Job Analysis and Design for Retail Associate at UNIQLO Japan Cloth Store

This report provides a detailed analysis of job description, job specifications, job design, recruiting, personnel policy, personnel selection, and multiple hurdles for the retail associate position at UNIQLO Japan Cloth Store.

1.0 Introduction
UNIQLO Japan cloth store provides quality service. The company provides innovative
products, fashionable products, understands the customer’s perspective and provides quality
products. UNIQLO serves customers worldwide and is recognized globally for its portfolio of
services. It has strong commitment and provides the customers with better quality services,
prioritize the customer’s experience and gain knowledge. UNIQLO. It is a Japan based fast
retailing Consumer Goods Company for $144 million. UNIQLO revenue rate is about $68
million. The company is operating now about 1574 UNIQLO stores worldwide and have
additional plan of 200 stores. UNIQLO has gained the leadership position in the retail market
in Japan.(Akiba, 1995).
2.0 Job Analysis
2.1 Job Description
Job Title : Retail Assistant / Sales Associate
Brief Overview:
The retail associate in UNIQLO assists the customers for better shopping experience.
They are appointed in a shop to greet customers. They are accounted to answer the
management regarding store policies, and item related queries. Retail associates are
assigned to process the payments and maintain the sales floor well- structured. They are
responsible to improve the engagement with merchandise. UNIQLO is a leading
manufacturer of retail cloth store and provide unique quality services. It transforms the
simple change of process into innovative solutions. It utilizes the power of designing

with innovation in order to achieve profitable growth, customer delight, market
leadership and sustainability. It helps to provide the customers with best quality clothes
and meet their needs. The company has production team staff who supervises the
factory on weekly basis and manage management issues. The organization has various
departments and divisions in it that is divided on the basis of clientele. The company
have Takumi team is assigned to offer instructions on innovative technology for
improvement of the brand value. The production department of the company have
certain duties which include improvising quality products, solves customer queries and
are assigned to solve management issues (Dane, 2010). They monitor and maintains
brand value and networks. They respond in timely manner to various service issues and
requests. The production department, inventory control department support the team
maintains the coordination by providing technical support, ensures timely delivery and
smooth flow of functioning in the company. The marketing department support for
promotional campaigns and monitors and maintains the company’s core products,
advertises the product, provides unique qualities and reach every customers through
TV, social media and newspaper. The marketing department helps the company to
enhance its business globally by technical support. The Takumi team solves all
technical problems faced by the company. They support certain duties and
responsibilities of the job.
Task:
The job description of retail department includes:
1) They train junior staff members to improve efficiency of the employees to manage
sales operations.
2) Tests for new technology to achieve competitive advantage in the global

competitive market.
3) Repairs and replaces resources which is necessary by the company. This is due to
reduce the defective piece in the store.
4) They recruits efficient employees to understand the objective clearly and provide
productivity to the company.
5) They provides technical support across the company. This is to improve the online
business for eases the market business to reach more customers.
Duties:
1) Improve digital engagement and customer connections as the retail associate must
understand the customer’s needs and wants. This can only be achieved by
connecting with customer digitally for more effective approach.
2) Improves brand perception as the retail associate is responsible to operate all the
sales functions so the brand value is increased.
Responsibilities:
1) Greets customers to value and respect the customers and add value for the business.
2) Responds to queries of employees and customers to establish satisfactory
environment.
3) Improves engagement with merchandise so as to increase the profit share in the

market.
4) Provides quality customer service- the retail associate provides satisfactory service
so the customer will be loyal towards the brand.
5) Manages cost efficiency of the company- this is to reduce cost to the company by
critically analyzing the issues which carry more cost.
2.2 Job Specifications:
Knowledge: (Foerstl, 2017)
1) The retail associate must have managerial knowledge
2) Knowledge of statistics and their applications
3) Must understand HR policies
4) Knowledge of selling and promoting of products and services
5) Must understand the goals and objective of the company
Skills:

1) Must be enriched with marketing skills
2) Leadership skills
3) Good communication
Abilities: (Greiner, 2019)
1) Should have fluency in communicating with managers and employees so that they
can understand.
2) Understand sales perspectives of the company.
3) Should have the capability to convey information effectively.
4) Must poses the ability of critical thinking.
5) Must analyze the strengths and weakness of alternative solutions.
6) Must be able to assess the performance of employees.
Other Characteristics: (Herzberg, 2017)
1) Must be able to take correct decisions based on cost and benefits of potential

activities.
2) Must have the ability to take corrective actions.
3) Must have the knowledge to manage time of various process and activities.
4) Must be capable of complete the process within the specified time allotted for each
task.
3.0 Job Design
The job design is a core function of human resource management. The job design of retail
associate includes the methods, contents and relationship of retail associate position to
potentially satisfy managerial, technological and organizational requirements. It also fulfills
the aspects of social and personal requirements of the employee. Job design involves various
administrative areas such as work breaks, job enlargement, machine pacing, working hours
and job rotation (Islam, 2018). The retail associate can address the problems of work
overload, repetitiveness, and delay in filing the vacant positions, limited understanding pf job
process and limited control over work.
3.1 Design for Efficiency
This is one of the major approach of job design. The job design for a retail associate helps to
increase the efficiency of retail associate through job specification. The efficiency of sales

associate can be increased by engaging in the sales efficiency technologies in sales process.
The sales enablement technologies helps in improving the productivity and drives the success
of sales level higher. New technologies always ensures high productivity and increases the
level of profitable approach which strengthens the efficiency of sales associate (Landis,
2018). Efficiency approach can be achieved by assembly line. The assembly line helps to
create the ability to focus on employee’s effort on a specific task.
3.2 Design for Motivation
The retail associate must be motivated towards the job and must focus on behavioral
approach which determines the behaviors of employees to train and motivate them for
specific job. The retail associate develops the market design strategy and method of doing
selling which improves determination of employees. Method and analysis is the key portion
of job design helps to monitor the employee’s performance. Motivation to an employee helps
to provide an opportunity for the organization, to develop an effective team that can easily
achieve the goals of the organization. This can also emphasize the working conditions that
eventually result in work measurement (Lepper, 2015). This work measurement leads to
rewards and compensation of an individual who works in that company. The motivation of
employees can gain long- term trust for the company.
3.3 Design for Safety & Health
The retail associate considers all tasks which affect the work that poses less risk to the
employee. The work schedules and pace of work must be well maintained in the organization.
The rest schedules helps the employee to stay fit and physically dedicated towards the job
(Ma’Ayan, 2016).

3.4 Design for Mental Capacity
The mental capacity of an employee should be addressed by the retail associate to understand
the job type. Employees may feel bored and may feel extreme difficulty in doing a particular
job. The mental capacity should be addressed by sharing the task with other employees and
helps the employee to stress free (Peters, 2015).
4.0 Recruiting
Recruitment is done by retail associate to identify the job vacancy and analyzing the
requirements of the company by reviewing efficient candidates who can do that particular job
assigned to them.
4.1 Personnel Policy
According to Dale Yoder, a policy is a pre- determined selected course which guides towards
accepted goals and objectives. The personnel policy consists of two types of objectives;
general objective and specific objective. The retail associate develops an image advertisement
for increasing the branding of the company. This advertises for posts which conveys that it is
a good platform to work. The general objective focuses on the top management’s philosophy
of human resource where the employees are recruited through image advertisement for
competitive advantage. The specific objective focuses on staffing where advertisement
informs for similar ethics as an individual (Ryan, 2017). The retail associate tries to create
sound industrial relations and introduces conditions for mutual understanding and confidence.
The retail associate maintains the principle of good working condition ensures that workers
have better tools and adequate wage. The retail associate ensures to have impartial appraisal
of work.

4.2 Internal Recruitment Source
The internal recruitment source is the source of recruiting or hiring people from within the
organization or those who are employed with the firm. The sales associate can be promoted to
a higher level where the responsibility and prestige is increased. The retail associate creates a
company bulletin to inform the employees about the promotion, employee referrals and
transfer for effective internal communication. It conveys about the information about their
tasks where staff needs to cooperate for a similar task (Vogt, 2016). The retail associate
displays about the new items introduced in their menu. The retail associate informs about
certain events such as introducing guitarist in the shop for customer satisfaction.
4.3 External Recruitment Source
The external sources of recruitment is by hiring people from outside the organization. One of
the common source of recruitment is the direct applicants. The retail associate recruits
externally through ads in newspaper, professional journals provides a comprehensive detail of
the job role, nature of job position, experience required, skills required, qualification required
and details about the organization. The direct applicants applies for the vacancy without aby
prompting from the company. It provides the company with new talents and efficient
employees who can contribute in the rise of productivity of the organization. There are
several other types of external recruitment such as campus placement, Walk- Ins, e-
recruitment, management consultants.
4.4 Evaluating Source
Recruitment software provides many benefit to the retail associate which is designed to help
them to find best candidates faster, easier and cheaper. It improves the quality of candidates

