Job Analysis

Nurses Wanted

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Roobcio/Shutterstock

As we have learned from our Recruitment and Selection studies, the Canadian demographic makeup is undergoing a significant transformation. We are facing significant increases in the number of people retiring or exiting the workforce as they continue to age. This aging and exiting workforce is leaving behind high numbers of job vacancies, along with a corresponding decrease in the number of skilled and available workers for those jobs. This pattern is evident and highlighted recently in the province of New Brunswick. Provincially, the health care sector will not be able to meet increasing patient needs due to the predicted lack of availability in skilled and talented nurses.

In order to address this issue, the New Brunswick government has put together a provincial ‘Nursing Resource Strategy’. This is a pro-active recruitment plan designed to meet current and future nursing demands. The strategy has four action items which include the targeted recruitment of internationally trained nurses; reducing barriers to work while waiting for provincial nursing registration; permanent employment offers and potential signing bonuses for new nurses committing to work for three years in the province’s rural areas.

Click here to read about New Brunswick’s nursing recruitment strategies.

As the focus of this strategy is to increase the numbers of internationally trained nurses, the plan includes targeted recruitment from countries with nursing education programs that provide ‘similar nursing professional standards, competencies, and credentials’. This approach links directly to the need for accurate job analysis so that there is a precise match between the alignment of job availability, professional requirements, and candidate competencies.

Further, this plan is based on an analysis of demographic information that forecasts both the supply and demand of skilled nurses over a nine-year plan. It may seem that a nine-year time frame is focused far into the future but, the current state of this skilled labour shortage is already at a critical stage and cannot wait for any future delays.

New Brunswick’s ‘Nursing Resource Strategy’ is a plan that has been developed for one particular province to meet its health care sector needs. The plan includes demographic analysis, staffing forecasts, job analysis, professional and competency requirements, action items and a time frame for delivery. In summary, the approach provides us with a template for what an effective recruitment strategy looks like. All that remains is effective implementation.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Identify additional recruitment strategies that could increase the availability of skilled and qualified nurses in New Brunswick.
  2. What types of services or industries are impacted by the lack of skilled nurses provincially?
  3. What types of skill shortages are forecast for your province?
  4. What types of recruitment strategies would you put into place to address these skill shortages?
  5. As a new graduate, would you be willing to relocate to another province or another country if you were given a guarantee of employment in your field? Explain your rationale.

Wage Gap Woes

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The gender wage gap issue continues to receive much attention. On the one hand, the focus on the inequities of pay differences between male and female workers is a good thing. On the other hand, the fact that the pay gap divide continues to be an issue is exceptionally frustrating.

The differences in wages between male and female jobs, or male and female employees, is not a recent phenomenon. In Ontario, gender-based wage parity is legislated in several statutes, such as the Pay Equity Act and the Employment Standards Act. The latter, in Ontario, speaks to the requirement of equal pay for equal work. This means that a male person and a female person doing substantially the same job must be paid at the same rate for that job. Recent amendments to the Employment Standards Act (under Bill 148) identify that the words ‘substantially the same’ do not mean identical. The jobs can be similar, based on skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions.

The Pay Equity Act of Ontario speaks directly to the issue of the value of jobs based on a gender-neutral analysis of all jobs in an organization, based on skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions. This piece of legislation focuses on the value of jobs within an organization in order to address the inequality of employees in ‘traditionally’ male job classes being paid more than those in ‘traditionally’ female job classes.

None of this is new! The Pay Equity Act has been in place since the late 1980’s. The Employment Standards Act language referring to equal pay for equal work (prior to Bill 148) has been in place for decades as well.

Why are we still talking about this?

Apparently, not much has changed.

A recent headline, as reported by the CBC, provides an interesting view of the impact of budget-based decision-making on gender differences. The article explores a Swedish budgeting decision to clear snow-covered streets for pedestrians before clearing roads because there are more females than males who walk. The connections to wage gap parity may not be clear from the outset, but the article does explore how the Swedish model can be applied to the Canadian federal budget allocation process, based on the impact budget decisions have on female and male citizens.

Click here to read the article.

From this article we see that Canada holds a high ranking on the gender pay gap differentials. Again, this provides us with a clear indicator that the legislative approaches that are currently in place to address gender pay imbalances continue to be necessary and relevant. However, these approaches would benefit from some additional support and changes in decision-making perspectives.

Perhaps, as noted in the article, it is time to include a different approach that focuses on the impact of decisions made when preparing budgets and compensation plans.

What would happen if organizations were able to apply an impact analysis, based on gender, aligned with principles of pay equity and equal pay?

Maybe, just maybe, something might change.

 

Discussion Questions:

  1. As a Human Resources practitioner, how would you go about assessing the value of jobs using the principles of job analysis, in your current place of work?
  2. As an employee, what evidence is there to support wage parity or disparity in your current place of work?
  3. Provide an analysis that explores the pros and cons of using a decision-making process that includes gender impact, when establishing organizational budgets and/or compensation plans.

A Key HR Error

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 Job analysis why is it so dreaded?

Most HR departments make a critical performance error, they do not take the time to conduct a proper job analysis of their organization. This is akin to asking a contractor to build a house without blueprints. You will get a house, but the rooms may not be in the right places for your needs.

