James Abraham Kris Tierney Human Resources Management October 9th, 2022 Abraham 1 An Assessment of Current Job Characteristics and Enrichment Based on the Job Characteristics Model Introduction The Job Characteristics Model plays a part in the employee considerations which is analyzed, along with several other considerations, when designing a job. There are five specific areas to the job characteristic model which include variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback. All these characteristics contribute to the employee’s psychological state of finding meaningfulness in their work, a sense of responsibility, and knowledge of outcomes from their work. Jobs can either positively or negatively impact these psychological states which in turn will affect internal work motivation, quality of work performance, satisfaction with work, and absenteeism and turnover (Hackman and Oldham 161). Thus, appropriate analysis that takes the job characteristics model into account is important to improve the employee’s psychological and perceived behavioral outcomes which is in turn can cause increased organizational efficiency, which has been shown to be true in nearly 200 studies (Fried and Farris 287). A self-test of the job characteristics model was completed for my current job at a nonprofit where I work as the Health and Safety Manager. This paper will discuss how well my current job scores with the five characteristics of the model, how that contributes to the three psychological states, and if anything can be modified to increase job enrichment. Meaningfulness Meaningfulness in work is how much an individual perceives their job to have some existential meaning and is perhaps the most subjective of the three psychological states since it is based on what an individual accepts to be meaningful. It is contributed to by three of the five elements within the job characteristics model which are task significance, task identity, and task variety. Task significance is how valuable an employee perceives their work is to the organization or perhaps beyond the organization, task identity is how much the job of the employee contributes to the finished product of what the company is supplying or serving, and task variety is the degree to which a job offers multiple tasks such that the employee experiences challenge in their work (Hackman et. al. 59). It is postulated that social support, within the work environment, is a common factor that is found to contribute to the perception of meaningfulness in work (Simonet and Castille 5). This may have been a deciding factor that helped increase the score for the job at my organization. The job scored a total of 18 points out of a possible 24 points on the statements that related to task significance, task identity, and task variety. Of the three areas the highest score was in task variety, scoring 7 out of a possible 8, and the lowest score was in task identity, James Abraham Kris Tierney Human Resources Management October 9th, 2022 Abraham 2 scoring 5 out of a possible 8. Task variety is a relatively high score due to the nature of the work which must support various departments including a childcare center, an overnight shelter residence, and a summer camp at various sites across the city. Task identity was the lowest score perhaps because health and safety is a small aspect of the total service that is provided to the various types of clients the organization serves. It is a supporting role that ensure that the services provided are done so in a safe manner for clients and the employees. It would be hard to enrich such a job directly, especially in terms of task identity, considering that the purpose of the organization is to empower the marginalized individuals of our society which is the main reason I joined the organization. However, our organization has recently implemented a new program that has individuals occasionally serve in departments that directly work with clients. This program was implemented to increase task variety and task significance which ultimately contributes to the meaningfulness an employee experiences in the workplace. While the overall score was relatively low for meaningfulness, the organization has a strong social support system due to it being a relatively small organization with strong ties between employees. If it wasn’t for the social support, the total score for meaningfulness may have been much lower. Responsibility Responsibility for work outcomes relates to how much an individual perceives themselves to be answerable for the results that their job produces (Hackman et. al. 58). It is contributed to by a single facet of the job characteristics model which is autonomy. Job autonomy is how much freedom a worker has on their job which can relate to their scheduling, the methods they use to complete their work, their problem-solving techniques, and more. The higher the autonomy the higher responsibility an individual would have to answer for the work they completed, while the lower the autonomy, that is they are told to do what another tells them, the lower responsibility they would have for the work they complete. In terms of autonomy, the job scored 7 points out of a possible 8. Of the two statements that determined this score, the statement that scored the least related to the amount