Exhibit 6-1
Model for Design of Work Systems
CHAPTER 6:
DESIGN & REDESIGN
OF WORK SYSTEMS
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1–1
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Design of Work Systems
Design of Work Systems
• Job Specialization
•Job Enrichment
• Creates jobs with very narrow task (activity) assignments
• Resulted in high efficiency, quickly achieved job competency, low training
costs, but created monotonous jobs
• Increasing amount of responsibility for quality &
productivity that employees have for their own
work
• Job Enlargement
• An increase in task variety to relieve boredom
•Vertical Loading
• Job Rotation
• Reassignment of job responsibility formerly
delegated to supervisor to employee
• Employees moved across different specialized positions
• Enlargement & rotation add variety but not necessarily responsibility
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1–4
Exhibit 6-2
Five Core Job Characteristics
• Skill variety
1–2
Job Characteristics Model
• Autonomy
• Extent to which work allows
employee to use variety of
skills
• Task identity
• Extent to which employee is
able to work & determine work
procedure at own discretion
• Feedback
• Extent to which work allows
employee to complete whole
or identifiable piece of work
• Task significance
• Extent to which work allows
employee to gain sense of how
well job responsibilities are
met
• Extent to which employee
perceives that work is
important & meaningful to
those inside or outside
organization
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1
What Workers Need
• Changing demographics &
life styles
• Worker needs vary by age,
gender, race, religion, physical
abilities, sexual orientation, &
marital & family status
• Employee needs for
work/life balance
• Workers less committed to
organizations today
• Also suffer from burnout &
lower performance
Types of Task Interdependence
• Employee needs
representation (“voice”)
• Pooled interdependence
• Workers want to be involved
in work-related issues &
expect organization to listen to
concerns
• Employee concerns about
safety in workplace
• Workers want safe, hazardfree working environment
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• Reciprocal interdependence
• Individual employees work
independently of each other in
performing tasks but utilize
coordination of activities
• Sequential interdependence
• Workflow is random
• Responds to immediate
situation
• Employees have joint & shared
responsibilities for work
• Work in process flow is linear,
from one individual to another
• One individual depends on
timely completion of quality
work from another coworker
• Higher levels of
interdependence require
higher levels of coordination
& attention
1–7
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Redesign of Work Systems
Outsourcing
• Current & future work systems more broadly defined & more closely
related to strategic choices
• Workers becoming more involved in design & reengineering of jobs
• Cross-function teams strategically beneficial
• Involves contracting out some of organization’s noncore work
activities to outside specialists
• Also create challenges in effectively managing themselves
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• Can do work more effectively
• Often for less than cost of doing work in-house
• Areas frequently outsourced:
• Payroll
• Benefits
• Technological support
• Employees raised in individualistic cultures need training to be
effective team members
• More than 75% of organizations outsource at least one HR function
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Outsourcing
Offshoring
•Can free up HR staff to focus on more
strategic issues
•Considerations:
• Involves exporting tasks & jobs to countries where labor costs
significantly less than in U.S.
• India remains largest market
• Wages approximately 10% of those paid in U.S.
