Assignment 1 :
APA FORMAT 2 PAGES
Conduct a job analysis on your own job, using existing data, resulting in the development of a job description, a job specification, a job evaluation, and performance criteria. Consider the comparability of these products to the structure of your job and pay. Evaluate the thoroughness and accuracy of each product.
Assignment 2:
APA FORMAT 2 PAGES
QUESTION: Discuss the gender gap in wages and the concept of comparable worth, including the practice of exceptioning. Discuss how this situation may change in the future and how it may be affected by changes in the general workforce.
SUMMARY of Chapter 3:
Personnel psychology, a specialty area of I/O psychology, is concerned with the creation, care, and maintenance of a workforce. I/O psychologists who specialize in personnel psychology are involved in several activities, such as employee recruitment and selection, the measurement of employee performance and the establishment of good performance review procedures, the development of employee training programs, and the formulation of criteria for promotion, firing, and disciplinary action.
Job analysis is the systematic study of a job's tasks, duties, and responsibilities, and the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to perform the job.
The job analysis, which is the important starting point for many personnel functions, yields several products: a job description, which is a detailed accounting of job tasks, procedures, responsibilities, and output; a job specification, which consists of information about the physical, educational, and experiential qualities required to perform the job; a job evaluation, which is an assessment of the relative value of jobs for determining compensation; and performance criteria, which serve as a basis for appraising successful job performance.
Job analysis methods include observation, the use of existing data, interviews, surveys, and job diaries. In addition to these general methods for conducting job analysis, there are also a number of specific, standardized techniques. One structured job analysis technique is the job element method, a broad approach to job analysis that focuses on the knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics (KSAOs) required to perform a particular job.
The critical incidents technique of job analysis involves the collection of particularly successful or unsuccessful instances of job performance. Through the collection of hundreds of these incidents, a very detailed profile of a job emerges. Another structured job analysis technique, the Position Analysis Questionnaire (PAQ), uses a questionnaire that analyzes jobs in terms of 187 job elements arranged into six categories.
Functional job analysis (FJA) is a method that has been used to classify jobs in terms of the worker's interaction with data, people, and things. FJA uses the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT), a reference book listing general job descriptions for thousands of jobs (since replaced by the U.S. Labor Department's O*NET database), and examines the sequence of tasks required to complete the job as well as the process by which the job is completed. Research has determined that all of these specific, standardized methods are effective.
Job analysis yields a job evaluation, or an assessment of the relative value of jobs used to determine appropriate compensation. These evaluations usually examine jobs on dimensions that are called compensable factors, which are given values that signify the relative worth of the job and translate into levels of compensation.
An important topic in the area of job evaluation concerns the "gender gap" in wages. Evidence indicates that women are paid far less than men for comparable work. This inequity has recently given rise to the comparable worth movement, which argues for equal pay for equal work. This issue is controversial because of the difficulty and costs of making compensation for comparable jobs equitable. Research has also suggested that women and ethnic minorities are affected by a glass ceiling, or labyrinth which creates difficulties for members of minority groups in rising to the highest-level positions in organizations.