Summary Behavior & Environment II
Everything that is written in black is from the book, what is written in blue is everything that was in the lectures
but not covered in the book (not the practical lectures)
Function analysis, selection & assessment
Chapter 3: Job Analysis for describing jobs and necessary attributes to perform job:
systematic procedure, description of components, written product.
job-orientated: describes characteristics of the task or tasks themselves (-> job description)
Tasks can be divided into a hierarchy of 5 levels of specificity:
Position: collection of duties that can be performed by single individual
Duty: major component of the job (performed by tasks)
Task: complete piece of work that fulfills particular objective, that is divided in
Activities that are composed of a number of specific elements
person-orientated: description of the KSAO’s (knowledge, skills, abilities, others): what sort of
person is needed for the job? (-> personal profile)
3.1 Purposes of the job analysis:
-> Career development: Competency systems that reward employees, the knowledge about
KSAO requirements etc. can help to improve the employee and company development to
optimal performance
-> legal issues: Job analysis provides a list of relevant KSAOs as the basis of hiring people rather
than irrelevant personal characteristics, and also so called essential functions (actions that have
to be done in a job). If a disabled person only cannot perform non-essential functions, but still
essential function, it is illegal to deny employment.
-> Performance appraisal: criterion development: dimensions for performance evaluation
behavior-focused performance appraisal method: critical incidents (represent diff. levels of job
performance from outstanding to poor) collect specific behaviors
-> Selection easier hiring of people
-> Training There can be training for applicants because you know the needed KSAOs
-> Vocational Counseling tools that can help to match KSAO’s to the one’s required for the job
-> Research
3.2 How job analysis information is collected
performed by job analysts, job incumbents, supervisors, trained observers. Subject-matter-
experts (SME): incumbents and supervisors (provide detailed knowledge about jobs)
Often several approaches are used:
-> performing the job oneself (job analyst, specialist)
-> observing employees (SMEs)
-> interviews/questionnaires (supervisors to employees)
,3.3 Methods of Job Analysis
-> Job components inventory (JCI): covers over 400 features of jobs that can be translated into
skill requirements, in five components: 1. Use of tool and equipment, 2. Perceptual and physical
requirements, 3. Mathematics, 4. Communication, 5. Decision making and responsibility
-> Occupational Network (O*NET): computer-based resource that lists around 1,100 groups of
jobs sharing common characteristics, information about KSAOs in three of six dimensions,
information about wages, labor market information, over 450 dimensions, observational
-> Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ): 189 items that deal with task requirements of a job,
used to analyze and compare different jobs, six major categories, indicates the percentile score
for each element and KSAO comparison, better for analysis, needs great deal of training
-> Functional Job Analysis (FJI): better for description, suited for many different jobs but
demands great deal of training
-> Task Inventory: questionnaire containing a list of specific task requirements with one or
more rating scales for each task (e.g. amount of time spending a task, difficulty of learning a
task etc.). It is completed by a job incumbent, comparison within-job, very reliable but takes a
lot of time
Example for Task Inventory: Levine’s Combination Job Analysis Method (C-JAM)
Deciding which method to use requires consideration of several factors such as costs and
purpose. Functional methods are relatively effective for almost all purposes but is one of the
most time-consuming ones.
Reliability: consistent over time (high test-retest reliability), inter-rater agreement lower. Job
analysis ratings are reasonable reliable with exception of Task Inventory Ratings. If job
incumbents are SMEs, the ratings should be selected successfully.
Validity: biased as they are based on human judgement, people are more reliable when rating
tasks than when rating traits people need for a job. Training incumbents on how to rate
accurately is important.
3.4 Job evaluation
quantitative techniques to determine the salary levels of jobs, similar to job analysis methods
but diff. purpose: determine relative salaries for diff. jobs
e.g. point method:
1. Panel determines characteristics that will serve as basis for the evaluation (compensable factors)
2. Panel judges the degree to which each job has each compensable factors
3. Points of the factors are summed into total points for each job
4. Plot actual salaries for each job against the point totals for each jobs. If the salary is fair, the
plot should be a straight line.
Comparable worth means that diff. but comparable jobs should be paid the same. Some
criticize the concept as judgements can be biased in a way that perpetuates lower salaries for
women, it is also very expensive.
, Chapter 4: Performance Appraisal
4.1 Why do we appraise employees?
-> Administrative decisions: promotion/termination etc. based on job performance, many
companies use merit pay systems (being payed after performance).
-> Employee Development and Feedback
-> Research studies to evaluate effect of an intervention on job performance: aim to design
better equipment, hire better people , motivate/train employees (often pre- and posttest)
4.2 Performance criteria
Characteristics of criteria
theoretical criterion: theoretical construct of what good performance is, rather than how it is
measured
actual criterion: the way in which theoretical criterion is assessed or operationalized, often
provides only an estimate of the theoretical criterion
-> Criterion contamination: can arise from biases such as subjective/personal opinion of the
criterion
-> Criterion deficiency: means that the actual criterion does not adequately cover the entire
theoretical criterion.
-> Criterion relevance: the extent to which the actual criterion assesses the theoretical criterion
it is supposed to assess (construct validity). The closer the correspondence between the actual
and the theoretical, the greater the relevance of the criterion.
Criterion complexity
multiple criterion measures are necessary to assess performance adequately
-> composite criterion approach: preferred one, as it involves a single performance score,
involves combining individual criteria into a single average score
-> multidimensional approach: does not combine the individual criterion measures. It is
preferred when feedback is given to employees with specific information about the dimensions
of performance
The dynamic criterion is about variability of performance over time
The contextual performance consists of extra voluntary things employees do to benefit their
co-workers and organizations
4.3 Methods of assessing job performance
objective measures: counts employees behavior (lateness, absence etc.), or results of behavior
(e.g. productivity) pro: easy to interpret and compare its meaning in relation to job
performance, facilitates performance appraisal cons: not useful for every job, tend to focus on
specific behavior, they may ignore equally important parts, focus more on quality than
quantity, no control for assessed person
