Ability is the skills and qualities which make it possible to achieve a goal. It may be stable and enduring characteristics that are genetic and can be either completely perceptual or completely motor or a combination.
Employees need to have certain abilities that will make them valuable addition to an organization.
Let’s Understand Ability in Organizational Behavior
What is Ability in Organizational Behavior?
Ability is a current assessment of what one can do. From a management standpoint, the issue is not whether people differ in terms of their abilities. They certainly do.
The issue is knowing how people differ in abilities and using that knowledge to increase the likelihood that an employee will perform his or her job well.
We are acknowledging that everyone has strengths and weaknesses in terms of ability that make him or her relatively superior or inferior to others in performing certain tasks or activities.
According to Stephen P. Robbins, “Ability is an individual’s capacity to perform the various tasks in a job.”
According to Keith Davis, “Ability is the quality of being able to do something, especially the physical, mental, financial or legal power to accomplish something.”
Alyssa McGonagle, a professor of psychology at Wayne State University, said, “Workability is not about whether people want to continue working, but whether they feel they can continue working at their jobs.”
At last, we can say that ability is the quality or state of being able, the power to perform whether physical, mental, moral, intellectual, skill in doing, the sufficiency of strength, available resources, etc.
It underpins and contributes to skills. It can be essentially perceptual, essentially motor, or a combination of both.
Organizations look for employees to have two types of intellectual and physical abilities depending on the job requirements.
Types of Ability
In Organizational Behavior, the 2 types of ability are;
- Intellectual Ability.
- Physical Ability.
Intellectual Ability
Intellectual ability is the capacity to do mental activities, thinking and reasoning, and problem-solving.
It commonly refers to the ability measured by performance on an intelligence test. It is also sometimes used in the context of discussing the performance of someone in an academic or real-world setting.
The seven most frequently cited dimensions making up intellectual abilities are number attitude, verbal comprehension, perceptual speed, inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning, and memory.
Intellectual abilities have got seven dimensions.
| Dimension | Description |
|---|---|
| Number Aptitude | It is an ability to do speedy and accurate arithmetic. |
| Comprehension | It is the ability to understand what is read and heard and the relationship of words to each other. |
| Perceptual Speed | It is a dying ability to identify visual similarities and differences quickly and accurately. |
| Inductive Reasoning | It is the ability to identify a logical sequence in a problem and then solve the problem. |
| Deductive Reasoning | It is the ability to see the logic and assess the art argument’s implication. |
| Special Visualization | It is the ability to imagine how an object would look like its position in space was changed. |
| Memory | It is the ability to retain and recall past experiences. |
Advantages such as;
- Highly reliable
- Verbal reasoning and numerical tests have shown high validity for a wide range of jobs.
- The validity rises with the increasing complexity of the job.
- Combinations of aptitude tests have higher validities than individual tests alone.
- It may be administered in group settings where many applicants can be tested at the same time.
- Scoring of the tests may be completed by computer scanning equipment.
- Lower cost than personality tests.
Physical Ability
Physical ability is the capacity to do tasks that demand stamina, desire, strength, and similar characteristics.
It can identify individuals who are physically able to perform the essentials function of a job without risking injury to others.
Research on the requirements needed in hundreds of jobs has identified nine physical abilities involved in performing physical tasks.
These are -dynamic strength, static strength, trunk strength, explosive strength, extent flexibility, dynamic flexibility, body – coordination, balance, and stamina.
| Factor | Description |
|---|---|
| Dynamic Strenght | Ability to exert muscular force continuously over time. |
| Trunk Strenght | Ability to exert muscular using trunk muscles. |
| Static Strenght | Ability to exert force against external objects. |
| Explosive Strenght | Ability to expand a maximum of energy in one or a series of explosive acts. |
| Extent Flexibility | Ability to move the trunk and back muscles as far as possible. |
| Dynamic Flexibility | Ability to make rapid, repeated flexing movements. |
| Body co-ordination | Ability to coordinate the simultaneous actions of different parts of the body. |
| Balance | Ability to maintain equilibrium despite forces pulling off balance. |
| Stamina | Ability to continue maximum effort requiring prolonged efforts over time. |
Advantages;
- It can identify individuals who are physically unable to perform the essential functions of a job without risking injury to themselves or others.
- It can result in decreased costs related to disability/medical claims, insurance, and
- workers compensation.
- Decreased absenteeism
Disadvantages
- Costly to administer
- Requirements must be shown to be job-related through a thorough job analysis.
- It may have an age-based disparate impact on older applicants,
Intellectual Ability vs. Physical Ability
Ability is an individual’s capacity to master numerous tasks in a job.
Organizations need to identify key abilities of employees that will lead to success, and employees need to have certain abilities that will make them valuable addition to an organization.
A person with both intellectual and physical ability may become a rising star within the organization.
Intellectual ability deals with mental capabilities such as excellent memory, verbal comprehension, reasoning, analyzing, and problem-solving, all important elements of worker skills in companies.
Physical ability is the ability to perform some physical activity, including tasks that require characteristics such as strength, stamina, etc.
For example, a word processor must use his/her fingers to type on the keyboard to accomplish the job. There are significant differences between these abilities.
These are given below:
| Intellectual Ability | Physical Ability |
|---|---|
| Intellectual ability is the capacity to think, reason, and problem-solve. | Physical ability is the capacity to do tasks that demand stamina, desire, strength, and similar characteristics. |
| Intellectual ability is doing with the mind. | Physical ability is doing with the body. |
| It is a measure of intelligence and involves understanding complex concepts and thinking critically. | It is the capability of performing physical accomplishments, such as flexibility, coordination, and basic motor skills. |
| It is related to the skills of the mind. | It is related to the capabilities of the physical structure. |
| It plays a vital role in complex jobs with demanding information processing requirements. | It gains importance for successfully doing less-skilled and more standardized jobs. |
| Intellectual ability is the mind’s ability – i.e., how clever, intuitive, etc., a person is. | Physical ability is the ability of the body – i.e., how strong, agile, etc., a person is. |
| Intellectual abilities include number attitude, verbal comprehension, perceptual speed, inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning, and memory. | Types of physical ability are dynamic strength, static strength, trunk strength, explosive strength, extent flexibility, dynamic flexibility, body coordination, balance, and stamina. |
Every individual requires the ability to achieve a goal. Physical ability is the ability to perform some physical activity, including tasks that require characteristics such as strength, stamina, etc.
On the other hand, intellectual ability is what one can do with the brain with intelligence.
It generally talks about the ability that tested relies on an intelligence test. It is also used in the real world when measuring someone’s performance. Basically, we can differentiate physical and intellectual ability in the above way.
