How to Conduct a Job Analysis in 9 Steps and Avoid Common Challenges

Gallup research finds that 45% of young employees don’t know what’s expected of them at work. They lack a connection with their role, and their productivity falls short because they don’t fully understand what their job entails or what great performance looks like. This problem compounds when managers also have no idea what the roles under their command should be doing.

A job analysis is the starting point for setting clear expectations and aligning each role in your organizational chart with the company’s overarching goals. This process also creates the foundation for core HR activities such as recruitment, performance appraisals, and workforce planning.

Our nine-step guide explains how to conduct a job analysis, including the process, data collection methods, tools, and updating an existing job description. We also discuss the most common challenges HR teams face when conducting a job analysis and how to avoid them.

Step 1: Conduct initial planning

Begin with some simple preparation steps, the most important of which is understanding why you’re committing to conducting a job analysis of the roles in your organizational chart. Some ideas include:

• Developing detailed job descriptions that you might use in talent acquisition or promotion decisions
• Enhancing your performance evaluations by clarifying whether your employees meet the expectations of their role
• Establishing training needs by measuring any gaps between the skills, competencies, and experience your current employees have compared to the requirements of the role

Once you’re clear on the purpose of conducting a job analysis, gain buy-in from senior management and relevant stakeholders to ensure your initiative aligns with the organization’s broader objectives. It’s worth assembling a diverse team of HR professionals, managers, and employees to encourage support and lend credibility to your project.

Step 2: Select jobs to analyze

Determine the breadth of your job analysis—for example, will you assess all job titles in your organization or focus closely on a specific department, seniority level, or business area?

The number of roles in your organization and your available resources will likely influence the scope of your analysis. Small businesses may plan to analyze every role. In contrast, large employers with distributed teams and global hiring needs will likely need to be more selective—at least initially.

Step 3: Gather background information

Each role in your organization, whether old or new, exists for a reason. At this stage, learn everything you can about the background of a particular position. This step should include:

Reviewing existing documents

Collect current job descriptions, organizational charts, and previous job analyses. You’ll want to understand:

1. The chain of command
2. The skills required to perform the specific job
3. How the role has evolved over time

Note any existing gaps. For example, the role of Communications Coordinator may now be responsible for social media management, which wasn’t included in the previous job analysis.

Consult subject matter experts

Human Resource professionals aren’t expected to know the granular details of each role in the company as well as the specialists who work in these business functions every day.

Source the information you need by speaking with supervisors and job holders to better understand the requirements and responsibilities of the role.

Step 4: Choose data collection methods

There are numerous ways to collect detailed information about every job. Use the list below to choose an appropriate job analysis method based on the roles you’re analyzing and your available resources. Some options include:

Surveys and questionnaires

Surveys and questionnaires efficiently gather large volumes of information about several roles within an organization. You’ll design a standardized form and collect responses from current employees about their specific tasks, responsibilities, skills, and working conditions. Here’s what you need to consider:

• Scalability: You can distribute surveys to many employees simultaneously, which is ideal for enterprise organizations
• Question design: Poorly crafted questions may not provide all the details you require
• Scope: Some responses may be limited, making it difficult to capture the nuances of more complex roles; for this reason, surveys are useful in combination with another method

Interviews

Interviews go deeper than a survey. They’re an opportunity to interact directly with your current employees and their supervisors to discuss the reality of working in a specific position. Here are some points to consider:

• Versatility: Interviews allow you to adapt questions or ask follow-ups during the interview to probe deeper and gain a more detailed understanding of a role
• Personal interaction: Building rapport with employees encourages open dialog to get those honest responses your job analysis needs
• Time commitment: Depending on the size of your organization, interviews may be unrealistic

Observation

Collecting data from observation tasks relies on HR professionals or other job analysts watching employees as they perform their regular work. The aim is to understand the physical aspects of the job, such as the work environment, workflow, and interactions between team members.

For example, you might observe customer service staff handle frontline interactions to better understand the required skills and stress risk. Some points to consider are:

• First-hand experience: This method reduces reliance on employees to self-report their tasks
• Behavior changes: The act of being observed may cause employees to alter their typical way of working.
• Time commitment: Similar to interviews, observations are incredibly resource-heavy, especially for complex or non-repetitive jobs

Work diaries and logs

This method requires employees to maintain a record of their daily tasks, including what they accomplished and the time they spent on each. For example, you might ask software engineers to log how long they spend on coding, debugging, and collaboration tasks. Consider the following points:

• Level of detail: Diaries capture tasks that occur less frequently but are still critical
• Data quality: Accuracy depends on how well your employees maintain their respective logs—this may vary from person to person
• Employee reflection: Logging the data encourages employees to think critically about their daily activities and potentially improve their time management

Step 5: Develop data collection instruments and start collecting data

Once you’ve chosen one or more data collection methods, design an instrument to ensure you extract the precise analysis you need. Do this by:

Creating structured questionnaires and surveys

Your survey should give respondents the chance to provide plenty of detail about every aspect of their role. You might ask questions such as:

• What are your primary tasks and responsibilities?
• What specific skills and qualifications do you use in your role?
• How has your role evolved over time, and what new responsibilities have you taken on?
• Describe the physical or environmental conditions under which you work.

Preparing interview guides

An interview guide goes beyond prompts or questions to ensure the conversation between the employee and superior flows well. It provides the intel you need to meet your job analysis goals. As a best practice, always tailor the interview to the specific role you’re assessing.
However, some standardized questions could include:

• Can you describe a typical day in your job? What tasks do you perform most frequently?
• How do you collaborate with other teams or departments?
• What challenges or barriers do you encounter when performing your duties and responsibilities?

