The JDA: More than just your job description.

[Lab 2- March 22: Cognitive-behavioural job demands analysis]

Coming out of this lab, and the role playing that was involved in our simulation of conducting the Job Demands Analysis (JDA), made me realize the complexities of the many occupations that we engage in throughout our everyday lives. The JDA brings out the implicit elements and skills that a typical job description would fail to include, bringing attention to some psycho-emotional determinants of occupation compared to a functional assessment or activity analysis. If I ever decide to use this in my future practice, I have to keep in mind that I need to be more resourceful to attain the full occupational profile of my clients. It's unfortunate that the JDA doesn't ask about how the client's different life roles impact her job performance and experience in the workplace. The stresses of her other occupations definitely plays a role in how she demanding she feels her job is at this point in her life. We're not super humans who perform each of our occupations in isolation from each other. As much as we try our best to put one hat away when we put on another, our stack of hats is usually in within our peripheral vision as we carry out certain occupations because we never know when we'll have to switch roles!