The Mind Tools Career Excellence Club gives
you the training, coaching and support you need to make a lasting
success of your career. Take our FREE tour, and find out what it can
do for you!
Time
CAN be on your side with "Make Time for Success!"
Discover the 39 essential tools needed to map out your goals,
maximize your effectiveness, and win control of your time
and your life.
With more than 50 important stress
management tools, this Mind Tools course shows you how
to tackle the deep structural problems that cause job
stress.
We have all
experienced that appalling sense of having far too much work
to do and too little time to do it in. We can choose to ignore
this, and work unreasonably long hours to stay on top of our
workload. The risks here are that we become exhausted, that
we have so much to do that we do a poor quality job, and that
we neglect other areas of our life. Each of these can lead to
intense stress.
The alternative
is to work more intelligently, by focusing on the things that
are important for job success and reducing the time we spend
on low priority tasks. Job Analysis is the first step in doing
this.
The first of the action-oriented skills that
we look at is Job Analysis. Job Analysis is a key technique
for managing job overload – an important source of 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 easy to overlook.
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.
Job Analysis is a useful technique for 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.
Note that this tool takes two forms - the
short-form we discuss here assumes that your organization is
already well organized and that its job descriptions, review
criteria and incentives are well-aligned and correct. The long-form
(discussed within the
Stress Management Masterclass), helps you to deal with jobs
where this is not the case – here, inconsistent job design
can cause enormous stress.
How to Use the Tool:
To conduct a job analysis, go through the
following steps:
1. 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 show precisely the behaviors that will be rewarded
and, by implication, show those that will be punished.
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.
2. 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.
3. Find out who the top achievers
are, and 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.
4. Check that you have
the people and resources to do the job:
The next step is to check that you have the
staff support, resources and training needed to do an excellent
job. If you do not, start work on obtaining them.
5. 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.
6. Take Action:
You should now know what you have to do to be successful in
your job. You should have a good idea of the most important
things that you have to do, and also the least important.
Where you can drop the less-important tasks,
do so. Where you can de-prioritize them, do so.
Where you need more resource or training to
do your job, negotiate for this.
Remember to be a little sensitive in the way
you do this: Good teamwork often means helping other people
out with jobs that do not benefit you. However, do not let people
take advantage of you: Be assertive in explaining that you have
your own work to do. If you cannot drop tasks, delegate them
or negotiate longer time scales.
Summary:
Job analysis is a five-step technique for:
Understanding and agreeing how to achieve
peak performance in your job;
Ensuring 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
Making 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.
This helps you to manage the stress of job
overload by helping to decide which jobs you should drop.
Job Analysis is just one of many practical
action-oriented techniques for reducing the stress of job overload.
These and other types of technique help you to resolve structural
problems within jobs, work more effectively with your boss and
powerful people, improve the way your teams function and become
more assertive so that other people respect your right not to
take on an excessive workload. These are all important techniques
for bringing job stress under control, for improving the quality
of your working life, and for achieving career success.
The next article shows you how to manage the
stress you'll feel before an important performance. To read
this, click 'Next article' below. Other relevant destinations
are shown in the "Where to go from here" list underneath.
Warning:
Stress can cause severe health problems and, in extreme cases,
can cause death. While these stress management techniques have
been shown to have a positive effect on reducing stress, they
are for guidance only, and readers should take the advice of
suitably qualified health professionals if they have any concerns
over stress-related illnesses or if stress is causing significant
or persistent unhappiness. Health professionals should also
be consulted before any major change in diet or levels of exercise.
We welcome appropriate reprinting and reuse of Mind Tools material,
however, you must
get our permission first!
To do this, please visit our Permissions Center.
MindTools.com is one of the Internet's most-visited career skills resources. Click here to see analysis.
Mind Tools
Free eNewsletter
New Career Skills - twice a month PLUS Stress Busters Workbook Free!
Subscribe to our free e-newsletter, and get
new skill-builder tools every two weeks. Plus get our Stress Busters Workbook worth US$9.99 free when you subscribe!
"Great
newsletter. Simple and not too long. Great articles. Thank you."
Mandi J Luis, Burlington, Ontario, Canada
What People Say
About Mind Tools...
"All
I can say is WOW! This is one of the best managerial tool sites
I have encountered. It is nice to find pertinent material in
such volumes, and that is SO EASY to read and understand."
Marianne Darden,
RN, MSN, MS,
CNOR, CNA, CLNC
"Of
all the sites that I have visited on the net, this is the most
exciting and useful so far. I am so happy that I discovered
it. Keep up the very beautiful work that you are doing."
Caleb Muchungu,
Malawi
"I
have used many of your ebooks and downloads for the past couple
of years and continue to gain great insight into helping me
develop my own as well as other peoples skills... My most sincere
thanks to you and your team for helping me reach my true potential."
Time
Management
