Quantitative Job Analysis Techniques

Описание: Qualitative methods like interviews and questionnaires are not always suitable. For example, if your aim is to compare jobs for pay purposes, a mere listing of duties may not suffice. You may need to say that, in effect, “Job A is twice as challenging as Job B, and so is worth twice the pay.” To do this, it helps to have quantitative ratings for each job.

There are several quantitative methods for doing this. The position analysis questionnaire (PAQ) is a very popular quantitative job analysis tool, consisting of a questionnaire containing 194 items, which each represent a basic element that may play a role in the job. The final PAQ “score” reflects the job’s rating on each of these five activities. To get those scores, the job analyst decides if each of the 194 items applies to the job and, if so, to what extent.

With ratings for each job’s decision-making, skilled activity, physical activity, vehicle/equipment operation, and information-processing characteristics, you can quantitatively compare jobs relative to one another, and then classify jobs for pay purposes. Experts at the U.S. Department of Labor did much of the early work developing job analysis. They used their results to compile what was for many years the bible of job descriptions, the Dictionary of Occupational Titles.

This book contained detailed information on virtually every job in America. Internet-based tools have largely replaced it, however their job analysis procedure remains a good example of how to quantitatively rate, classify, and compare jobs. The DOL method uses a set of standard activities called worker functions to describe what a worker must do with respect to data, people, and things. With respect to data, for instance, the functions include synthesizing and copying. For people, they include mentoring and supervising. For things, basic functions include manipulating and handling.