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OCR for page 93
Organization of the
Occupational Analysis
Program of the
U.S. Employment Service
INTRODUCTION
The Dictionary of Occupational Titles is produced by the Division of
Occupational Analysis of the U.S. Employment Service, in Washington,
D.C., in conjunction with 11 field centers located around the country. Job
analysts working in the field centers collect the bulk of the data on which
the DOT iS based by visiting business establishments, observing workers in
jobs, and recording and scaling the information observed. There are
currently 129 professional and support positions in the field centers and 15
in the national office. It is estimated that production of the DOT occupies
approximately 80 percent of total stab time (Booz, Allen & Hamilton,
Inc., 1979: Vol. 1:I-2~. In the 13 years preceding the publication of the
fourth edition DOT, job analysts in the field centers produced more than
75,000 job analysis schedules for use in preparing the 12,099 occupational
definitions included in the fourth edition. ~
In addition to the actual production of the DOT the Division of
Occupational Analysis is responsible for several other tasks: conducting
training in the use of the DOT, providing technical assistance to parties
While the fourth edition DOT (1977) states that 75,000 job analysis schedules were used in
compiling the DOT, Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Inc. (1979: Exhibit IV-5) reports that 53,000
were used.
93
OCR for page 94
94
WORK, JOBS, AND OCCUPATIONS
interested in conducting job analyses, and conducting research and other
development projects aimed at improving the job analysis and clas-
sification techniques used in the DOT. The division also produces two types
of self-help informational guides. Career guides and brochures are
designed to provide workers and labor market entrants with information
about specific occupations. Job search materials are designed to aid
workers in using the resources of local Employment Service offices to find
jobs on their own (see Appendix D for a list of the publications of the
division). In 1976 the division was assigned the responsibility for updating
keywords, the descriptors being used by the Employment Service to
develop automated procedures for matching workers and jobs.
The division's Occupational Analysis Branch, which is responsible for
producing the DOT, uses the decentralized framework of the Employment
Service in the funding and operation of its 11 field centers. By means of
contracts with the Employment Service agencies of the 11 states in which
the field centers are located, the Division of Occupational Analysis
provides funding and technical direction to the field centers for the express
purpose of collecting the data used in the DOT and carrying out other
functions of the Occupational Analysis Branch. The state Employment
Service agencies administer the funds and staff the field centers.
The Job Search Branch, the division's only other branch, has little
connection with the Occupational Analysis Branch and its associated field
centers. The Job Search Branch bases its materials related to job search
techniques on information that is generated by the ongoing operation of
the Employment Service rather than that generated in the course of
producing the DOT. It was formally incorporated into the Division of
Occupational Analysis in 1976 when its previous parent organization, the
Division of Labor Market Information, was moved out of the Employment
Service and into another division of the Employment and Training
Administration (the Office of Policy Evaluation and Research).
The Division of Occupational Analysis, including its field operations, is
the subject of a recent report by Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Inc. (1979~. The
report focuses on the management and operations of the occupational
analysis program and includes consideration of cost effectiveness, produc-
tivity, and administration. The reader is referred to that report for more
detail on those aspects of the occupational analysis program. In introduc-
ing the report, Booz, Allen & Hamilton notes that the Division of
Occupational Analysis has had administrative difficulties for some time.
The division had five directors or acting directors in the 3-year period from
1975 to 1978, and the production of the fourth edition DOT suffered much
delay, requiring 13 years and substantial intervention by the division's
parent office, the Office of Technical Support. Moreover, the staff of the
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Organization of the Occupational Analysis Program
95
division's national office has declined from 33 in 1966, all of whom worked
on DoT-related activities, to 15 in 1978, 4.5 of whom are in the Job Search
Branch and have no connection with the production of the DOT (Booz,
Allen & Hamilton, Inc., 1979:1-2, V-9~. Thus the national office has only
10.5 staff positions authorized for its Occupational Analysis Branch, only
7.5 of which are professional positions, to oversee and direct the operations
of 11 field centers, to produce and update a complex document, and to
conduct needed research and other related activities.
This chapter reviews the organization and activities of the two units of
the Division of Occupational Analysis, the Occupational Analysis Branch
and the Job Search Branch, and of the 11 occupational analysis field
centers. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications of the
organization of the program for the production of the DOT.
THE OCCUPATIONAL ANALYSIS BRANCH
The functions of the Occupational Analysis Branch are focally defined
(U.S. Department of Labor, 1976b); it (1) plans and develops systems for
the collection, evaluation, and utilization of occupational analysis data on
a local, state, and national basis, (2) prepares, maintains and disseminates
current occupational analysis materials such as the Dictionary of Occupa-
tional Titles, occupational classification systems and techniques, job
analysis techniques, and occupational brochures, (3) coordinates a
network of field centers that conduct research and demonstrations of
research results and provides training and technical assistance in occupa-
tional analysis, (4) provides technical assistance to state Employment
Service agencies on occupational analysis matters such as experimental
and demonstration projects concerned with the application and use of
occupational analysis techniques, (5) plans and conducts occupational
analysis studies for determining skill criticality and for developing basic
occupational data to assist in alleviating employment problems in such
critical areas as health and environmental control personnel, and (6)
provides technical advice and assistance to other countries and other
government agencies on occupational analysis.
