SDA PSYCHOMETRIC TOOLBOX

Job Role Assessment (JRA)

The Job Role Assessment (JRA) measures the perception of an individual to a specific position. This tool assists organizations reach a consensus in identifying the right behavior necessary for a role.

The process starts by forming a commission of 3 to 5 members (not the incumbent) —executives, managers, supervisors, colleagues—who have intimate knowledge and understanding of a job role’s requirements. The JRA will then be administered to the individual, from which a combined picture story of the behavioral profile is created. The commission discusses the strengths and weaknesses based on this profile. Once satisfied they sign off on the profile, which will be used as the basis of hiring or succession planning.

Job Role Assessment (JRA) provides a word picture of a potential employee in the same way that Personality Profile Report (PPR) describes a living person; a tailor-made job advertisement may then be used to attract ideal candidates.

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MEASURING PERCEPTIONS

Every job function places particular demands upon those who perform it. Certain human types will perform certain job functions better than others. Therefore, a method of identifying the primary behavioural requirements of a task will help in the selection of human types appropriate for that task, i.e., someone who will “fit-in” from the start, so that new work colleagues will feel comfortable with the subject, and he or she with them.

CONSTRUCTION

Job Role Assessment (JRA), like Personality Profile Report (PPR), is a forced choice questionnaire made up of ninety-six multiple-choice statements or requirements in groups of four. This ensures a manager focuses on the job to be done and the human characteristics that are likely to bring success, not the qualifications and or experience necessary. Unlike Personality Profile Report (PPR), there is no time limit for the completion of this questionnaire. It must be completed in isolation, at one sitting, in the work place or office (not at home, for instance).

APPLICATION

Those who know and have responsibility for the contribution the job function makes to the end result sought, must complete a Job Role Assessment (JRA) that is; charge hands, supervisors, line managers, divisional heads, etc. Involving several such people in the creation of a Job Role Assessment (JRA) produces better results and reduces personal bias. Such a group are referred to as the “commissioners of the job”.

One of Job Role Assessment (JRA)’s major strengths, as an aid in recruitment, is in making the commissioners of the job consider carefully the persona of the individual who is most likely to succeed in a given job function.

This process must never be used in isolation but always as an adjunct to, at least, a job description.

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