The global economy is seeing an uncharted complexity and fresh worrisome situations in this pandemic. Companies are being forced to take up a new challenge of completely re-designing majority of the nature of their work. The operating modules cannot exist as they were pre-pandemic and therefore require a creative revision. Compassion for workforce and their health is being balanced by the anxiety due to retrenchment, downsizing, taking away benefits, overtime and pay cuts. Business leaders now have to walk on eggshells if they want to survive against the odds, mitigate and oversee organizational disruptions.
Covid-19 has leveled the playing field for many jobs. The nature of the jobs has changed vastly and a mere update of job descriptions won’t cushion the blow. The relevancy of job analysis in this current scenario has become amplified.
Job analysis is a systematic examination, study and recording of the responsibilities, duties, skills, accountabilities, work setting and ability requirements of a particular job. In this discussion, the shifting context (pandemic) would be reviewed through each of the purposes of job analysis
HR used job analysis output to create appropriate job descriptions which fit the context of the organization and related factors. The change in the nature of the jobs requires the management to rewrite requirements and eligibility criteria, as well as the complexity in duties performed. New specifications need to be incorporated and compartmentalized to form a coherent and relevant structure which can withstand the demands of this pandemic.
Job analysis purports creating a right fit between an employee and the job. In this current scenario, the fit has to take into account the additional stress on digital, cognitive, social, emotional, adaptability and resilience skills. The fit has to be created taking into account what the market can afford. In the post-pandemic scenario as well, the companies might shift their focus of the fit based on skills and competencies rather than strictly adhering to educational qualifications. The objective now is to fit a person who is capable of working in this dire situation to the job.
Job analysis is required to repurpose, redesign, enrich and enlarge jobs. Many new job opportunities in certain businesses have established and bloomed especially in health and online retail due to this pandemic while non-essential businesses have had to a hit. The purpose of job analysis here is to streamline employees efforts and get the best possible output. Many responsibilities are being efficiently delivered in a remote setting; this opens up the opportunity to increase outsourcing and geographic diversification to acquire talent.
Job analysis can help identify the duties which do not adhere to the governmental norms or COVID-19 prevention norms. This concern has to be addressed from a legal, safety and ethical point of view. Job analysis puts the job under a microscope to reveal important details such as disobedience to quarantine rule, negligence in health safety or any act which may make an individual or the organization a defaulter.
Compensation, one of the most important aspects of a job is to be reevaluated. It establishes similarities and differences in job content and determine the internal equity and relative worth of jobs. The rationale for paying jobs ought to shift along with market rates. The analysis may reveal the need to cut back on salaries or impose variable salaries to level with the market. It can also reveal high paying redundant jobs which do not justify their expense. Employee’s pay is now going to see a stronger association to their company’s performance. A salary modification with a larger allotment to the variable component will give some leeway to organisations to survive in these times and save the existing employees from retrenchment. Such analysis has also suggested the decrease in short term incentives and increase in long term incentives.
Most importantly, job analysis models also function to appraise performance and set certain standards. Some assessments may involve work samples or require candidates to demonstrate that they can perform these tasks effectively. In this scenario, the goal is to make a flexible and empathetic assessment which mitigates the unprecedented stress this pandemic has brought. How an organization treats its employees can make or break the organizational culture. Therefore, the bottom line isn’t identifying poor performers and weeding them out but to identify what area is lacking and to reinforce skill enhancement and upskilling programmes. Identifying skill gaps and offering a “time-bound grace period” to get used to remote working and focusing on ability enhancement can be the solution reached through this analysis. The discrepancy between the current and the required conditions can be explored through a needs assessment. Thus, through such analysis workforce readiness can be promoted.
Moreover, the workload of a job family might be repurposed in this pandemic, due to the fluctuation in workload, the job family may need to be expanded or cut short. The hierarchy of jobs in terms of value may need to be reestablished as well.