As the Booz, Allen & Hamilton report notes, this group of statements
does not clearly convey the overriding importance of the Dictionary of
Occupational Titles in the functioning of the Occupational Analysis
Branch. The data collection performed by the field centers, which requires
the vast preponderance of their resources, is not even mentioned. Booz,
Allen & Hamilton also notes that the statements fail to relate the activity
of the Division of Occupational Analysis to the principal mission of the
U.S. Employment Service, which is to help workers find jobs. In our
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WORK, JOBS, AND OCCUPATIONS
judgment, while the lack of clear statements of mission and functions may
have some importance for the program difficulties that have occurred in
recent years, probably more important is the gradual diminution of the
national office staff (both cause and symptom of low morale), the turnover
in the directorship (again, both cause and symptom of low morale), and
the cumbersome administrative arrangement between the national office
and the 11 field centers.
The division's national office is charged with the responsibility of
directing the technical aspects of the work of 11 field centers, each of
which is administratively responsible to its parent state agency and subject
to its regulations. As represented in Figure 5-1, the formal chain of
command between the national office staff and the field centers is very
indirect: from the Occupational Analysis Branch of the Division of
Occupational Analysis through the Office of Technical Support to the U.S.
Employment Service, then to the Office of Field Operations of the
Employment and Training Administration, down through its regional
offices and area operational offices, to the state Employment Service
agency, usually through its technical services group, and finally to the
occupational analysis field center.
The technical oversight function of the national office has many aspects.
First, the national office assigns the particular industries to be covered by
each field center (see chapter 6~. Second, the national office provides
guidelines, directives, and manuals to the staff of the 11 field centers to
facilitate the basic data collection. It is important that the procedures used
in each field center be identical, since the data are collated to form the
basis of one product, the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. The national
office also is responsible for such related activities as promulgating
standards of quality control, conducting research to improve methods of
data collection, updating the methodology used by the field center staff in
their data collection work (e.g., the Handbook for Analyzing Jobs), and
preparing guidelines for the production of the occupational definitions that
are the basis of the DOT (e.g., the Definition Writer's Handbook).
In addition to oversight of field center activities the national office also
plans the actual production of the DOT document, oversees its execution,
plans for its distribution, and trains various constituencies in its use. The
Occupational Analysis Branch is also responsible for the production of
career guides and brochures that are based on information collected in the
process of DOT production and for updating and maintaining the keyword
descriptors.
The Occupational Analysis Branch, with only 10.5 staff positions,
necessarily delegates much of its work to the field centers. For example,
the New York field center has been delegated the lead authority in a new
OCR for page 97
Organization of the Occupational Analysis Program
l Department of Labor 1
Employment and Training
Administration (ETA)
'---1- - 1
Office of Field Operations
97
U.S. Employment Service ~
~ Office of Technical Support |
I L Division of Occupational Analysis |
| Eight ETA Regional Offices
Office of Program and Technical Services ~/
Area Operations Offices
State EmploymentSecurity Agencies
Employment Service
l
· . _ ~
r - I I i
I Technical Services Group I
I /
~ Occupational Analysis Field Center ~
I
FIGURE 5-1 Organizational structure of the occupational analysis program. Source: Booz,
Allen & Hamilton, Inc. (1979: Exhibits II-1 and III-5).
revision of the Handbook for Analyzing Jobs, the manual used by field staff
-as a guide to data collection procedures. Field center stab participate in the
preparation of career guides and serve on various committees having to do
with keywords. Although the national once delegates tasks to field
centers, it does not appear to have succeeded in establishing effective
control over the activities of the field centers. Our visits to the field centers
indicate that there has been substantial confusion among the staff as to
their role since the publication of the fourth edition DOT. The development
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WORK, JOBS, AND OCCUPATIONS
of keywords and the fact that the Division of Occupational Analysis has
been the object of study (both by Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Inc. and by this
committee) appear to have created uncertainty within the field centers as
to the usefulness of continuing with job analysis activities for production of
a fifth edition. While some centers are continuing with the basic data
collection as usual, others are not. Although some field centers are
involved in other activities under the direction of the national office (for
example, the new revision of the Handbook for Analyzing Jobs-), it appears
that on the whole the national office is not effectively directing the
activities of the field centers.
Our visit to the North Carolina center, in particular, confirmed the lack
of effective control of the various field centers by the national office,
especially with respect to the standardization of data collection activities.
The staff at the North Carolina center are in a unique position to observe
the work of the other centers, since North Carolina is the repository for all
the data collected for the fourth edition DOT. In the course of work on the
fourth edition they found that the field centers contributed widely varying
numbers of job analysis schedules in widely varying conditions of
completeness and quality. Since the clerical staff in the North Carolina
center enter many of the data into an automated information storage and
retrieval system, they are aware, too, of difficulties in the actual production
of the DOT caused by the wide variation in the quality and comprehensi-
veness of the source data.
Concerned with the quality of the upcoming fifth edition and with the
lack of leadership emanating from the national office, the supervisor of the
Utah center, with the cooperation of supervisors of other field centers,
established a coordinating committee to work with the national office in
setting standards and establishing procedures for data collection. At the
present time, whatever coordination and direction of field center activities
is occurring appears to be primarily the result of this coordinating
committee.
Additional detail on the operation of the field centers is provided in a
later section.