• Cost savings
• Whether contractor can deliver
• Compliance with laws
• Impacts on employees whose jobs might be lost
• Impacts on morale of remaining employees
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• Often considered good by local standards
• Challenge of managing virtual global teams
• Need for tight organizational & operational control to ensure
coordination & communication
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2
Offshoring
Mergers & Acquisitions
•Advantages
•Mergers pursued for a variety of reasons:
•Disadvantages
• Cost savings
• Extend work day to
24 hours
• Loss of domestic jobs
• Transfer of technical
knowledge
• Public image/loyalty
concerns
• Economies of scale in operations
• Consolidation in saturated markets
• Improving competitive position through larger
asset base
•Two thirds of mergers fail
• Largely because of inability to merge cultural &
other human factors
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1–13
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Barriers to Change
To Overcome Resistance to Change
• Disrupting status quo may be met with resistance by both employees
and managers
• Costs & reallocation of resources
• Employees will resist change unless they
•Promote & implement change so it provides
benefits to those impacted
•Involve employees in change process to
increase their commitment to change
•Open, two-way communication
• Perceive need to change
• See benefits from change
• Risk & uncertainty; no guarantee of improvements
• Poor coordination & communication can undermine change
initiatives
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• Early before change decisions are made
• Dispel rumors
• Increase trust & acceptance of change by keeping
employees informed & asking for input
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Reading 6.1
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Reading 6.1
Restructuring Teams for Re-engineered Organizations
Restructuring Teams for Re-engineered Organizations
•Reasons for using teams in organizations:
•Problems with teams
• Unlikely one individual will have all of knowledge
& information needed to make complex
decisions
• Teams provide more “buy-in” to decisions
• Managers believe teams enhance motivation &
productivity
• Facilitate acquisition & sharing of information
vital to organizational growth and flexibility
• Facilitate variety of internal quality control
initiatives
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1–17
• May fail without proper training & support
• Often poorly integrated into organization’s
hierarchy
• Individuals often feel their team contributions
dilute personal success
• Few teams have found effective means to deal
with “freeloaders”
• Usually not represented at top levels of
organizations, sending a mixed message about
their importance
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3
Reading 6.1
Reading 6.1
Restructuring Teams for Re-engineered Organizations
Restructuring Teams for Re-engineered Organizations
•U.S. & Japanese culture differences
•Three keys to successful teams
• Individualism versus collectivism
• Conflict & conformity
• Power & authority
• Time orientation
• Cultural & demographic homogeneity
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• Value & endorse dissent
• Encourage fluidity of membership
• Enable teams to make decisions
1–19
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Figure 1
Figure 2
Three Key Elements for Success of US Teams
Team Development Model
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Reading 6.2
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Reading 6.2
HRM Outsourcing: Make or Buy Decision
HRM Outsourcing: Make or Buy Decision
•Five competitive forces driving organizations
to outsource HR activities:
• Downsizing
• Rapid growth or decline
• Globalization
• Increased competition
• Restructuring
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•Operational rationales for outsourcing
• Small firms lack resources; large firms gain
economies of scale
• Specialized HR expertise & objectivity
• Reduced liability & risk in legally sensitive HR areas
• Innovations & economies of scale in HRIS
technology used by outside vendors
• Simplify transactions
• Reduce HR costs
1–23
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4
Reading 6.2
Reading 6.2
HRM Outsourcing: Make or Buy Decision
HRM Outsourcing: Make or Buy Decision
•Operational rationales for outsourcing
(continued):
•Strategic rationales for outsourcing:
• Outsourcing nonstrategic activities permits HR to
move away from administration toward strategic
role
• Decentralization of HR function through
redeployment of some of assets to operating
units
• Develop less bureaucratic HR departments
• Downsizing may require HR to reduce staff,
eliminating specialized in-house expertise
• Outsourcing provides “big picture” perspective
• Time-sensitive issues better handled by
outsourcing
• Temporary or cyclical increases in HR needs
• Efficient vendor management practices drive
costs down more than economies of scale
• Specialized vendors offer activities as their core
business & strategic focus
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Reading 6.2
Reading 6.2
HRM Outsourcing: Make or Buy Decision
HRM Outsourcing: Make or Buy Decision
•Positive outcomes
•Negative outcomes
• Lower HR costs
• Higher service quality
• Realignment or redeployment of internal HR
expertise
• Development of negotiation & broker skills
• Enhanced credibility of HR function
• Risk & uncertainty absorption by HR vendor
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•Significant cost savings not always
experienced
•Vendor switching costs
•Long-term vendor contracts
•Disruption of firm’s culture
•Removal or distancing of HR function from
employees
1–27
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Reading 6.3
Reading 6.3
Productivity in Downsizing
Work Redesign
•Many downsizing firms face immediate
challenge of keeping operations going with
minimal staff
•Productivity often declines
•Survivors
•Typical problems
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•Failure or inability to identify & categorize
duties & assignments
•Failure to identify when employee is overtasked
•Failure to see when business unit’s
demands exceed its capacity
• Working more hours
• Receive with bigger workload
•Morale often plummets
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5
Reading 6.3
Reading 6.3
Work Redesign: Task Categories
Work Redesign
• Critical tasks
•Output from work categorization process
must be shared with all employees so they
have list of tasks for which they are
accountable
•These tasks are used to drive performance
management process
• Minor tasks
• Enable company to
accomplish primary
objectives
• Sub-critical tasks
• Need to be
performed, but
average standard of
quality will suffice
• Add value to firm but
will not hinder
operations or goals if
left undone
• Unnecessary tasks
• Can be discarded
because they drain
resources
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6