Page 65 - DLIS003_LIBRARY ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT

Library Administration and Management

Notes behaviour of an employee in different situations. The second involves the study of time and
motion and is specially used for assembly-line or factory workers. The third one is about
identifying the work behaviours that result in performance.

Interview Method

In this method, an employee is interviewed so that he or she comes up with their own working
styles, problems faced by them, use of particular skills and techniques while performing their
job and insecurities and fears about their careers.

This method helps interviewer know what exactly an employee thinks about his or her own job
and responsibilities involved in it. It involves analysis of job by employee himself. In order to
generate honest and true feedback or collect genuine data, questions asked during the interview
should be carefully decided. And to avoid errors, it is always good to interview more than one
individual to get a pool of responses. Then it can be generalized and used for the whole group.

Questionnaire Method

Another commonly used job analysis method is getting the questionnaires filled from employees,
their superiors and managers. However, this method also suffers from personal biasness.
A great care should be taken while framing questions for different grades of employees.

In order to get the true job-related info, management should effectively communicate it to the
staff that data collected will be used for their own good. It is very important to ensure them that
it won’t be used against them in anyway. If it is not done properly, it will be a sheer wastage of
time, money and human resources.
These are some of the most common methods of job analysis. However, there are several other
specialized methods including task inventory, job element method, competency profiling,
technical conference, threshold traits analysis system and a combination of these methods.
While choosing a method, HR managers need to consider time, cost and human efforts included
in conducting the process.

4.1.4 Practical Problems with Job Analysis

No process can be entirely accurate and fully serves the purpose. Job analysis is no exception to
it. The process involves a variety of methods, tools, plans and a lot of human effort. And where
there people are involved, nothing can be 100 per cent accurate. However, they may be appropriate
considering various factors including library requirements, time, effort and financial resources.
Since the entire job analysis processes, methods and tools are designed by humans only, they
tend to have practical issues associated with them. Human brain suffers with some limitations,
therefore, everything created, designed or developed by humans too have some or other
constraints.
Coming back to the subject, even the process of job analysis have lot of practical problems
associated with it. Though the process can be effective, appropriate, practical, efficient and
focused but it can be costly, time consuming and disruptive for employees at the same time. It is
because there are some typical problems that are encountered by a job analyst while carrying
out the process. Let’s discuss them and understand how the process of job analysis can be made
more effective by treating them carefully.

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