THE JOB SEARCH BRANCH
In addition to the Occupational Analysis Branch the Division of
Occupational Analysis also houses the Job Search Branch. While the
former unit is involved primarily with the production of the Dictionary of
Occupational Titles, the latter is organized primarily around the produc-
tion and distribution of labor market information derived from the
Employment Service master data files. Since its formal incorporation into
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Organization of the Occupational Analysis Program
99
the Division of Occupational Analysis in 1976, the Job Search Branch has
operated almost entirely independently of the Occupational Analysis
Branch, in the sense that it has little if any input into the production of the
DOT and virtually no contact with the field centers.
The Job Search Branch has 4.5 authorized stab positions, 3.5 of which
are professional positions. The Job Search Branch personnel play a more
specialized role in the job-matching process than does the staff of the
Occupational Analysis Branch, providing various publications designed to
encourage applicant self-service and placement at local Employment
Service offices.
The formal functions of the Job Search Branch are defined below (U.S.
Department of Labor, 1976b); it (1) develops and maintains a clearing-
house for occupational analysis information and related data for use by
state agencies and the private sector involved with Employment Service
programs, (2) designs, maintains, and monitors through channels a system
for the development and utilization of job search materials for use by
appropriate state ES components in assisting job seekers, (3) develops and
disseminates handbooks, guidelines, techniques and prototype job search
materials for use by state ES components in assisting job applicants in their
search for employment, (4) develops model approaches for the assembly of
job information needed by employers to meet the requirements of
affirmative action and other programs and develops required technical job
information and analyses as a basis for program planning and goal setting
within the U.S. Employment Service, and (5) participates in and keeps
informed on evaluation and operating reports provided by the Office of
Program Review or other sources and recommends appropriate program
modifications.
One major activity of the Job Search Branch is to oversee the model job
information service (his) sites, set up in each of the federal regions to
generate additional job placements. Full-service His sites have been set up
in 10 cities, although approximately 1,000 local offices incorporate some
parts of the His system. The job information service sites are separate
sections within local Employment Service offices where job seekers can
obtain both specific and general information on a self-service basis. The
Employment Service has indicated that the establishment of ITS sites is
based on the premise that most job seekers are capable of finding jobs with
minimum assistance. Furniture and job search materials and displays in
these units are arranged so as to enhance the dissemination of occupational
information to those job seekers who already know the kinds of
information they want. A library of job search materials, career brochures,
and videotapes is provided for those seeking occupational information.
The Job Search Branch is also a major producer of the labor market
OCR for page 100
loo
WORK, JOBS, AND OCCUPATIONS
information displayed at the job information service sites. There are four
major products of the Job Search Branch, all derived from the Employ-
ment Service's own data files. (The use of these products by the
Employment Service is discussed in chapter 3.) The Job Bank Openings
Summary (IBOS) iS a monthly publication, in tabular or microfiche fort,
that provides local and national summary job opening data on 800
permanent, full-time occupations. The Job Bank Frequently Listed
Openings (IOB-FLO) iS a monthly publication, available in hard copy or
microfiche format, that provides area and national summary estimates on
385 full-time, permanent occupations in demand. Occupations and
industries in heavy demand are identified, and in addition, education and
experience requirements are specified. In the national summary, geograph-
ical areas experiencing heavy demand in particular occupations are listed
by occupation. Occupations in Demand (OlD) is a bulletin that identifies
the 130 occupations most in demand throughout the national job bank
system. The OlD bulletin also notes where selected occupations are in
demand and furnishes national summary data on the number of openings
available and the specified average pay for selected occupations. Finally,
the Labor Market Information Analytical Table Series (LMI-ATS) is also a
monthly publication of statistical tables, available in printout or microfiche
form. Analytical summaries are provided of job openings data for the
nation, states, and job bank districts by occupational category, wage rate
interval, and industry.
THE OCCUPATIONAL ANALYSIS FIELD CENTERS
At present there are 10 occupational analysis field centers and one special
project, which receive technical direction from the Occupational Analysis
Branch of the national office but have their funds administered by the state
in which they are located. The primary function of these geographically
dispersed field centers is to provide the raw data used in developing the
Dictionary of Occupational Titles. In order to assess how adequately the
field centers accomplish this purpose and the other more specialized
functions they have undertaken at either local or national office initiative,
members of the committee and staff visited 7 of the 11 centers, those
located in New York, New York; Detroit, Michigan; St. Louis, Missouri;
Raleigh, North Carolina; Los Angeles, California; Phoenix, Arizona; and
Austin, Texas. Additional details on the structure, staffing, and cost
effectiveness of each of the 10 centers and the special project can be
obtained from the short-term management study conducted by Booz,
Allen & Hamilton, Inc. (1979: Vol. 2~.
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Organization of the Occupational Analysis Program
OVERVIEW: ORGANIZATION
101
As noted above, the Occupational Analysis Branch is charged with
coordinating and monitoring field center operations. Our site visits to the
field centers have led us to conclude that the national office has not
adequately carried out its leadership role. The field center supervisors and
analysts we talked with uniformly expressed a negative perception of the
leadership of the national office. Field center personnel continually
conveyed to us their feeling that the national office staff lacked a sense of
direction and failed to maintain its leadership role adequately in
coordinating the work of the field centers. The supervisors also believe that
the coordinating committee they organized to provide field input into the
decision-making process has been helpful. Four of the field center
supervisors, those from New York, California, North Carolina, and Utah,
were elected to represent all the supervisors on this committee. The
participants consider the role of this committee one of planning and
recommending actions to the national office staff not providing leader-
ship, which they see as the prerogative of the national office.
