The WorldatWork Handbook of Compensation, Benefits & Total Rewards: A Comprehensive Guide for HR Professionals

Chapter 10. Job Analysis, Documentation, and Evaluation

The process of building a base pay structure and determining the value of a job begins with job analysis. As stated in Chapter 8, job analysis can be defined as the systematic process for obtaining important and relevant information about each distinct role played by one or more employees. This would include duties and responsibilities of the job as well as the required behaviors, competencies, and worker characteristics.

One of the first questions to ask when beginning the job analysis process is, “Who in the organization should be involved?” Should it be limited to only those in human resources or compensation? How about department managers? What about incumbents?

All of the aforementioned groups would be a great addition to a team. For job analysis to be accepted as a valid analysis, you should include a team of representatives outside of the human resources function to conduct the job analysis. The incumbents are valuable because they would have the most detailed information about their own duties and responsibilities. The compensation department could provide a more objective approach and would add consistency if involved in the job-analysis process. The department managers could help the team both validate the incumbent’s comments and the intent of the job.

And, although typically, a true job analysis only would be concerned with the current job, by determining the intent of the job, an analyst could analyze the job further ...