Step 6: Analyze and interpret data

Determine how long you’ll run your data collection. If you’re using surveys, questionnaires, or work diaries, set a deadline for their return, for example, a month after distribution. Alternatively, schedule dates for interviews and observations.

• Compile the data: Aggregate information from all sources and determine how you’ll comb through the data—for example, will you plug it into a spreadsheet, use a survey tool to analyze responses, or opt for a manual paper print-out method?
• Identify common themes: Look for recurring tasks, skills, and responsibilities—for example, you may notice that your sales team members all require exceptional communication and interpersonal skills, while your recruitment team members must all be adept at active listening
• Create a skills inventory: For each role, list all the skills and competencies required to perform the job well
• Develop job descriptions: Build out a detailed profile, including essential tasks, skills, and qualifications for each role

Example of an Accounting clerk job analysis

Step 7: Validate findings

Present your draft job descriptions to key stakeholders for feedback and verification. Remember to incorporate the employee and their supervisor in this step to ensure you’ve understood their insights accurately.

Based on their review, incorporate any follow-up information and refine job descriptions when needed. Using the Accounting clerk example above, your incumbent employee may be concerned that they don’t have a bookkeeping diploma yet. Rather than changing the job description, this is an opportunity for a professional development conversation between the employer and their manager.

Step 8: Document and communicate results

Once your job descriptions are final, provide your clear, concise, and accurate findings to all relevant stakeholders, including:

• Senior management
• HR professionals
• Employees

Step 9: Use the job analysis data to update HR systems

Once you’ve completed your company-wide job analysis, encompassing different departments, job types, and levels, you now have fresh, relevant information about every role in your org chart. Maximize the value of this information by using it throughout your people processes, including:

• Recruitment: Update your job postings and use your descriptions as a reference point during interviews to ensure you’re asking candidates the right questions
• Performance management: Provide clear objectives for employees and their managers, incorporating performance improvement areas as required. Then, measure progress against essential tasks and skills
• Employee training: Use your skills inventory to identify current and future training needs, ensuring employees have the knowledge and competencies required to perform their roles effectively
• Career development and succession planning: Commit to career pathing, providing a framework showing employees how to progress from their current position to any other role in the company. Each role will have a job description attached to it so employees understand the expectations associated with each role they wish to move to
• Compensation management: Guide salary and benefit decisions, ensuring employees are fairly compensated based on their roles and responsibilities

How to update an existing job analysis

Conducting a thorough job analysis is far from a one-off task. You’ll need to reevaluate your roles periodically to ensure the information you hold about each remains accurate. Here’s how:

• Schedule regular reviews: Set a cadence for job analysis updates, such as annually or after significant organizational changes (e.g., restructuring, new technology, or role shifts)
• Gather fresh stakeholder input: Revisit employees and supervisors to capture any changes in job duties, required skills, or working conditions since the last analysis—consider using surveys or brief interviews
• Compare role changes to organizational goals: Ensure any evolution in the role aligns with current business objectives, team dynamics, and future workforce needs
• Revise job descriptions and documentation: Update the job descriptions, competency frameworks, and skill inventories to reflect any changes in responsibilities, qualifications, or performance expectations
• Communicate updates and reintegrate into your people processes: Share the revised job descriptions with relevant stakeholders and integrate them into your recruitment strategies, performance management cycles, and career development processes

What challenges might HR face when conducting a common job analysis?

A job analysis is a complex task with many moving parts. As you might expect, HR may encounter several roadblocks, including:

Time and resource constraints

Gathering detailed information and insights from multiple stakeholders can be time-consuming and require many hands, especially if you’re conducting interviews and observations.

Employee resistance

Employees may resist the job analysis process due to fears of increased scrutiny, job security concerns, or misunderstandings about the purpose of the analysis.

Inconsistent data

Obtaining accurate and consistent information across different roles and departments can be challenging, especially when different departments or roles have varying levels of complexity and different documentation methods.

Complexity of roles

Analyzing highly specialized or multifaceted roles may require deep technical knowledge and expertise, which HR professionals may not possess.

Bias and subjectivity

Subjectivity can affect both employees’ responses and HR professionals’ interpretation of data, leading to skewed job analysis outcomes.

Changing job requirements

Job roles can evolve rapidly due to technological advancements, organizational restructuring, or shifts in market demands, making it difficult to keep job descriptions current.

Ensure role transparency and enable performance with Deel Engage

Deel Engage offers a comprehensive suite of tools integral to your next job analysis. Weave the following features into your workflows:

• Career pathing: Generate detailed career frameworks and document job descriptions and expectations for each role in your organization
• Performance management: Gain detailed insights into each role’s performance expectations. Use this information to set and update goals for each individual, team, and department at each performance review
• 1:1 meetings: Host structured meetings with employees or their managers to obtain detailed information about each role
• Anonymous feedback: Give your employees the option to answer certain types of questions anonymously to entice more honest feedback—note, this is likely most useful when you’re analyzing job roles that many people perform, such as customer service agents, where you don’t need to rely on candid feedback from a sole employee
• HRIS: Manage the entire employee lifecycle with Deel HR, our all-in-one global HRIS solution, which is always included for free

Ready to learn the ins and outs of every role in your organization? Book a demo to understand how our solutions will help you build a high-performance workforce.