An additional organizational problem faced by the field center personnel
is that although they receive technical guidance from the national staff,
they are employees of the particular state in which they are located and are
thus subject to the personnel and compensation practices of that state.
This arrangement has both negative and positive implications.
On the negative side are the following: The occupational analysis
program is small in relation to the others being administered in that way
(CETA and unemployment insurance), and its funding needs are often
neglected. The national office lacks effective control, not only because the
chain of communication is long and cumbersome but also because the field
centers have two bosses. Although the money for their operation is
provided by the national office through grants to the states involved, the
field offices are in fact directly answerable to their state Employment
Service agencies. The state agencies have direct command over the field
centers and their resources and can and do request the help of the field
centers for state projects. Some of the field centers devote substantial
amounts of their resources to projects initiated at the request of their state
agencies. Some field centers in fact resist directives from the national office.
In addition, since the state agencies staff the field centers, most of the
employees of the field centers come from the state Employment Service,
usually from various local Employment Service offices. As members of the
various state civil services, field center staff have no direct promotional
route to the national office, where their knowledge of field operations
might be useful, and few promotional opportunities in the state service,
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WORK, JOBS, AND OCCUPATIONS
since they are in fact most skilled in producing a national product. Thus
these employees cannot be effectively rewarded or penalized by the
national office, and there is little opportunity for communication between
the national office and the field center staff that is based on informally
established networks. Because of this cumbersome arrangement, most of
the field staff seem to feel a remoteness from the national office that is
inappropriate given their joint work on a national product. The field staff,
like the national office staff, suffer from low morale.
Moreover, as we have noted, the state structures in which the field
offices are embedded do occasionally hamper the operations of the field
offices in staffing or in the completion of their tasks of occupational
analysis. One example is the limitation some states have placed on out-of-
state travel; an analyst might not be able to travel to another state to
observe a job that he or she cannot locate within the state. The hiring
freeze in California has affected that state's field center. Some states do not
assign grade levels to lead job analysts that allow them to supervise other
job analysts. States also require varying qualifications for the position of
job analyst; in some states the job analyst is an entry-level position,
whereas in others it is a more senior position. Given this structure, it is
difficult for the national office to enforce uniform training or uniform
performance standards among the analysts from the different centers.
While the field center coordinating committee has been helpful in
increasing the uniformity of procedures, it cannot solve the problem of
lack of effective leadership completely. Since no field office has a real basis
for authority over any other field office, only the national office, if it had
effective sanctions, could be expected to exercise the leadership required to
produce uniform materials in a decentralized system.
Some analysts, by contrast, find the organizational arrangement of the
field centers more of a help than a hindrance. They feel that this
arrangement enables them to work closely with state Employment Service
personnel and keep them informed as to current occupational analysis
activities. In turn, they are responsive to Employment Service suggestions
regarding production of state-level career brochures and pamphlets. In
return, the analysts are able to take advantage of already established
Employment Service contacts at local firms, an important consideration
for the field center staff given the difficulty of convincing employers of the
relevance of job analysis to their own operations (see discussion in chapter
6~. The state relationship was also felt to be beneficial in another sense.
Given employer experience with recent federal inspection teams (especially
from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration), many analysts
fear that their connection with the federal government may hurt rather
than help them gain access to employment sites.
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Organization of the Occupational Analysis Program
STAFFING AND ORGANIZATION OF WORK
103
There are currently 129 full-time staff positions in the field centers; the
number in each center ranges from 2 in the Arizona special project to 23 at
the North Carolina center (Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Inc., 1979: Exhibit
III-4. At the centers we visited, the staff consists of a manager or
supervisor who coordinates the work of the staff, analysts who perform the
actual on-site job analysis or work on special projects, and a clerical
support group.
In California, two CETA trainees are also working at the field center as
apprentice job analysts. Although these trainees are assigned to work full-
time at the center, they are paid from CETA funds. They receive the full
training that all new occupational analysts receive and are encouraged to
view the job as a stepping stone into permanent employment if vacancies
occur.
Work is generally organized by dividing the analysts into two or three
working groups, each supervised by a lead, or senior, analyst. The division
into work groups does not necessarily correspond to substantive distinc-
tions. For example, the New York center has two groups, with six
occupational analysts in each. Historically, these groups had separate
areas of emphasis; currently, however, there are no professed distinctions
between them. Analysts in both groups are supervised by a senior analyst
and work on ongoing studies of business establishments as well as on more
specialized projects initiated either locally or by the national office.
The situation is similar in California, where there are two groups of
analysts, each informally led by a "functional lead analyst." One unit is
devoted to ongoing studies of business establishments, while the more
experienced analysts are grouped under the heading of"Occupational
Training and Special Projects." This division into two sections is
admittedly somewhat arbitrary, and analysts regularly move back and
forth between the two units (i.e., between studies of business establish-
ments and training or special projects). The division of the California
center into two units was in fact not internally initiated but was done at
the request of state personnel who wanted a separate unit for special
projects on the organization chart in order to reflect the field center's
responsibility to the state. It was felt that such a division would facilitate a
better coordination with state-initiated projects. Thus although on paper
the two groups maintain distinct responsibilities, in practice this has not
proven to be the case.
