Notes

Job Analysis: Process of studying jobs to gather , analyse , synthesize and report information about the job responsibilities and requirements and the conditions under which the work is performed.

Job analysis was initially conducted to improve the efficiency of workers. The first job analyst was Frederick Taylor, known as the father of the scientific management. Taylor studied work by breaking it down into its smallest identifiable components to determine the one best way to perform each component and then compiled work into larger duties and, finally, jobs.
Before the turn of the 20th century, most work was done on family farms or by skilled craftspeople who had learned their trades while in lengthy apprenticeships. It was not until the Industrial Revolution in the early 1900s that the manufacturing factories were created. The skilled craftspeople of yesteryear made their own decisions about how the job was to be performed. Scientific management removed much of this autonomy and converted skilled crafts into a series of simplified jobs that could be performed by unskilled workers who easily could be trained for the tasks.
Scientific management methods called for optimizing the way tasks were performed and simplifying jobs so workers could be trained to perform their specialized sequence of motions in the one best way. To scientifically determine the optimal way to perform a job, Taylor performed time studies (also known as time and motion studies) using a stopwatch to time a worker's sequence of motions with the goal of determining the one best way to perform a job.
Taylor was the first management consultant to systematically study work as it was performed. While his expressed purpose was to improve productivity, without his detailed methods of observing and evaluating work, we would have no foundation on which to conduct job analyses.

The Hawthorne Studies conducted between 1927 and 1932 at Western Electric followed closely on the heels of the scientific management movement. Work context was an important element in determining the best method to perform job duties, so the Hawthorne Studies focused on varying elements in the work environment to determine the effect on worker productivity. The researchers soon discovered that the social context of work played a much larger role in worker output and attitude than they had expected.
The Hawthorne Studies advanced the understanding of jobs by including the interpersonal elements of the work context. The studies found that it was not sufficient to simply study tasks and duties that workers perform. A job requires the worker to interact with others, and this must be considered during a job analysis.
Jobs must be considered in the larger context of social relationships rather than as stand-alone entities. To truly understand how work gets done, the job analyst must take into account who the worker interacts with, how much interdependence there is among workers and other social aspects of the job.