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Job
analysis is a procedure for establishing the constituent
responsibilities of an
employee’s job. Conventional approaches tend to obtain descriptions of
key job
characteristics through relatively informal interview procedures; or by
compiling and assessing lists of incidents of successful and
unsuccessful job
performance (Flanagan, 1954). These have been criticised because they
result in
job descriptions that are insufficiently behaviourally precise (e.g.
‘good leader’;
‘team player’) while ignoring the need for flexible change in job
performance
(Townsend, 1985); or for being inapplicable to the competencies
required in
supervisory and managerial jobs (Summers, 1994).
The repertory
grid
alternative involves the use of elements carefully
chosen to
sample job characteristics, a qualifying phrase that summarises the
particular
performance focus required, and a single supplied construct that
summarises the
focus and permits the isolation of those constructs most relevance to
desired
performance. That is to say:
(a)
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Elements
are elicited to describe 8 to 12 key types of activity
(Please give
me an activity that is time-consuming in doing this job; an activity
that is
particularly important to get right in doing this job; an activity that
is
particularly difficult to get right’ together with their converses,
i.e.
‘quickly done’, ‘not particularly important’, ‘easy to get right’).
Alternatively, job incumbents known to the respondent are used,
suitably
anonymised (‘Please let me have two people who are particularly good at
this
job; two who are not very good at this job; and four in between.’) |
(b)
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Constructs
are elicited triadically, with the qualifying phrase ‘which
two of
these are alike, and different from the third, in terms of what it
is about
them that makes for effective job perfomance as opposed to ineffective
job
performance’ in the first instance, and with the qualifying phrase
‘which
two of these are alike, and different from the third, in terms of
what they actually do that makes them more, or less, effective’
in the second
instance. |
(c)
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The supplied construct
would typically be ‘Overall, related more to
effective
job performance - Overall, related more to ineffective job
performance’, or
words to that effect. |
Analysis
of the ratings, (see Honey,
1979), designed to identify those
constructs most
closely related to the ‘Overall Effectiveness - Ineffectiveness’
construct,
would typically require around 300 constructs to capture the chief
attributes
of the job; since a one-hour grid interview based on this technique
typically
produces 8 - 12 distinct constructs, a total of around 30 respondents
is
required. These might usefully be a mixture of job incumbents, their
colleagues, and their supervisors.
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- Flanagan,
J.C. (1954) The
critical incident technique. Psychological Bulletin 51, 237-258.
- Honey,
P. (1979) The
repertory grid in action. Industrial
and Commercial Training 11, 11,
452-459.
- Summers,
A. (1994) Setting
standards of competence for management training. British Journal of
Administrative Management Oct/Nov, 18-19.
- Townsend,
R. (1985) Further
up the Organisation. New York: Coronet Books, pp. 115-116.
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