Abstract

The purposes of this chapter are to describe and summarize the current state of the art with respect to work analysis as it applies to employee or personnel selection and to suggest expansions of such applications in light of emerging and anticipated changes in the world of work. We use the term “work analysis” broadly to refer to any systematic process for gathering, documenting, and analyzing information about (a) the content of the work performed by people in organizations (e.g., tasks, responsibilities, or work outputs), (b) the worker attributes related to its performance (often referred to as knowledge, skills, abilities, and other personal characteristics, or KSAOs), or (c) the context in which work is performed (including physical and psychological conditions in the immediate work environment and the broader organizational and external environment). Other terms, such as “job analysis,” “occupational analysis,” and “job specification” are often used, sometimes interchangeably and with somewhat varying definitions in different contexts, to refer to one or more of these activities. Our use of “work analysis” reflects our preference for a broader term that does not connote a focus on any particular aspect or unit of analysis in the study of work.