To explore job analysis in this current situation we can take the help of Critical Incident Technique. This method of analysis is beneficial for identification of organizational problems. This technique is quite fit to be implemented in the pandemic as it is beneficial when a business is thinking about developing or redesigning some trainings or getting urgent refinement of selection or performance management systems or adding quality to the job. It can also identify exemplary performance and help with practical problems in unprecedented situations (like COVID-19). Alternatively, it can identify poor behaviour which may have cost the company its best client, credit or reputation. This technique can help point out practical flaws in the new system of remote working or identify an innovative step which could be generalized to implement across all the sections of the organization. Thus the “critical incident” is significant in some way to the administrator, workforce, establishment or the consumer, this type of evaluation is most relevant in healthcare systems, aviation, or power plants.
This technique is used to develop behavioural descriptions of the job. This technique uses the following four steps- (1) generating dimensions, (2) generate incidents, (3) retranslate, and (4) assign effectiveness value. In generating dimensions, supervisors and workers identify the major dimensions of the job.
Taking an example of customer support job or a call service agent during the context of COVID-19 pandemic, the experts from this respective department may develop dimensions along- empathy, patience, flexibility, good communication, proficiency in product, listening capacity, timeliness and positive attitude.
The aim of the analysis is established to lay the groundwork of what the critical incident constitutes of.
The purpose of this particular analysis may be identifying critical behaviors which lead to decline in the public reputation of the company. Clients want to hear from the corporations they engage with, due to coronavirus businesses are coming under more scrutiny from the media and general public now more than ever. Companies need to provide clarity how their products meet this “new normal”. Not being able to get the message across to the customers during this chaos would be an opportunity lost and can end in reputational damage.
The supervisors and workers generate “critical incidents of behaviour which represent high, moderate, and low level of performance.
The behaviour incidents can be collected orally or through a written statement. The HR manager may pose the question, “Have you had any unusual interaction with customers since the advent of this pandemic?” or “Can you recollect a circumstance in which there was reputational harm caused by the action of an employee, which could have been avoided? If so, what was the original issue, which employees were involved and how did they behave?”
Data about high performance could be- “When inquired about all the safety measures our hotel was taking up, Sunny was able to list down all the essential precautions along with the employee health status to a very important client, she also managed to strike a brief empathetic conversation with an elder who sounded distressed and confused. Her calm and empathetic disposition has lead to an increase in positive customer support reviews.”
Retranslation and assigning effectiveness value make sure that the incident is viewed the same way by other employees.
Low performance of an employee could be- getting irritated by customers asking the same question again and again, having to navigate through irrelevant and long conversation initiated by the customer and replying in aggressive undertones etc.
Such behavioural analysis can help the organization mitigate problems related to their purpose of the job analysis- in this case, to reduce public scrutiny and build a good reputation. The organization could implement emotional intelligence interventions and pilot or a practice session to help them with response readiness. The intervention sessions could include strategies and training on: (a) perceiving and understanding one’s own emotions; (b) perceiving and understanding others’ emotions; (c) identifying and understanding the impact one’s own feelings is having on thoughts, decisions, behaviour and performance.
This could be accompanied by a thorough explanation about how the pandemic is stressful and anxiety inducing for all, and the only way to effectively manage the client’s inquiries is to keep an open and empathetic mind (just like Sunny in the above example). This will not only assist the client but also the employee as it will help them grow both professionally and personally.
Not only does it help in identifying which training programmes to implement, this technique also helps to identify great employees which can further establish the criteria for promotion and compensation. Moreover, employee discipline can be implemented as well.
Apart from this, CIT can be used in accident investigation (CIT was originally used to identify pilot errors). The blooming healthcare industry in this pandemic is complex and action-oriented and any type of risk behaviour can hinder the system and pose health risks. Therefore, CIT technique can also be used to identify such risk behaviours and mitigate any ill-happening.
In sweeping outbreaks of virulent disease, health-care employees are almost always hit heavy. The harm a single infection can do to a hospital personnel has become alarmingly obvious. CIT can help in identifying outdated screening protocols, or delays in information about positive employees, lack of coordination etc. which could not be effectively identified with other techniques or questionnaire type format.
Thus, job analysis is an integral operation which can help organizations change with changing times. Moreover, CIT is a reliable technique to implement such analysis.