Job analysis is an exercise in evaluating the functions and activities that must be carried out in a particular job and allows establishing its requirements, with which companies contribute to achieving an optimal organizational climate. (Ortíz Pacheco, Micaela and Valenzuela, Blanca. Job Analysis. University of Sonora, 2004)
The following terms are often used in job description and analysis activities:
Action: Each of the smallest units of analysis of work activity without descending to the level of movements.
Activity: Parts into which we decompose a task or a set of actions that constitute the fundamental part of a task.
Position: The set of all tasks that a worker must perform. A position may consist of multiple tasks, such as typing, filing, and dictation, or it may consist of a single task.
Competence: A worker's ability to perform the tasks inherent in a given job.
Duty: A set of tasks that constitute one of the different main activities involved in the performance of work.
Element: A set of two or more micro movements (basic or fundamental movements), an operation can be broken down into several sets of such movements such as: lifting, transporting and placing an item.
Employment: A set of tasks accomplished or that are supposed to be accomplished by the same person.
Measure of work: Complementary techniques to the study of times and movements to determine the time of completion of a job but without taking into account the care or diligence in its execution.
Micromovement (Basic or elemental movement): Each of the movements that constitute an element. It is the most basic and simple unit of analysis. The smallest work activities, which include movements as basic as: reaching, placing, releasing, etc. Known as therblig (name given by Gilbreth).
Occupational level: Level of the worker according to the hierarchy of the organization (managers, employees, specialized workers, general workers).
Occupation: It is a set of jobs whose tasks represent a great similarity.
Operation: Action or set of actions that constitute the essential part of a task without descending to the analysis of movements, gestures or separate mental processes.
Role: One or more recurring activities taken from a total pattern of interdependent actions that, combined, give the organizational product.
Workstation: Set of tasks performed by a single person.
The total work assigned to an individual worker, consisting of a specific set of duties and responsibilities. The total number of jobs in an organization equals the number of employees plus vacant positions.
Point (place) of the organizational space defined by one or more roles (and, consequently, one or more activities), which must be carried out by a single individual: places the latter in relation to his companions, with respect to the work to be done and to give and receive orders.
Responsibility: A duty or set of duties that describes the main objective or reasons for the existence of a job
Task: A "discretely organized" work unit (which can be assigned to one job or another), with a clearly defined beginning and end, performed by an individual to achieve the goals of a job. Act or sequence of acts grouped in time, intended to contribute to a specific end result, to achieve a goal,… (Fine and Wiley, 1971).
Work: Set of tasks, operations, elements, etc., that duly programmed and carried out by one or more people and / or machines allow achieving a goal.