of control which was perceived in the quality and performance of the job. The reason for the lower score has to do with when the job can exercise functional authority over staff authority. When the job allows for the use of functional authority, which for most cases it does, then the responsibility of the outcome for the decision would lie completely on the one making the decision. However, when the job exercises staff authority, there is a shared responsibility for the result of the decision made. Often when the result of that decision is unfavorable, it is perceived that it reflects poorly on the quality and performance of my work. The benefit however for this job is that health and safety usually require a technical expertise, which means more functional authority can be given, which is what would help enrich this part of the job characteristics model. The other statement that scored relatively higher, in a favorable sense, was regarding the pace of work. There is a high degree of autonomy in the job, such that for most cases, the job is allowed to start and end at any reasonable time, time off requests are almost always guaranteed, and even James Abraham Kris Tierney Human Resources Management October 9th, 2022 Abraham 3 the number of hours of work is dependent on the quality of work completed rather than the quantity of time. The overall score was reasonably high for responsibility of work outcomes. This means that the perceived experience of autonomy in this job is high, which in many ways has the ability to encourage the individual in this job to perform well. Knowledge of Outcomes Knowledge of the results of an employee’s work is the final psychological state that must be met according to the job characteristics model. There is one facet that contributes to this psychological state which is feedback. Feedback is the information the employee receives after the work is completed regarding the effectiveness of their work (Hackman et. al. 59). While positive feedback contributes positively towards job enrichment, and negative feedback may take away from job enrichment, feedback received in general is better than the lack of it. In terms of feedback, the job scored 5 out of a possible 8 points. The statement that scored the least regarding feedback, as well as the lowest score on the entire assessment, was about feedback from a superior regarding the quality of work. The reason for the low score is tied to the autonomy that is given in the job, that is the autonomy of the job is high enough that seldom is their contact and review of work completed by my superior, which personally I don’t find to be an issue. This pattern of autonomy decreasing the need for feedback has been found in other studies as well (Krasman 50). That being said, the next statement about feedback scored higher which was regarding feedback from other employees. This has much to do with the nature of the organization, the clients served, and the importance placed on a role such as this within such an environment. The focus of the organization, and the feedback that is often received, is much more regarding jobs that serve clients directly rather than administrative jobs such as those found in Human Resources. Usually, the feedback which is shared with the entire organization is that which is received by clients that only work with the employees that are in client facing departments. The overall score for knowledge of outcomes was relatively low. Perhaps the best way to enrich the job through feedback would be more regular investment of time from my superior in following up with projects completed through this job and the assessment of the quality of work completed, however it is something that is not necessarily required. Conclusion The total score for my current job based on this assessment was 30 out of a possible 40 points. Considering that a score of over 32 signifies an enjoyable experience, it would be safe to say that I rather enjoy my job. While there may be a few areas for improvement, I certainly experience meaningfulness, responsibility, and have knowledge of outcomes with the work that I do. James Abraham Kris Tierney Human Resources Management October 9th, 2022 Abraham 4 Works Cited Fried, Yitzhak, and Gerald R., Ferris. “The Validity of the Job Characteristics Model: A Review and Meta-Analysis.” Personnel Psychology, vol. 40, no. 2, June 1987, pp. 287–322., https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1987.tb00605.x. Hackman, J. Richard, et al. “A New Strategy for Job Enrichment.” California Management Review, vol. 17, no. 4, 1975, pp. 57–71., https://doi.org/10.2307/41164610. Hackman, J. Richard, and Greg R. Oldham. “Development of the Job Diagnostic Survey.” Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 60, no. 2, 1975, pp. 159–170., https://doi.org/10.1037/h0076546. Krasman, Joe. “Putting Feedback‐Seeking into ‘Context’: Job Characteristics and Feedback‐ Seeking Behaviour.” Personnel Review, vol. 42, no. 1, 2012, pp. 50–66., https://doi.org/10.1108/00483481311285228. Simonet, Daniel V., and Christopher M. Castille. “The Search for Meaningful Work: A Network Analysis of Personality and the Job Characteristics Model.” Personality and Individual Differences, vol. 152, 2020, pp. 1–9., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109569.
