Only one in two employees strongly agree they know what's expected of them at work. That's right. Half of your workers lack clarity on the ins and outs of their own job position.

And if they don't even understand their individual responsibilities, how on earth are they supposed to know what their teammates are up to? They won't know who to ask for guidance, who to escalate an issue to, or who gets the final say on a decision.

A job analysis provides the details in black and white so all your employees know the expectations of each role in your org chart.

Along with being the first step in crafting detailed job descriptions (which is super useful for recruitment candidates, too), the job analysis process also supports your development processes by showing employees how they can progress in their careers.

This guide describes the steps involved in using a job analysis to gain crystal clear clarity on what everyone's supposed to be doing round here.

TL;DR - Key Takeaways

What is a job analysis?

A job analysis is the process of creating a detailed description of a specific role's responsibilities, tasks, compensation, required qualifications, working conditions, and relationship to other roles.

This systematic process encompasses everything from gathering information about the role to documenting and presenting it to stakeholders.

Through performing job analyses, you establish the components of a role, which helps internally with employee career development and externally with crafting accurate job descriptions that attract suitable candidates.

The goal of a job analysis is to explain exactly what a role entails. For example, instead of telling an entry-level marketing team member they're "responsible for social media," a job analysis could clarify that they should "post on LinkedIn and Bluesky social media platforms twice a week."

Job description vs. job analysis: What's the difference?

A job description is the result of the job analysis -- they're not the same thing; one follows the other. The job description paints a full picture of a job opportunity, including:

But to get to this point, your job analysis is the process of gathering all the information you need to create a summary of the role's tasks and subtasks. The findings from this analysis are included in the job description as its core responsibilities.

You might have heard of a similar concept called a competency model. To avoid any confusion, a competency model breaks down how a person performs a role. In other words, all the skills, knowledge, capabilities, and experience someone needs to succeed in a particular role.

Example job analysis for a junior marketer

Tweak this job analysis template to suit your own process:

Position summary: The Junior Marketer supports the marketing team by executing digital and traditional marketing strategies. This role focuses on content creation, social media management, campaign support, and data tracking to enhance brand awareness and drive customer engagement.

Key responsibilities

Skills and qualifications

Working conditions

Performance evaluation criteria

Why should you use job analysis?

HR teams are busy. They have a lot of spinning plates, and job analysis is yet another process to commit to and invest resources in. But trust us, it's worth it. Why?

The core benefits include:

HR professionals can use job analysis data in many different ways, including:

6 core job analysis methods

There are a variety of ways you can perform a thorough job analysis. Choose which one (or a combo) would best suit the particular role you're analyzing.

The journey begins with the insights gleaned from job analysis data. So, let's see how to get started with the data collection process.

#1. Establish the purpose

Kick-off by determining why you want to perform your job evaluation. For example, is it to improve the quality of job applicants you receive by clarifying your job ad role descriptions?

Or perhaps it's to improve your performance management process to provide more clarity about the necessary skills and training needs for each position. There's no right or wrong here. It's about choosing a purpose that aligns with your particular organization.

#2. Choose the method of job analysis

Decide which method, or a combo of methods, best suits your work environment and role responsibilities. For example, if you need to get data from a busy executive, you could use a questionnaire.

#3. Collect data

Appoint a job analyst (or an entire team) to gather all the information you can about the job you're assessing. The more sources you use, such as job descriptions, subject matter experts, employee growth plans, observations, and industry best practices, the more context you have for your analysis, and the more impactful it'll be.

#4. Analyze the data

Next, analyze the data you've collected. How you do this depends on volume. For example, if you're conducting a job analysis process in a small business, a simple Excel spreadsheet might be enough. But if you quickly outgrow the grids, you might prefer to use a dedicated human resources management platform with built-in analytics to make sense of the data.

Whatever approach you use, the aim is to distinguish which job tasks or responsibilities are essential and which detract from the role's key outputs or goals.

For example, a social media manager has started transcribing customer interviews in addition to their main duties. You discover the transcribing task takes a lot of their time and doesn't contribute to improving social media metrics, so you red-flag it.

#5. Verify your findings

When you've completed the job analysis and analyzed the data, then you'll need to verify your findings. As a best practice, discuss them with the current employee in the role, a supervisor, and a hiring manager. You could also compare the findings to competitors' job ads for further confirmation.

#6. Set out the role responsibilities and job tasks

From the info you've verified, you'll now have what you need to put together a detailed breakdown of the role's essential duties.

Use your job analysis data to get a clear picture of the role and start to see what candidates or employees need to perform the duties successfully. You'll have all the knowledge requirements to create accurate job descriptions that reflect the physical demands, day-to-day tasks, professional and legal guidelines, and any other details that apply to the role.

#7. Identify skills gaps

You can now determine if there are any skill gaps with the employees in that role by comparing the job tasks list with what they're actually doing and the quality of their work.

Some of these gaps may be caused by a lack of knowledge or experience, but they can also be caused by the rapid pace of technological changes (ahem, Chat-GPT 4o, anyone?).

It's important to identify skill gaps during the job analysis process, such as a lack of knowledge or need for advanced training.

Now you should have all the pieces you need to develop a job description that is:

When you're creating job descriptions based on your job analysis, also ensure the copy is clear and concise and shows off your company culture.

The whole point of conducting a job analysis, besides creating a detailed job description, is to continually streamline and evolve the position with industry changes and organizational growth. Once you have conducted an in-depth evaluation of the job duties and identified skills gaps, remember that your efforts will only stay relevant for a couple of years or so.

Identify skill gaps fast with online skills tests

Performing a job analysis may sound like a major time suck. But, when done right, your team can actually save heaps of time in the overall hiring, employee selection, and onboarding process. Not to mention, you'll ensure current employees are no longer in the dark about what's expected of them. And that's pretty darn important.

Skills testing complements the job analysis process perfectly by ensuring your employees and job seekers have the required skills to perform well in their respective roles.

Toggl Hire offers an all-in-one skills assessment platform with 150+ ready-made templates available to test 180+ skills. The whole process is automated, saving your team loads of time. You can create customized skills tests in two clicks and make them role-specific (with valid questions sourced from SMEs!)