Untitled

Further reading
Ministry of Transport, Japan National Tourist
Organisation �1996) Tourism in Japan 1996±97,
Tokyo.
job design analysis
TETSURO YAMASHITA, JAPAN
Job analyses are rarely used in their completed
form. However, information contained in the
analysis is regularly used for a variety of purposes,
including the creation of job descriptions and
specifications, training programmes, job evaluation
and compensation planning, and the development
of performance appraisals. This analysis also
provides the justifications why specific abilities
and skills are required for a job. For this reason, a
job analysis is often the frontline defence in proving
to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
�or similar entity outside the United States)
that a business necessity exists which accounts for
the legal discrimination on which a company has
based selection and promotion decisions. The
analysis also has a direct relationship to job design.
Job analysis is what work is done; job design is how
the work is done.
Designing jobs is a changing process, as good
tourism managers know. Unfortunately, some tend
to think that once a job is designed and described
in an employee manual it never changes. That is
rarely the case. Customers' needs change, technology
associated with the job changes, and personal
characteristics of the jobholders also change. Each
change may require a revised job design. A travel
agent's job, for instance, is much different today
than it once was because of a variety of factors,
including how new equipment is used, how the the
computer reservation system shapes their
day-to-day function, and how new tourism products
are packaged. Selecting which jobs to study is
the first step in completing a thorough job analysis.
Some companies analyse each job performed in
the organisation once per year; others use a
rotation system wherein each job is analysed every
three years. How often this is analysed primarily
depends on the degree of change associated with
the position. The principle kinds of information
job design analysis 337
collected in job analysis are job activities �actual
work), equipment used, job context, personnel
requirements, human behaviours, basic tools and
other work aids needed, and performance standards
required.
Several methods of collecting information are
available and widely used. The simplest and least
expensive method is observation. Here managers
simply watch employees at work and make detailed
notes of their tasks and behaviours. Another
popular method is interviewing �see interview)
the employees who do the job. There is strong
justification for this method, as it is the employee
who knows the work better than anybody else. The
critical incident method involves capturing actual
events that transpire. For example, one such critical
incident might read like this: `On June 27 Mr
Jones, a bellman, observed a guest fretting over
how to get to his car in a lot several hundred yards
away in a strong rain. Without hesitation, Mr Jones
provided the guest with his own umbrella.' Over
time, a large enough number of such critical
incidents can be captured to form a fairly clear
picture of the actual job requirements. Some
companies compile job analysis information by
asking their employees to keep a diary or daily log
of their activities over a specific period of time. The
method is very cost effective and comprehensive
and it encourages employees to think about the
work that they do. However, it also requires a
substantial amount of employee time in writing the
events into their journals.
In many cases employees perform ineffectively;
thus productivity is low not because of poor
training, inadequate supervision, underdeveloped
employee skills or poor work habits, but because
the job is designed poorly. In addition, such cases
can lead to low levels of job satisfaction which in
turn leads to low motivation, high employee
turnover, and high absenteeism rates. Four techniques
± job simplification, enlargement, enrichment
and rotation ± are widely used in designing jobs.
The first technique, sometimes referred to as time
and motion analysis, involves first breaking jobs
down into their smallest component and then
assessing how work is done in each of these job
sections. Job enlargement is the process of broadening
the scope of individual simplified components
by adding tasks together. Typically, the tasks