西亚斯美方课人力HR课后习题Ch4T17VG

Group 17Name: Alida, Jin Name: Poppy, Lei Name: Trista, Zhang Name: Trista, Shang Name: Eillen, Wang Name: May, WangName: Vera, Zhou Discussion Questions:1. What items are typically included in the job description?Answer:a) Job summary: Job summary refers to a short paragraph of the more important functions, and also responsibilities of a job. In short, a job description provides all the necessary information about job applicant.b) Job title and salary: To provide a specific title for the job and a clear salary and hourly payments for the position.c) Benefits: To write information about the health benefits or insurance offered through the company. Whats more, I think an applicant should be listing some additional work benefits.d) Special skills: These essential skills such as professional skills, communication skills, customers service skills and business skills. Trough knowing special skills, employers can find the most qualifies person for the job easily.e) Qualifications: That the skill of job is necessary to get a good job for an applicant. A job applicant should be show education, work experience, physical requirements and so on.2. What is job analysis? How can you make use of the information it provides?Answer:a) Job analysis refers to use a number of structured techniques to study the work of an organization. Furthermore, job analysis organizes information about positions, such as relevant tasks, knowledge skills, abilities, and other attributes.b) As far as Im concerned, we can use the information it provides to write job descriptions and job specifications. At the same time, if we were an employer, it is very important to us. Because we could use job analysis to recruitment and selection employees, compensation, appraise employees performance, and training staffs. Also, it helps us obey EEO Compliance when a company signs a contract with employees.3. We discussed several methods for collecting job analysis dataquestionnaires, the position analysis questionnaire, and so on. Compare and contrast these methods, explaining what each is useful for and listing the pros and cons of each.Answer:First of all, as we all know, interviews are the most widely used method of collecting information for job analysis. The leaders prefer to communicate face to face, thus they can gain the feedback quickly. Of course, sometimes immediate supervisor cant give manager complete information. Secondly, observation is useful for jobs that consist mainly of physical activity that is clearly observable. However, observation is unsuited when the job undertake lots of mental activities. Thirdly, questionnaires are a quick and efficient way of obtaining information from a large number of employees; however, development cost can be high. Fourthly, participant diary logs can provide a comprehensive picture of a job, especially when supplemented with interviews, however, many employees do not respond well to the request to record all their daily activities. At last, quantitative job analysis techniques, such as position analysis questionnaire(PAQ), department of labor( DOL), functional job analysis, are more appropriate when the aim is to assign a quantitative value to each job, but quantitative job analysis techniques has weakness, too. For instance, applying this method will more cumbersome. 4. Describe the types of information typically found in a job specification.Answer:It should include a list of the human traits and experience needed to perform the job. These might include education, skills, behaviors, personality traits, work experience, sensory skills, etc. Moreover, as we all know, untrained people must show qualities, such as physical traits, personal interest or sensory skills so that prove his or her potential for perform the job.5. Explain how you would conduct a job analysis.Answer:There are six major steps in a well-conducted job analysis: a) Identify the job and review the existing company document. In fact, these data will give you base information. b) Collecting background information such as organization charts, process charts, and job descriptions. c) We should choose representative positions to be analyzed. That is to say, we need not analyze each position.d) Collecting job analysis information and analyze the job. In this step, we could use one or many job analysis methods, such as questionnaires, interviews, observation.e) Review and modify the information with the participants. Through this step, we can determine that this information is right and complete.f) Maintain and update job descriptions and job specifications. 6. Do you think companies can really do without detailed job description? Why or why not?Answer:a) In my opinions, I do not think companies can really do without detailed job description.b) At first, job descriptions help employees understand the tasks, so they can prioritize their work based on which duties are more critical than others. In addition, a manager can compare an employees performance with the job descriptions standards and suggest specific tasks the employee can perform better. Also, Managers also can use job descriptions to determine the areas they should focus on when training employees. More importantly, using job descriptions will help an organization better understand the experience and skill about employees. They help company in the hiring, evaluation and potentially terminating of employees. All in all, job description can help both sides (employees and employers) share a common understanding.7. In a company with only 25 employees, is there less need for job description? Why or why not?Answer:a) From my point of view, a company with only 25 employees needs job descriptions so that everyone is clear on what their duties, responsibilities, and authority are, and what they are not.b) Job description is really important because it covers details of the day to day duties expected from each employee. In writing job descriptions for each position, it should cover such areas as skills, tasks, functions and general responsibilities to be carried out by employees of that department. A job description is prepared to explain to employees what their duties and tasks are in the workplace. It also tells an employee where and when his duty ends and when the duty of another employee starts in order to avoid conflict and employee job duty related grievances. It must be made clear that writing the best job descriptions are intended for the welfare of those employees working for a certain company, and for those human resources staff who compile and prepare these documents.Application caseSummary: The case tells peoples that Optima Air Filter Company suffered the tropical storm Wilma, so that many staffs home were destroyed, which resulted in this company need to recruit some new employees. However, when requiring older employee describe their own job responsibility for new staffs, while the older workers didnt known what their specific responsibility. Those things lead to customer order couldnt dispose in time.Questions:1. Should Phil and Linda ignore the old-timers protests and write up the job descriptions as they see fit? Why? Why not? How would you go about resolving the differences?Answer:a) No, Phil and Linda should never ignore the old-timers protest.b) Because ignoring them may result to bad thing among the workers and theyll feel worse leading to lower productivity. Since they know the nature and requirement of the job verywell, they must be asked about the information of the job before writing a job descriptionc) I believe the company and old-timers should solve this problem by using a questionnaire.That would have lead to lesser confusion and misunderstand.Phil and Linda should listen to the old-timers ideas and feedback, and old-timers also communicate with Phil and Linda for their job.2. How would you have conducted the job analysis? What should Phil do now?Answer:a) Because they only have 10 of the old-timers, I think we can use the interview to collected information.b) Phil and Maybelline should interview in a separate, and must allow them to fully understand the reasons for the interview and in as much as detail that they describe the work, such information will be more realistic.Continuing case.Summary:In this case, Jennifer found many employees who dont known their specific responsibility, which make their companys performance lower. Thus, Jennifer decided to redact job descriptions for her store managers. Besides, the store manager has responsibility to direct all of worker actions, and set some objective for their employees. In addition, in order to accomplish all of those aim, Jennifer listed many kinds of responsibility for her store manager. Those bring a lot of problems for Jennifer.Questions:1. What should be the format and final form of the store managers job description?Answer:a) I think in figure 4-7 on the textbook should be the format and final form of the store managers job description.b) In my opinions, this lists the standards the employee is expected to achieve under each of the job descriptions main duties and responsibilities, and would address the problem of employees not understanding company policies, procedures, and expectations. In addition, students may recommend that Jennifer instead take a competency-based approach which describes the job of the measurable, observable, behavioral competencies that an employee doing that job must exhibit. 2. Is it practical to specify standards and procedures in the body of the job description, or should these be kept separate?Answer:They do not need to be kept separately, it is specified standards and procedures to reflect the job description, because they hope to the employees can achieve their responsibilities and obligations for their job. And they must be abiding by company procedures and standards are also very important. As some applicants need to meet in the companys performance. It depends on what type of work and include these standards.3. How should Jennifer go about collecting the information required for the standards, procedures, and job description?Answer:First, Jennifer should be collecting some information for the work activities, second, through the procedures and job analysis for the job then list the standards, of course, the employees cant forget the procedures of the company. I think she can use one or more of th