Uses of information[edit]
Recruitment and selection: Job analysis provides information about what the job entails and what human characteristics are required in order to perform these activities. This information, in the form of job descriptions and specifications, helps management officials decide what sort of people they need to recruit and hire and select.
Compensation: Job analysis information is crucial for estimating the value of each job and its appropriate compensation. Compensation (salary and bonus) usually depends on the job's required skill and education level, safety hazards, degree of responsibility, etc. -- all factors which can be assessed through job analysis. Also, many employers group jobs into classes. Job analysis provides the information to determine the relative worth of each job and its appropriate class.
Performance appraisal: A performance appraisal compares each employee's actual performance with his or her performance standards. Managers use job analysis to determine the job's specific activities and performance standards.
Training: The job description should show the activities and skills, and therefore training, that the job requires
Discovering unassigned duties: Job Analysis can also help reveal unassigned duties. For example, a company's production manager says an employee is responsible for ten duties, such as production scheduling and raw material purchasing. Missing, however, is any reference to managing raw material inventories. On further study, it is revealed that none of the other manufacturing employees are responsible for inventory management, either. From review of other jobs like these, it is clear that someone should be managing raw material inventories. Therefore, an essential unassigned duty has been revealed.
EEO compliance: Job analysis plays a large role in EEO compliance. United States Federal Agencies' Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection stipulate that job analysis is a necessary step in validating all major personnel activities. For example, employers must be able to show that their selection criteria and job performance are actually related. Doing this requires knowing what the job entails, which in turn requires job analysis.[18]
Additional purposes: In addition to the 6 purposes above, Ash and Levine[19] listed determining KSAOs needed for promotion, determining workplace hazards to make jobs safer, job classification, job description, designing the content of jobs, and strategic human resource planning.