What does it consist of and what is its purpose?
This work presents the results of an exhaustive investigation, the purpose of which is to highlight the great relevance that, in our opinion, the human resources application subsystem has in relation to the "Design of Jobs", since we understand that it represents an important driving force in the productive development of organizations in a general sense.
Introduction
In these times, phrases such as: "much of the company's competitiveness lies in the well-being of the employee" are frequently heard; "Manage with people, instead of managing people"; But beyond being hackneyed phrases, experience has shown that a good part of the employee's success in performing his job comes from his degree of adaptation to the position and the environment.
That is why advanced organizations seek to balance the harmony of the worker with the competitiveness of the company, so finding an optimal coupling between employee and job is an objective that must be established from the beginning.
Fernández (2004): “For professionals to be motivated and work at full capacity, one of the requirements is that they are comfortable, in the broadest sense of the word, in their workplace. In addition, motivation and, especially, its antonym, demotivation, are feelings that radiate, helping to forge a certain work climate that exponentially affects the productivity of the entire organization. ”
Therefore, the adaptation of the job does not respond to magic formulas but is the result of the confluence of a multitude of factors that have to do with a good job design, analysis and description.
Raventos, (2004): "The best diagnosis is one that responds to the optimal design of each occupational position, analyzed individually, and that allows the organization as a whole to achieve harmony and maximum performance."
Indeed, new management theories have demonstrated the ineffectiveness of traditional ideas that the business world had wrongly assumed. Productivity is no longer synonymous with time spent on the job, now, the majority trend places the person ahead of the organization and, therefore, that the worker performs his work optimally and, in this eagerness, the symbiosis between person and key position.
Conceptual basis
Currently, the concept of job or position has also been affected by globalization and the demands of the modern world. This means that they are not stable, static or definitive; On the contrary, they are constantly changing in order to adapt to the permanent technological, economic, social, cultural and legal transformations.
Chruden and Sherman cited by Chiavenato (1992) define a position as: “a unit of the organization, whose set of duties and responsibilities distinguish it from other positions. The duties and responsibilities of a position, which correspond to the employee who holds it, provide the means for employees to contribute to the achievement of objectives in an organization.
Bryan Livy cited by Chiavenato (1992) defines a position as: “the gathering of all those activities carried out by a single person that can be unified in a single concept and occupy a formal place in the organization chart”.
Chiavenato (1999), using the term position as the equivalent of a position, defines it: “a position constitutes a unit of the organization and consists of a set of duties that separate and distinguish it from other positions. The position of the position in the organization chart defines its hierarchical level, the subordination, the subordinates and the department or division where it is located ”.
Of all these definitions, although Chiavenato synthesizes in one the concept of position cited by the other authors, a still traditional hierarchical approach is evident, however other authors such as Mondy and Noe (1997), use a more transversal approach and present it as part of a process.
Thus, Mondy and Noe (1997) define it: "a job is the very essence of the degree of productivity of an organization, therefore, it consists of a group of tasks that must be carried out for an organization to achieve its objectives".
Consequently and as it could be seen, there are two approaches regarding the concept of job or job title, from which the one proposed by Mondy and Noe will be taken as the conceptual basis for the present work.
Job design
Considering that each position requires different knowledge, qualities and skill levels, effective human resource planning that takes into account these requirements for the positions is necessary. To do this, today's managers should spend more of their time preparing work teams responsible for designing key positions in the company.
Very few companies are aware that the job also requires design and viable profiling for the person who holds it. A wrong job design is the main source of demotivation, dissatisfaction and low productivity of human resources (Malik, 2000).
Thus, Mondy (1997) points out: "job design consists of determining the specific activities to be carried out, the methods used to carry them out, and how the job relates to other jobs in the organization."
Chiavenato, (1999): "the design of the position is the specification of the content, of the working methods and of the relationships with the other positions to fulfill technological, business, social and personal requirements of the occupant of the position".
As you can see these definitions are related in content, but are somewhat poor. Next, we will mention other authors who treat the subject from a somewhat broader perspective.
Gómez-Mejía (2000), describes the design of positions as: "process of organizing work through the tasks necessary to perform a specific position."
Fernández (2001) believes: "the design of jobs is the methodological procedure that allows us to obtain all the information related to a job".
Likewise, Chiavenato in his book Gestión del Talento adds: “job design is the process of organizing work through the tasks necessary to perform a specific job. It includes the content of the position, the occupant's qualifications and the rewards of each position to meet the needs of the employees and the organization. ”
Analyzing the set of concepts cited here, we conclude that the Design of Jobs is a process of work organization that aims to structure the elements, duties and tasks of the positions of an organization, addressing the content, requirements, responsibilities, conditions, qualifications and rewards of the occupants, to ensure that the performance of the positions occupies a place in the offer of value that is desired to offer to the client.
Analisis and descripcion of impuests
Employers are often heard to say that their job description manual has brought them nothing. Others even worse, that the job manual is not needed since the workers know exactly what to do. In any case, they all end with the same result, that is, their job description manual is not important or necessary.