Let us review some expert opinions on job analysis:

Monica Belcourt in her text book, Managing Human Resources (p. 124)m states:

“Job analysis is sometimes called the cornerstone of HR Management because the information it collects serves so many HRM functions”  

Richard Melrose in his article, Stop Ignoring Job Analysis, states:

“I put the blame squarely on the C-suite, starting with the CEO and followed closely by the CFO, CHRO, and CLO. The chairman of the board and the lead director ought to take some heat, as well. All of these folks know or should know the costly and risky nature of their company’s neglect.”

Click Here to Read the Article.

It is easy blame the C-suite when HR does not get things accomplished. As the theory goes, HR is only allowed to do what the C-suite allows them to do, as the C-suite controls the resources.

HR could accept this notion and sit and wait for the C-suite to give them the authority to conduct a comprehensive job analysis program.  However, HR should not do anything else until a comprehensive job analysis program is completed. Everything HR does is derived from job analysis programs such as:

  • Recruitment
  • Training
  • Compensation
  • Promotion
  • Performance appraisals
  • Job descriptions

This is why the website, Management Study Guide, has a great article called the Advantages and Disadvantages of Job Analysis.

Click here to Review the Article

The article states the advantages as:

  • Provides First Hand Job-Related Information
  • Helps in Creating Right Job-Employee Fit
  • Helps in Establishing Effective Hiring Practices
  • Guides through Performance Evaluation and Appraisal Processes
  • Helps in Analyzing Training & Development Needs
  • Helps in Deciding Compensation Packages for a Specific Job

And states the disadvantages as:

  • Time Consuming
  • Involves Personal Biasness
  • Source of Data is Extremely Small
  • Involves Lots of Human Efforts
  • Job Analyst May Not Possess Appropriate Skills
  • Mental Abilities Cannot be Directly Observed

All HR professionals are aware and some are even afraid of the disadvantages and therefore choose not to conduct job analysis.  Let’s look at the definition of cornerstone from the Cambridge Dictionary Online:

“Something of great ​importance that everything else ​depends on”

If everything else in HR depends on job analysis don’t HR Professionals have to take the lead and develop systems that can overcome the disadvantages?

Discussion Question:

  1. You are getting resistance from your CEO that job analysis is too time consuming, provide research and a business plan to convince your CEO that job analysis is vitally important to the success of the organization.

 

The Painful, Yet Important, Job Analysis

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Why is Job Analysis so important and yet, so very very painful? Ask any HR Practitioner if they would rather; a) do a complete job analysis for every single position in their organization or b) have dental surgery performed without any anesthesia or freezing agent? Absolutely guaranteed that the answer will always be the latter. Job Analysis may not be fun, but it is a crucial step to ensure organizational success.

Source: Tumblr. The above content constitutes a link to the source website.

Job Analysis is a fundamental tool that every HR practitioner must understand and/or use at some point throughout their career. It provides a cornerstone to ensure that job specifications are built from a neutral perspective, job descriptions can be created, effective recruitment processes can be built and put into place, and good decisions can be made based on good processes established from the beginning.

Click here to view the article.

Good job analysis resources are available through an number of live websites including, the one provided above. There are not a lot of varying opinions about the need for job analysis.   This is one area of HRM where the ‘just do it’ approach comes into play. What may be an on-going concern for the HR Practitioner, however, is access to useful tools, methods and processes when taking on the task of Job Analysis.

Discussion Questions:

Given how critical job analysis is, especially when related to formulating a recruitment strategy, why are there limited professional perspectives on effective job analysis?

  • How do we, as HR professionals, ensure that we fully comprehend the importance of this approach?
  • How do we explain and use job analysis effectively when we engage with hiring managers as partners throughout the recruitment process?

 

Working Moms and Family Status

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If working moms are more productive, how can you ask the question about “family status” in an interview? Babies on the wall and all!

Click here to view the article.

This article seems to fly in the face of asking questions related to family status. If working moms are more productive, how can HR practitioners ensure that entire recruitment process is still fair and equitable to all applicants?

Businesswoman With Daughter
Photo Credit: Fuse/Thinkstock

As HR practitioners, we use the interview process to make sure that the ‘best’ candidate comes forward through each stage of the recruitment process. At the same time, we need to be wary of treading into preconceived ideas as to who is more effective as a worker especially when we start dealing with ‘typical’ labeling or stereotypes based on what is trending or current in dealing with workplace issues.

Supermoms may exist. So do Superdads. Does having children matter when we look to a commitment by the individual when they make a decision to join your particular workplace? Maybe we should be clear about what type of work environment the candidate is walking into so that they (the candidate) can decide whether or not the work that is required best suits their own lifestyle and work-life choices.

Discussion Questions:

  • Is it ever okay to ask the question regarding family status in an interview?
  • How do we evaluate potential employee productivity during the recruitment process?
  • What kinds of scheduling considerations should the HR practitioner put into place when dealing with employees who may have parental obligations?
  • What kinds of workplaces would be best suited to providing a ‘child’ friendly work environment?
  • Does having family friendly HR policies cause levels of discrimination?
  • What are the policy considerations that the HR Practitioner should be developing?