[IPAC-List] Dealing with a progression of jobs in a job analysis

[Mark Hammer]

I'm going to suggest that the emphasis would depend, to some extent on the rate and likelihood of progression, and whatever succession challenges the organization faces.  

So, if a larger proportion of people at level 1 tend to move to higher levels within a reasonably short period, and the organization's principal feeder group for those upper level positions is necessarily the lower groups, then more emphasis would be placed on what lies in common between upper level and lower-level positions (though not to the exclusion of what is critical to the lower level positions).  If progression is slow, infrequent, and you can fill the upper-level positions from outside, then it strikes me that one's principal focus is on the job at hand.

There are obviously variants in between those two ends of the spectrum.  Perhaps people quite regularly move from 1 to 2 in a relatively short period but very few move to 3 and tend to only do so after a number of years.

Mark Hammer
Ottawa