In some centers the position of job analyst is viewed as an entry-level
position (e.g., Michigan), while in others the position is considered to be at
the level of Employment Service manager (e.g., New York). As a result the
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WORK, JOBS, AND OCCUPATIONS
backgrounds and career patterns of the analysts and hence their degree of
achieved proficiency vary quite substantially across centers. The educa-
tional requirement is usually a bachelor's degree, although at least one
supervisor noted that this requirement had been waived in the past for
persons with military or business experience. Many of the job analysts we
met came to their job directly from years of experience in the Employment
Service or Unemployment Insurance Service, where they had gained
knowledge in the use of the DOT. With a degree in one of the social
sciences, usually sociology, psychology, or economics, most analysts have
followed a typical career progression: from Employment Service interview-
er to senior interviewer to occupational analyst. In New York, in order to
qualify for the position of occupational analyst, experience as an
interviewer is required, and applicants must pass a state civil service
examination. The situation is similar in California, where analysts are
classified as "research analyst" by the state personnel classification. In
order to be promoted, the California analysts must pass state-administered
examinations that require a substantial knowledge of economics and
statistics, skills that analysts feel are not directly related to their job duties.
In addition to experience and degree requirements, analysts are often
chosen on the basis of other skills perceived to be relevant to job analysis.
One supervisor mentioned that his center asks candidates to provide a
writing sample that consists of a description of their current job. In
evaluating this description the supervisor does not look for conformance to
occupational analysis guidelines but for general thoroughness and the
ability to describe a job in writing. Another supervisor noted that when he
hires analysts he looks for individuals with good interpersonal skills, since
he believes an important part of the analyst's job involves convincing
employers to allow him or her access to their business establishments.
Once hired, analysts go through a formal training program followed by
an extended period of informal training by more senior analysts. The
analyst is usually considered to be in training until he or she can take
complete responsibility for studying an entire industry, usually 1-2 years.
Because of this long training period, rapid turnover can seriously disrupt
ongoing center activities. Although a few of the centers have experienced
disruptive turnover in the recent past (one expressed explanation for this
was that little opportunity for upward mobility exists within the centers),
some of the analysts have been at OA for many years.
FUNCTIONAL SPECIALIZATION OF THE FIELD CENTERS
Currently, the national office has assigned lead responsibility to various of
the field centers for coordinating and managing work on specific topics,
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Organization of the Occupational Analysis Program
105
such as the revision of the Handbook for Analyzing Jobs or planning for
the fifth edition DOT. Although primary responsibility remains at the
assigned center, various subsections of the task may be distributed to other
field centers. The New York field center, for example, has the lead role in
revising the Handbook for Analyzing Jobs. Although the New York staff
are responsible for the major writing tasks involved in the revision, they
have asked the California field center to analyze the GED and worker
function specifications and the aptitude scales; Utah to revise the svP
specification and the aptitude scales; Seattle to investigate the interests and
temperaments codes; and North Carolina to review the materials,
products, subject matter, services, and work fields.
In addition to carrying out its part of the revision of the Handbook for
Analyzing Jobs, the California field center has been given the lead
responsibility for planning for the fifth edition DOT. In consultation with
the field center coordinating committee and with the North Carolina field
center (which has the lead role in developing methods of quality control),
the California field center has been instrumental in devising new
procedures for upgrading the quality of future editions of the DOT. For
example, the method of assigning industries to field centers has been
revised so that each center has primary, or lead, responsibility for a smaller
number of industries. Previously, in order to increase geographical
representation a number of centers shared the responsibility for complet-
ing job analysis schedules for a single industry, so each field center was
thus responsible for a far greater number of industries.
The North Carolina field center had the primary role in coordinating
and producing the fourth edition DOT. Staff at North Carolina were
responsible for writing the composite definitions of categories 5 through 9
(processing, machine trades, benchwork, structural work, and miscella-
neous occupations- about 80 percent of all definitions), the Florida field
center was assigned category 3 (service occupations), the Washington field
center was assigned category 4 (agricultural, fishery, forestry, and related
occupations), the New York field center was assigned category 2 (clerical
and sales occupations), and the California field center and the national
office shared the writing for the 0/1 categories (professional, technical, and
managerial occupations). Given its overall responsibility for producing the
fourth edition DOT, the North Carolina field center was, as we briefly
noted above, in a good position to review the quality of the source data on
which the composite job definitions are based. Two specific problems were
identified by the North Carolina staff: First, the source materials were
inadequate, with respect to both the number of individual job analysis
schedules and the uneven coverage of jobs by industry. Second, the review
procedures set up to monitor the writing process were inadequate.
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WORK, JOBS, AND OCCUPATIONS
Specifically, the verification procedure used to produce the fourth edition
(a procedure that accounted for more than 30 percent of all job analysis
schedules prepared) was viewed as extremely inadequate. The North
Carolina stabs view of the thinness of the data base was corroborated by
the Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Inc. (1979: Exhibit IV-8) report, which noted
that fully 64 percent of the fourth edition DOT definitions were based on
two or fewer job analysis schedules. (This point is discussed further in
chapter 7.)
