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Job Analysis: Do You Know What You’re Doing?
Being able to handle stress is perhaps the most basic of job expectations; it is at the core of not just doing good work but doing work, period. So among the corporate elite, succumbing to it is considered a shameful weakness.
“I hear a lot of people saying ‘it’s tough.’ But executives don’t use the ‘s’ word.”“In corporate America, especially, people often rise to the top by learning how to overcome stress.” Cora Daniels, The Last Taboo, Fortune Magazine: Volume 146, Issue 8, 28 October 2002.
A lot of us have seen that TV commercial about how stress can add years to the way you look. Or how not enough vitamins can zap the life out of you. The humor of the situation somehow masks the truth and reality of how stress at work can affect our overall being.
When speaking of such stress, we usually think of it as being overworked. What most of us do not see is that NOT having a grasp of our job functions also leads to stress.
To do an excellent job, you need to fully understand what is expected of you. While this may seem obvious, in the hurly-burly of a new, fast-moving, high-pressure role, it is oftentimes something that is overlooked. Precious time and energy (yours and/or others’) are wasted in activities that are not contributory to the overall objective.
By understanding the priorities in your job, and what constitutes success within it, you can focus on these activities and minimize work on other tasks as much as possible. This helps you get the greatest return from the work you do, and keep your workload under control.
We can employ a useful technique called Job Analysis, in understanding the reality of our jobs. JA is a pretty handy in getting a firm grip on what really is important in your job so that you are able to perform excellently. It helps you to cut through clutter and distraction to get to the heart of what you need to do.
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Looking at a few writings on the topic, the following steps were gathered:
Review formal job documentation:
Look at your job description. Identify the key objectives and priorities within it. Look at the forms for the periodic performance reviews. These often show precisely the behaviors that will be rewarded and, by implication, show those that are not respected.
Find out what training is available for the role. Ensure that you attend appropriate training so that you know as much as possible about what you need to know. Look at incentive schemes to understand the behaviors that these reward.
Understand the organization’s strategy and culture:
Your job exists for a reason – this will ultimately be determined by the strategy of the organizational unit you work for. This strategy is often expressed in a mission statement. In some way, what you do should help the organization achieve its mission (if it does not, you have to ask yourself how secure the job is!) Make sure you understand and perform well the tasks that contribute to the strategy.
Similarly, every organization has its own culture – its own, historically developed values, rights and wrongs, and things that it considers to be important. If you are new to an organization, talk through with established, respected members of staff to understand these values.
Make sure that you understand this culture. Make sure that your actions reinforce the company’s culture, or at least do not go against it. Looked at through the lens of culture, will the company value what you do?
Check that your priorities are consistent with this mission statement and the company culture.
Find out who the top achievers are. Make sure you understand why they are successful:
Inside or outside the organization, there may be people in a similar role to you who are seen as highly successful. Find out how they work, and what they do to generate this success. Look at what they do, and learn from them. Understand what skills make them successful, and learn those skills.
Check that you have the people and resources to do the job:
The next step is to check that you have resources and training needed to do an excellent job. If you do not, start work on obtaining them. Read up or take seminars or classes. Too often, some of us rely on bluffing their way around. Remember what Abraham Lincoln said: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you CAN NOT fool all of the people all of the time.” If you bluff all the time, you will eventually be found out and you can chuck your integrity out of the window. Not all people are dumb as the people who bluff their way around.
Check that you have the staff support but be wary of relying too much on them. Yes, you can get your staff to do the work but do you know if they are doing the right thing? Make sure you know how to do it as well. Accountability is a big factor in leadership.
Confirm priorities with your boss:
By this stage, you should have a thorough understanding of what your job entails, and what your key objectives are. You should also have a good idea of the resources that you need, and any additional training you may need to do the best you can.
This is the time to talk the job through with your boss, and confirm that you share an understanding of what constitutes good performance in the role.
It is also worth talking through serious inconsistencies, and agreeing how these can be managed or corrected.
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In a nutshell, Job Analysis will help you:
understand and come to an agreement on how to achieve peak performance in your job;
ensure that you and your boss agree on the areas you should concentrate on when time gets tight and the areas that can be de-emphasized during this time; and, make sure that you have the resources, training and staff needed to do a good job.
By using the Job Analysis technique, you should gain a good understanding of how you can excel at your job. You should also understand your job priorities. Job Analysis is also a crucial step for Time Management. But, that’s another story.
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