However, as has been described throughout this work, the events of productive life that companies present and reflect today, taking into account the changes that both at the macro level and in their individual environment are presented, we indicates that there is an inevitable organizational change, from which we can highlight, that for companies to continue and increase their level of sales, profitability and productivity, which would result in a consolidation in the market and greater acceptance by their customers, it is it is essential to have very high quality personnel with a high degree of commitment to the company; In other words, the ideal person for each job must be available, who meets the profile and the necessary requirements as indicated by the job analysis.
Fuertes and Pereda already said it, quoted by García (2001): “A good analysis and job description must collect all the information related to the positions of the organization: the physical space, environment or work environment, tools to use, functions and job duties, responsibilities, knowledge etc.; that is to say, everything that directly or indirectly influences or can influence the correct performance of a job. ”
Therefore, the analysis and description of jobs "is a process that consists of determining through a rigorous study the elements or characteristics inherent to each job." (Harper and Lynch, 1992).
But the analysis and job description as its name implies, is made up of two terms: on the one hand, the job analysis and on the other, the job description. Some authors such as Cuesta (2005), merge both terms; but most of the consulted literature treats the terms separately in order to define them in detail. Therefore, there are two points of view.
Authors like Chiavenato (1999), think that the job description is the starting point for their analysis and the determination of the job specifications. Others such as Mondy and Noe (1997), Folch (1997), Cuesta (2000) agree that the analysis of positions provides the necessary information for the definition of the requirements or specifications of the positions to be collected with the description of positions.
In this sense and for the realization of this work, the criteria set forth by Mondy, Folch and Cuesta will be taken as a reference.
Now, what is job analysis? Chiavenato (1999) defines the analysis of charges as: “the process of obtaining, analyzing, and recording information related to the charges. The analysis studies and determines the qualifying requirements, the responsibilities that concern him and the conditions demanded by the position for his correct performance ”.
Job analysis is "knowing each and every one of the tasks that a person has to carry out in a job, as well as the minimum requirements to occupy it, so that it is performed effectively" (Gama, 1992).
Gomez-Mejía, (2000): “job analysis is a systematic process of gathering information to make decisions regarding jobs. Job analysis identifies the tasks, duties, and responsibilities of a particular job.
The analysis of positions according to Mondy and Noe (1997) is: “the systematic process of determining the skills, duties and knowledge necessary to carry out positions in an organization. It is an ever-present essential human resource technique that will provide data on job requirements that will later be used to develop job descriptions and job specifications. ”
The same author proposes to develop job analysis when:
- An organization is founded and a job analysis program is started for the first time. New jobs are created. Jobs are significantly changed as a result of new technologies, methods, procedures or systems.
Folch cited by Mondy (1997) believes: "Job analysis provides a summary of duties and responsibilities in relation to other jobs, the knowledge and skills required and the working conditions in which it is performed."
In summary, the authors agree that the job analysis is intended to determine, on the one hand, the tasks, responsibilities and requirements that the job requires and, on the other, the knowledge and skills to perform it properly.
Thus, job analysis would be a process of determining the functions or activities, responsibilities and duties, objectives and conditions that a position must possess and the type of person that contains the qualities, qualifications, knowledge, skills and abilities that allow it to perform properly.
Now, all those tasks, requirements, responsibilities, knowledge and skills are reflected in basic and very useful documents for human resources: job descriptions and specifications.
The job description refers to the tasks, duties and responsibilities of the job, while the job specifications address the requirements that the occupant needs to meet. Therefore, charges are provided in accordance with those descriptions and specifications. (Chiavenato, 1999)
Mondy and Noe, (1997): “the job description is a document that provides information about the tasks, duties and responsibilities of the job. The minimum acceptable qualities that a person must possess in order to develop a specific position are contained in the position specification. ”
Chiavenato, (1999) adds: “The job description is a process that consists of listing the tasks or functions that make it up and differentiate it from other positions in the company; it is the detailed enumeration of the functions or tasks of the position (what the occupant does), the periodicity of the execution (when he does it), the methods applied for the execution of the functions or tasks (how he does it) and the objectives of the position (Why does he do this). Basically, it is to make an inventory of the significant aspects of the position and the duties and responsibilities that it comprises ”.
Mondy and Noe, (1997): “The job specification is a document that contains the minimum acceptable capacities that a person must have in order to perform a specific job. The aspects that are usually included in this document are educational requirements, experience, personality traits and physical abilities.
In general, the job description presents its content impersonally, and the specifications provide the organization's perception of the human characteristics required to perform the job, expressed in terms of education, experience, initiative, etc.. It should be noted that the job description should reflect not what is done; since what is being done may be wrong and requires revision; therefore, the job description should focus on the ideal job and not on what the occupant is doing.
Conclusions
In this way and with all that has been explained up to now, we can argue that it is essential to have the analysis of each of the positions, this would allow the possibility of obtaining all the characteristics and information related to each of the positions. Furthermore, the use of this information will allow the description and specification of each position to be established, and in turn will provide the basis for unifying the subsystems that make up human resource management.
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