Given these perceived inadequacies of the fourth edition data base, the
North Carolina field center has promulgated new standards of quality
control in order to ensure a more thorough and even coverage of jobs. One
of its recommendations is that analysts conduct a top-to-bottom study of
business establishments if at all possible. In addition, the California field
center is currently preparing a list of jobs most in demand at local
Employment Service offices. This list will be used to ensure that the DOT
definitions of jobs in greatest demand are based on a sufficient amount of
source information. However, so that job analysis schedules will not be
overproduced for common jobs, completed schedules will be sent to the
North Carolina field center, which will keep track of the amount of source
material received.
As a final example of the lead role concept the Texas field center was
assigned to provide field center input into the development and mainte-
nance of keywords and the updating of the Handbook of Occupational
Keywords, a task that involves deciding which keywords to add and which
to delete. The keyword system, which provides short descriptors charac-
terizing both applicants and jobs, was designed to enhance the matching of
people and jobs via an automated placement process. Overall responsibility
for maintenance and updating the keyword system was assigned to the
occupational analysis program in 1977 and continues on an ongoing basis.
The responsibility for keyword maintenance and research is generally
assigned to at least one person at each field center. The New York field
center has assigned two of its analysts to keywording and is currently
involved in three projects assessing the adequacy of the system. The
Missouri field center has assigned three people to keyword research.
Currently, those analysts are checking the appropriateness of the keyword
coding of job orders and applicant histories and the frequency of actual job
hires using keywords. In addition, they are determining the frequency of
use of given keywords in preparation for an anticipated revision of the
Handbook of Occupational Keywords.
Aside from its ongoing keyword maintenance activity the California
field center was assigned the responsibility for a specific keyword research
project (subsequently reassigned to the Texas field center): to coordinate
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·07
the development of a keyword/Dot matrix to identify keyword combina-
tions that can be associated with individual DOT definitions for jobs of high
incidence in Employment Service offices. The purpose of the study is to
determine how well the Handbook of Occupational Keywords differentiates
closely related jobs and if a sufficient number of keywords exists for
matching orders and applications received in field operations. The matrix
will theoretically allow the identification of problem areas and enhance the
matching capabilities of the keyword procedure. (For additional details on
keywording, see Appendix G.)
MAJOR FIELD CENTER ACTIVITIES
The occupational analysts at the field centers are involved in a variety of
activities. The primary function of the field centers, of course, is to provide
the raw data used as input into the DOT. Most analysts spend at least part
of their time on this activity. Given the cyclical publication of the DOT,
however, the total amount of effort devoted to ongoing job analysis is
highly variable. Since publication of the fourth edition, the proportion of
time spent on production-related DOT activities has decreased considera-
bly. In addition to conducting site visits to business establishments, some
analysts also spend time on other activities. We have already discussed the
technical studies designed to improve the DOT and the job-matching
process. In addition, field center activities include writing national and
state career guides and brochures, providing training and technical
assistance in job analysis techniques to government and private organiza-
tions, and holding seminars and workshops on DOT use and application.
Some analysts are also involved in other special projects, usually initiated
by state personnel. The remainder of this chapter discusses each of these
major roles of the field centers.
Production of the DOT
Activities involved in producing the DOT include job analysis studies,
definition writing, development and/or revision of job analysis techniques,
and other related activities. During the 8-year period from 1971 through
1978, ongoing studies of business establishments (i.e., job analysis studies)
accounted for 61 percent of the total occupational analysis effort, definition
writing accounted for 8 percent, and other DoT-related activities account-
ed for 10 percent (Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Inc., 1979: Exhibit II-2.
Members of the small national office staff do not conduct establishment
site visits, although they are involved in the writing of composite
definitions. Hence by far the largest proportion of the input into the
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WORK, JOBS, AND OCCUPATIONS
production of the DOT comes from the staff of the local field centers. A
detailed discussion of the role of the field center staff in compiling the
fourth edition DOT iS presented in chapter 6. Specific details are provided
on the assignment of industries to field centers, the sampling and selection
of establishment sites, on-site job analysis procedures, the preparation of
job analysis schedules, and the writing of composite definitions.
One important related function of the field centers is defining and
assigning DOT codes to "new" occupations. Each field center has at least
one person who handles occupational code requests (OCR'S). Many of these
requests for new DOT codes originate from Employment Service offices in
the federal region in which the field center is located. In addition, some
OCR'S originate from agencies such as the Bureau of Apprenticeship and
Training, which use the specific vocational preparation codes in determin-
ing the "apprenticeability" of occupations (see chapter 4 and Appendix B
for detailed reports on the Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training's use of
the DOT). One supervisor remarked that many of the OCR'S coming into his
office were from CETA programs, for which it apparently has been common
practice to inflate job descriptions in order to obtain higher worker
function codes to ensure federal funding for training programs. The
supervisor noted that in many of those cases the descriptions could be
assigned an already existing DOT code.
When an occupational code request arrives, a standard procedure is
followed. The analyst either approves the request for a new number (i.e.,
documents it as a "new occupation") or assigns an already existing DOT
code. An attempt is made to reply to such requests within two working
days. Once the initial assignment of a DOT code is made for new
occupations, the analyst is supposed to conduct a follow-up site visit,
filling out a job analysis schedule and writing a draft composite definition
for the occupation. In this manner the DOT iS theoretically continually
updated to accommodate technological and structural change in the
economy. To the extent that the process operates as it is designed, much of
the production of the DOT iS accomplished along the way and not in a rush
as the publication date nears. As we document in chapter 7, this procedure
did not operate effectively in the preparation of the fourth edition.
