How to Conduct a Job Analysis and Make a Job Description【Excel Template】
This article is about how to make a job description. Because it’s necessary to know your target position’s job content, you should do a job analysis first. This article will show how to conduct a job analysis and make a job description using an Excel template.
(Duration: 7:45)
DOWNLOAD ← Click this to download the “Job Analysis and Job Description” template file.
＜＜ Related Posts ＞＞
- Job Description and Performance Appraisal, which is an Employee Development PDCA Cycle
- DMAIC: Measure Phase – How to set your project’s KPI (CTQ). 【Benchmark】
The quality of a company depends on the quality of the HR system
Hi, this is Mike Negami, Lean Sigma, Black Belt.
I talked about job descriptions and performance appraisals in my last video. Then, one viewer told me “That’s the responsibility of the HR Department”. That’s true. It’s certainly not our direct responsibility as process improvement experts and we may not even have the authority to do it.
However, even though we have completed a process improvement, it’s the employees who will actually work with the improved process. If they don’t do their work proactively and properly, it will be difficult to gain true success in the improvement and overall optimization will not be achieved.
The strength of employee resources is the foundation of process improvement and the quality of a company depends on the quality of the HR system they have. Therefore, it’s good to do those projects with your HR Department. Today, we’ll learn how to make a job description in the continuation of the previous video.
The easiest method to make job descriptions
First, I’ll introduce the easiest method. In English-speaking countries, there are plenty of templates for many job positions, so you can download and use them after customizing them for your own company.
For example, this web page is the “How to Write a Job Description” page of Indeed.com, a job search site. Scroll down, then you can download almost any positions’ job description template. (See the image below.)
They are all in English, but if you need them in another language, copy the whole text and translate it with Google Translate, then edit it for your company. That’s much easier than making it from scratch. Both links are below, so please try it.
＜＜Download job descriptions from Indeed.com＞＞
＜＜Google Translate＞＞
Conduct a job analysis before making a job description.
This method is very easy and good when you want results quickly, but if you consider it in terms of the company’s strategic level, I recommend that you make it from the beginning and properly, but we can’t do that right away because it’s necessary to know your target position’s job content, so we have to do a job analysis first. This is the template to conduct the job analysis. Here are the instructions to follow. (See the image below.)
Step 1, collect all existing documents about the target position.
In Step 2, we’ll collect information from the target position’s employees. There are a few methods for that. For the writing method, there is the ‘Task Question Form’ (See the image below.) on the next worksheet, print it and ask the employees to fill it out with their answers, or send them this Excel file and have them type their answers on it directly.
The other two methods are the interviewing method and observation method. In any method, it’s better to collect information from multiple people in the same position.
In Step 3, we’ll summarize the collected information by “Task, Importance and Frequency”. ‘Task’ is work that is done on a regular basis to complete the target job duties.
When writing each task, it’s good to write it in the form of “Perform what to whom or what, how and why.” For example, for one of the tasks of a chef in a restaurant, it would be “Ensure safety and sanitation practices in the kitchen by educating staff regularly in order to prevent food contamination and injuries”. (See the image above.) At this point the more detailed the better.
In the Importance column, enter from 1 for ‘Not Important’ to 4 for ‘Very Important’. In the Frequency column, indicate how many hours each task is to be done in a month.
After entering answers in both columns, those answers will be automatically multiplied by each other and the result will appear in the Index column. You can see that the larger the number is in the column, the more important the task is for this position.
In Step 4, that job’s manager or SME’s, subject matter experts, will list up the KSA’s, which is Knowledge, Skill and Ability, that are needed for achieving the job’s duties.
In the ‘KSA Acquiring Period’ column, enter 1 to 4 according to these measurements above whether each item is already needed from the first day of work, or how soon it’s needed to acquire it on the job. The things you need to pay attention to here are tasks, but not to evaluate individual employees.
In the last step, Step 5, consider which KSA each Task needs. (See the image below.) In this table, the numbers on the vertical axis represent each task and the numbers on the Job Analysis and Job Description horizontal axis represent the KSA above, so put 1 in cells where each Task and related KSA’s intersect. Then, index numbers will appear in the Index yellow-highlighted row. The higher index a KSA has, the more important it is for this job.
Make a Job Description.
This is the end of the Job Analysis. Now we’re ready to write a job description. This file includes a job description template. Double-click the Word file icon here to open it.
By reviewing the analysis results above, you can write the position’s ‘Job Summary’, ‘Responsibilities’, ‘Qualification and Skills’, ‘Required Licenses or Experience’, as well as ‘Other Desired Qualities’. If your company has different ‘Benefits’ based on job positions, write the position’s benefits as well.
We spent most of our time on the Job Analysis today. Take this opportunity to conduct this Job Analysis for each job position. You may find many Kaizen points, so please give it a try.
