.

Human Capital Perspective (Present View)

1. Human capital expenditures are viewed as a source of value.
2. The HR function is perceived as a strategic partner.
3. Top executives are increasingly involved in allocating HR budget.
4. Human capital metrics focus on results.
5. Top executives are involved in the design and use of metrics.
6. The use of ROI has become an important. tool to understand the cause-and-effect relationships.
7. Human capital measurement focuses on the data needed.
8. Human capital measurement is based on what is needed in the organization.
9. HR programs are linked to specific business needs before implementation.
10. Overall reporting on human capital programs and projects is output focused.

Source : Investing in your company’s human capital : strategies to avoid spending too little—or too much .Jack J. Phillips.2005

Human Capital Perspective (Traditional View)

1. Human capital expenses are considered costs.
2. The HR function is perceived as a support staff.
3. HR is involved in setting the HR budget.
4. Human capital metrics focus on cost and activities.
5. Human capital metrics are created and maintained by HR alone.
6. There is little effort to understand the return on investment in human capital
7. Human capital measurement focuses on the data at hand
8. Human capital measurement is based on what GE and IBM are measuring.
9. HR programs are initiated without a business need connected to them.
10. Overall reporting on human capital programs and projects is input focused.

Source : Investing in your company’s human capital : strategies to avoid spending too little—or too much .Jack J. Phillips.2005

Origin of Organization Development Time Line

Ten Tips to Maximize Your Performance Appraisal Documentation Skills (part 6 - End)

By Paul Falcone

Rule 10: Follow a few narrative-writing tips that will help you consistently strengthen your overall message.

First, be sure to avoid writing anything that could be interpreted as discriminatory. You may not document or reference anything protected by privacy or employee protection laws. For example, writing ‘‘Michael, you are performing well since you began your new medication to combat depression, and I encourage you to continue’’ could very well violate the protections afforded by the Americans with Disabilities Act if the individual is later denied a promotion or terminated for cause.

Similarly, if you reference an individual’s age, ethnicity, sexual or gender orientation, religious beliefs, medical history, or any other categories protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act or other state worker protection laws, then your own documentation could be used against you in a court of law.

Similarly, if an employee was on a leave of absence for a significant part of the review period, simply document that ‘‘Michael was on an approved leave of absence from May 10 to August 8’’ and leave it at that. The reason for the leave (pregnancy, workers comp injury, stress leave) is superfluous and should not be included as part of the formal record established by the performance review. It follows that all performance appraisals should be reviewed in advance by your HR or Legal departments before they are shared with your employees to ensure, among other things, that no discriminatory language exists.

Second, avoid the term attitude in your formal business communication with your subordinates. ‘‘Attitude’’ is a very subjective judgment that courts will typically dismiss because it is often associated with a mere difference of opinion or a personality conflict. Instead, be sure to describe the objective behaviors that create a negative perception of the employee in others’ eyes. Only behaviors and actions that can be observed and documented belong in work place discussions and

may be presented as evidence in court.

For example, replace an admonition like this:

‘‘As we have discussed throughout the year, you have received many complaints regarding your attitude. You need to demonstrate immediate improvement in this area.’’

with something concrete like this:

‘‘Peggy received a written warning on January 14 for raising her voice in anger and for using profane language directed at a coworker. The disciplinary warning specifically stated that if she ever again lost control of her temper, used profane language in the workplace, or demonstrated behavior that could be perceived as hostile or threatening, further disciplinary action up to and including termination could result.’’

Third, use the phrase ‘‘For example’’ at least three times in an individual performance appraisal. Managers often make sweeping comments about perceptions without documenting the factual circumstances that justify their points of view. You could therefore easily turn a perception statement like ‘‘Your planning and organizational skills are satisfactory, but you sometimes require additional assistance in this area’’ into something more concrete and instructional for the employee by including an example.

Fourth, use the terminology ‘‘needs improvement’’ cautiously in your narrative writing, as it may not convey the message you intend. The examples in our book are structured according to the following two criteria:

Meets/Exceeds Expectations

Needs Improvement

Note, though, that these are categories only for ease of use. In reality, stating that performance or behavior ‘‘needs improvement’’ is not the same as stating that it does not meet company standards or is unsatisfactory. Similarly, documenting that ‘‘Richard has been spoken to regarding excessive absenteeism and tardiness’’ does not convey that his performance was unacceptable. Don’t assume that the employee understood (or a jury would agree) that just because you spoke about performance which needed improvement, it was assumed to be substandard. Instead, clearly document when performance is unacceptable, unsatisfactory, or fails to meet standards.

Fifth, you should document the efforts you’ve made to help the employee meet performance standards throughout the review period. When writing annual performance appraisals, for example, you should include the fact that you gave the employee a copy of the attendance policy, paid for her to attend a workshop on dealing with interpersonal conflict in the work place, or encouraged her to take an accounting course at a local college. Such documentation will serve as evidence that you acted responsibly by attempting to proactively rehabilitate the worker.

Finally, when documenting core competency or technical issues, expand your basic ideas by employing a ‘‘by . . .’’ format, like this:

✧ Regularly places support staff in positions of leadership by appointing them subject matter experts in particular technical areas or by selecting them for workshop/seminar facilitator roles.

✧ Assumes responsibility for areas beyond his immediate control by preparing the monthly income statement, the comparative balance sheet, and overall general ledger maintenance.

✧ Has done very little to maintain and advance his technical knowledge and skills by upgrading his software skills, attending educational workshops, establishing a professional network of peers, or participating

in professional societies.

✧ Masters all phases of the project development life cycle by identifying and documenting requirements, technical processes and procedures, test documentation, and environment and deployment plans.

✧ Successfully negotiates salary offers and preempts counteroffer possibilities by ‘‘pre-closing’’ and proactively engaging finalist candidates in discussions about their future career development.

✧ Ensures that newly learned skills are repeated and enforced by following up with 30, 60, and 90 day quizzes and questionnaires.

Similarly, when documenting future development goals, you could easily strengthen the clarity of your message by applying the ‘‘I expect you to . . . by . . .’’ format. For example, it would be simple to turn a statement like:

‘‘In the upcoming review period, you must improve your client relations skills and better utilize your time.’’

into a more instructional, future-oriented statement by applying the ‘‘I expect you to . . . by . . .’’ structure, which would look like this:

‘‘I expect you to improve your client relations skills by following up with customers within two hours of their initial calls, by meeting them in their offices rather than asking them to come to yours, and by maintaining weekly contact regarding the status of their work order processing.’’

Of course, the examples themselves will easily stand on their own without the ‘‘by’’ predicate. Still, this structure should help to remind you to complete your thoughts and provide appropriate examples for your statements. Selectively added to the annual review at strategic points, it will add critical mass to the statements that you make and justify your perceptions. It will likewise help you clearly outline your performance expectations and how they will be concretely measured.

Clarity in your written message will not only protect your company from potential outside legal challenges; it will help build a shared sense of open communication, a greater sense of partnership, and increased accountability with your workers.

Source : 2600 phrases for effective performance reviews. Paul Falcone. 2005