Career Guides and Brochures
The development of career guides and industry brochures is a secondary
but major function of the field centers. The basic data for these guides and
brochures derive from the business establishment site visits and written
industry summaries. These brochures, designed primarily for use by
employment counselors in local Employment Service offices, provide
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Organization of the Occupational Analysis Program
109
information on educational and training requirements and worker charac-
teristics in particular fields or industries. The work on some of these guides
and brochures is initiated by the national office, while the impetus for
others originates at the state or local level. For example, the California
field center is currently involved in the production of several career
publications initiated by the national office, including Career Opportunities
in Library Science, Environmental Protection Careers Guidebook, and
Career Opportunities in Sports and Recreation. For the state the field center
is currently revising the Career Guides for Entry Occupations, a series of
publications providing occupational information for entry-level jobs in
such occupations as nursing, printing, and fire protection. Occasionally,
the initiative for developing career brochures comes from the field center
itself; the staff approaches Employment Service personnel to determine
whether a proposed pamphlet would be helpful for their counseling work.
The North Carolina field center has been involved in the production of
industry brochures for the tobacco, furniture, and hosiery industries. The
New York field center has also been working on career pamphlets, in the
areas of criminal justice, mental health, and environmental protection. The
Missouri field center has completed a career guide for jobs in zoos and
museums. (See chapters 3 and 4 for details on the use of these products.)
Training and Technical Assistance
One of the primary responsibilities of the field centers is to provide training
and technical assistance to government agencies and other organizations
on the products, methods, and techniques of occupational analysis. This
assistance is generally provided at the discretion of the field center
supervisor and at no cost to the requester. Training sessions can range
from a half-day session to a week-long workshop on DOT use and the
application of techniques of job analysis. Another form of technical
assistance provided by field center analysts includes giving seminars on
various topics (e.g., career opportunities for sociologists with bachelor
degrees, career opportunities for women, setting up occupational libraries
in career counseling centers). Recipients of this free training and technical
assistance include both public and private organizations (e.g., national and
regional stab of the Employment and Training Administration, vocational
counselors, industry and labor representatives, state agencies, and universi-
ty personnel).
Training on DOT use and application was an important component of
the total work effort of the field centers in 1978, since it was the first year
in which the fourth edition DOT was available. The New York field center
was responsible for developing the materials used for training interested
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WORK, JOBS, AND OCCUPATIONS
parties in the use of the DOT and the arrangement and interpretation of the
various DOT scales. The California field center set up a worker traits
training unit. In addition to providing training on DOT use, occupational
analysts also train interested agencies and industry groups on techniques
of job analysis. Many of the personnel trained reportedly find the job
analysis techniques useful in developing their own job compensation
systems. This type of training is carried on at most centers: for example,
analysts at the Michigan field center trained vocational rehabilitation
groups in job analysis techniques; the New York field center provided a
similar public service by assisting a large private firm in developing its own
job analysis system.
Special Projects
In addition to the ongoing work of the field centers, some members of the
field center staff work on special projects, usually initiated by the state but
also occasionally by the national office. Several major special projects
initiated by the national office have been discussed in an earlier section
(e.g., keyword research, planning for the fifth edition DOT, revising the
Handbook for Analyzing Jobs). Several other special projects are reviewed
here.
Members of the Michigan field center staff have served as consultants
for the Detroit public school system. In addition to providing the schools
with occupational information, analysts have analyzed student resumes
and coded occupational aspirations to the DOT for use in career
counseling. This center is also involved in coding state civil service bench
mark jobs with the DOT identifiers in order to register state jobs with the
Employment Service; it is also considering a request to code the National
Longitudinal Survey occupational data with DOT identifiers. Several field
centers are currently assigning DOT codes to the occupational descriptions
provided by respondents to the March 1978 Current Population Survey.
Finally, the California field center was involved in a survey of third
edition DOT use within local Employment Service offices (see chapter 3 for
a discussion of the results of this survey). Although the survey was done at
the request of the national once, the design of the project and the survey
instrument were developed by the field center staff. Information was
gathered via interviews with a sample of Employment Service workers in
California. The interview instrument was designed to survey users of the
third edition DOT in order to compile comments and criticisms concerning
the format, ease of use, extent of coverage, and adequacy of the DOT as an
information source.
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111
The special projects carried out by the field centers do not generally
involve basic research into the theories and methods of job analysis
techniques and products. Instead, special projects of the sort described
above involve evaluations of DOT use or applications of the accepted DOT
methodology. The research that has been conducted has been relatively
recent. The California field center has been one of the centers in the
forefront of such research. It is currently surveying all occupational
analysts in the field centers on a variety of topics, including keywords and
the revisions of worker function codes and the GED specification. Two
research tasks have been undertaken to revise the GED specification: (1) a
reliability study of GED ratings by analysts and (2) a questionnaire sent to
all occupational analysts to determine what use is made of the GED
specification and to solicit suggestions on how it might be improved. The
reliability study involves a test of 27 definitions of varying lengths for
which the analysts were asked to code the three subcomponents of GED
(i.e., reasoning, math, and language development). As of this writing,
results from this study were not available; see chapter 7 for a discussion of
our own reliability study of the ratings of various DOT scales. The
California field center also is responsible for revising the worker function
specifications (the complexity of an occupation's relationship to data,
people, and things). Field center personnel concerned with the worker
function revision have questioned the ability of the worker function ratings
to represent total job complexity and have suggested that the definition of
the concept and its use might need to be modified in the future.