the recruiters hire. The retail associate calculates the cost per hire by analyzing number of
people are hired for the post. The retail associate divides the cost by number of people hired
to check the vacancy is fulfilled and the cost is low that implies the hiring cost is efficient
(Waheed, 2016). It helps the hiring work flows with low cost that also lowers the cost of the
company.
4.5 Recruiter Trait & Behavior
The characteristics of a good recruiter must poses positive attitude and provides correct
information about the company so that applicants can respond positively. The recruiter must
avoid offensive behavior. The recruiter must poses good listening skills, strong sales skills,
they dig deeper and they are proactive. The behavior must poses self -improvement in
recruiting proficient candidates.
5.0 Personnel Selection
Personnel selection is the methodical process that is used to hire efficient individuals. The
personnel selection can be applied to all aspects of recruitment, selection, and hiring process.
5.1 Step 1
Resumes- the HR staff reviews the application forms and resumes received to evaluate the
best option that meet the requirements of the job. The application forms are the standard
forms from the company and resumes collected from employees. The resume helps the retail
associate to analyze the proficient candidate to achieve cost effective and efficient approach
which collects basic data of an employee foe specific position (Dany, 2017). This ensures that
the organization has certain standard categories of information. Resume is the most common
way for applicants to present information to the employer.
5.2 Step 2

Honesty test and drug test- this process is to evaluate personality of an applicant through
various employment tests such as integrity test. This test is to check the personality traits such
as honesty, trustworthiness, and dependability on the company. This test is to check the level
of honesty in an applicant as lack of honesty can decrease the productivity of the company.
These tests includes physical test, cognitive ability test, job performance test, work samples,
honesty test, medical examination, drug test and personality inventories. The drug test is the
test of biological specimen such as urine, blood, breath sweat to check the applicant is not
consuming drugs.
5.3 Step 3
Situational interview- the interview process helps the employer to obtain certain information
which then evaluates the qualification of the applicant regarding competency to respond to a
situation that the applicant may face in the job. There are several techniques of interview;
non-directive, structured, situational, and behavior description interview. The situational
interview is conducted by the interviewer who is proficient in choosing specific question to
analyze the talent of the applicant and to check the analytical and problem solving skills in an
applicant. These are pressure questions based on applicant’s strength, weakness, career goals
and work experience where the applicant have to work on the situation in a short notice and
with less preparation. This interview provides the interviewer with wide latitude.
5.4 Step 4
Checking references and background- the retail associate collects the information of
applicants regarding the applicants provide names, phone number of former employers who
can convince for their abilities and performance of past job. Reference is not always
considered as the unbiased source of information as the retail associate may find some
potential employees are highly qualified for the job. The retail associate checks references
after the confirmation of the candidate to the final selection for the job. Some difficulties can

be faced by the retail associate in providing references for former employees. If the retail
associate is provided with negative information then there may be a chance of rejection. The
candidate may claim for defamation that is the person have damaged the applicant’s
reputation by making false statements (Burks, 2015). If the retail associate receives positive
statement then the applicant may be addressed to misdeeds, then the new employer may sue
the former employer. The background must be checked properly by the retail associate. This
is to verify that the applicant are as they have represented themselves to be. By verifying
credentials and checking background is bit complicated when candidates are from other
countries.
5.5 Step 5
Multiple hurdle- the retail associate may face multiple hurdles while operating the functions
in the shop. The multiple hurdle system strategy can help the retail associate to evaluate the
candidate who do not exceed the minimum dimension scores.
6.0 Conclusion
This report concludes that the human resource manager of UNIQLO japan cloth store is able
to analyze different functions of human resource management. The job design helped to
increase the efficiency, motivate and ensure safety and health and mental capacity of an
employee. It analyzed the recruitment strategies and its implementation in the company to
attract potential employees for the position in the company. It developed selection strategies
and evaluated selection process which helps the sales associate to recruit and select the
efficient employee that fits to the hiring position in the company. These strategies helps the
company to increase its efficiency and become more competent in the global world. This is to
enhance the skills and knowledge of employees to add value to the company.
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