Dear Workforce
i Dear Workforce-i How Do We Perform SWOT Analysis For Job Descriptions
A:
Dear Swatting:
A SWOT analysis (analysis of an internal environment’s strengths andweaknesses, and an external environment’s opportunities and threats) of jobsstarts with examining the linkage between the jobs and these two environments,and what your department must deliver as results.
For example, if your department is required to deliver high-qualityrepetitive tasks, this would require competencies related to attention to detailand motivation by performance of small tasks. On the other hand, if yourdepartment is responsible for designing a major component of the engine for thespace shuttle, this would require competencies related to analysis andinnovation.
By first linking the departmental results to job competencies, you can thenanalyze the job descriptions to determine if they contain competencies thatsupport departmental outcomes, or if there are competencies missing that arecritical to delivering results.
Opportunities and threats can be viewed in several ways. One way is to thinkof opportunities as ways you can use skilled people from other departments, orjob families in the same department, to bolster a lack of competence in aspecific job. The same may be true in looking at threats, in that even thoughpeople in the department have the requisite competence, they could beoverburdened with work, or they could be asked by other departments to fill inat critical times and not be available when needed.
Another way of looking at opportunities and threats is in relation toexperiences needed to develop competence. You may have enough people today thatare competent, but if there are not development opportunities for junior people,a threat to the department may be a lack of skilled workers in the future. Anopportunity would be the ability to give people cross-training by assigning themto projects with those who possess those competencies.
SOURCE: James Warner, Ph.D., director of the Strategic Performance Modelingpractice, Personnel DecisionsInternational, Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 12,2002.
LEARN MORE: See "An Organizational Myth: Three Managers and A a WorkPlan"
The information contained in this article is intended to provide usefulinformation on the topic covered, but should not be construed as legal advice ora legal opinion. Also remember that state laws may differ from the federal law.
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