The Michigan field center has been involved in research aimed at
increasing the coverage and the efficiency of data collection. To identify
jobs in its assigned industries that are not covered in the DOT, the field
center has developed study matrix charts. These charts, one per industry,
array industrial technologies or products by worker function codes.
Technology and product categories are largely based on the Standard
Industrial Classification (sac) (U.S. Department of Commerce, 1972~; the
particular combinations of worker functions selected are those that occur
most frequently in the DOT for a particular industry. Empty cells in the
matrix alert analysts to the possible existence of unanalyzed jobs.
To assist in the selection of establishments to study, the Michigan field
center has developed and pretested a planning survey. For each primary
DOT industry, firms covered by unemployment insurance are identified by
the sac code and number of employees. Within each detailed industry,
firms are stratified by size and sampled proportionately. Questionnaires are
then mailed to the firms, requesting information on the presence of jobs
and the number of part-time and full-time employees per job. Although
the planning survey involves a considerable amount of work, when it is
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WORK, JOBS, AND OCCUPATIONS
fully implemented, it may offer a promising model for a sound, well-
documented procedure for sampling business establishments.
CONCLUSION
Both the organization of the occupational analysis program and its task-
collecting information on the job content of the United States economy-
are complex. Accomplishing the task would be difficult in the best of
organizational circumstances. The recent Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Inc.
(1979: Vol 1, chaps. III-V) management study attributes the difficulties of
the Division of Occupational Analysis in carrying out its major task the
production of the DOT to typical kinds of management failure: the lack of
clear statements of function, the turnover in the national office director-
ship, and the failure of the national office staff to take leadership, delegate
tasks responsibly, and monitor performance consistently (as indicated by a
lack of written directives and oversight mechanisms). In contrast, we
conclude that the inherent complexity of the task and the cumbersome
nature of a structure based on a federal national office and state field
centers are the major reasons for the difficulties, although management
failures may also have played a role.
The task of collecting information on every occupation in the American
economy in such a way that it is useful in matching people with jobs is a
formidable one. It raises basic conceptual questions about the nature,
boundaries, and similarities of jobs and occupations, and it raises these
questions in an environment that is continually changing. The problem of
sampling the economy's jobs appropriately is therefore an extremely
difficult one. To accomplish the task requires substantial research on these
questions as well as the continual improvement of data collection
techniques and of the occupational classification used. Since the produc-
tion of the third edition DOT the national office has simply not had the
resources (or perhaps personnel with the necessary skill, motivation, and
understanding) required to do the job. The Division of Occupational
Analysis could be the fundamental research unit for the important
problem of matching workers and jobs. As such (as Booz, Allen &
Hamilton, Inc. also notes) it could have been integrally involved in the
automated workerjob matching system being developed by the Employ-
ment Service. Our observations confirm the conclusion of Booz, Allen &
Hamilton that the research effort of the Occupational Analysis Branch has
been inadequate. The Booz, Allen & Hamilton study suggests that the
main reason for the failure of the Division of Occupational Analysis,
particularly in the area of research, is that it has isolated itself from other
units of the Employment Service and maintained a very narrow vision of
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Organization of the Occupational Analysis Program
~3
its task. While our observations do not allow us to make a definitive
statement about the source of the program problems, we would point out
that rarely does an organizational unit isolate itself without reason or
without the cooperation of surrounding units. The Division of Occupation-
al Analysis is charged with a matter of fundamental importance. Its
organizational location and support should reflect that importance.
There are problems inherent in the structure of the program, divided as
it is between a national office and state-run field centers. The occupational
analysis program is small in relation to the others being administered in
this way, and its funding needs are often neglected. The national office
lacks effective control, not only because the chain of communication is
long and cumbersome but also because the field centers have two bosses.
The state agencies have direct command over the field centers and their
resources, and they can and do request the help of the field centers for state
projects. Moreover, the field centers are subject to state budgetary
considerations and administrative arrangements, such as bans on out-of-
state travel, which sometimes interfere with their work. Finally, the lack of
promotional opportunities and standardized job qualifications makes it
difficult for the national office to enforce uniform training or performance
standards on the analysts from different centers.
Although we have not attempted to investigate the management
problems of the Occupational Analysis Branch, we are concerned that
inadequate management in a cumbersome organizational structure appears
to have contributed to weakening the quality of the Dictionary of
Occupational Titles. Decentralization coupled with inadequate central
administration appears to have had deleterious effects on the uniformity of
the data collection procedures used. Our assessment of both the proce-
dures used in compiling the DOT and the resulting quality is described in
chapters 6 and 7. Any attempt to improve the quality of the DOT will
necessarily involve organizational issues. The exigencies of proper data
collection and useful research require standardization, coordination, and
monitoring. In a decentralized system of field centers a strong central
administration and good communication among the centers are crucial.
We are also concerned that the needs of the occupational analysis program
not be viewed only from the narrow perspective of management efficiency;
the need for occupational information of high quality and the difficulties
inherent in meeting this need in a changing economy are concerns of
fundamental importance. We return to this issue in chapter 9.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
field center
