Jobs & the Design of Work
Job Compared to Work
Job - a set of specified work and task
activities that engage an individual in
an organization
Work – mental or physical activity
that has productive results
Meaning of Work - the way a person
interprets and understands the value
of work as part of life
People and Work System Goals
Use people efficiently
within constraints
Provide reasonable
quality of work life
© 1995 Corel Corp.
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Job Design
Definition: The process of
linking specific tasks to specific
jobs and deciding what
techniques, equipment, and
procedures should be used to
perform those tasks.
 Early approaches:

– Scientific Management
– Job Enlargement
– Job Enrichment

More recent approaches:
– Job Characteristics Model
– Social Information Processing
Theory
Factors affecting Job Design
Job Design
Organizational
factors
Environmental
factors
Behavioral
factors
Job Design involves 3teps
1.
2.
3.
The specification of individual tasks.
The specification of the methods of
performing each task
The combination of task into
specific jobs to be assigned to the
individuals
Techniques of Job Designing
1.
2.
3.
4.
Job
Job
Job
Job
simplification
rotation
enlargement
enrichment
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Job Enlargement
Job Enlargement - a method of job design that
increases the number of activities in a job to
overcome the boredom of overspecialized work
 Increasing the number of tasks a worker
performs but keeping all of the tasks at the
same level of difficulty and responsibility; also
called horizontal job loading.
Advantage: Adds variety to a worker’s job.
 Disadvantage: Jobs may still be simple and
limited in how much control and variety
workers have.
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Job Enrichment
Job Enrichment - designing or redesigning jobs by
incorporating motivational factors into them
 Emphasis is on recognition, responsibility, and
advancement opportunity
 Increasing a worker’s responsibility and control over his
or her work; also called vertical job loading.
 Ways of enriching jobs:
– Allow workers to plan their own work schedules.
– Allow workers to decide how the work should be
performed.
– Allow workers to check their own work.
– Allow workers to learn new skills.
 Advantage: Gives workers more autonomy,
responsibility, and control.
 Disadvantages
– Not all workers want enriched jobs
– May be expensive and/or inefficient
Limitations to
Job Enlargement/Job
Enrichment
Higher capital cost
 Many individuals prefer simple jobs
 Higher wages are required since the
worker must utilize a higher level of skill
 A smaller labor pool exists of persons able
and willing to perform enriched or
enlarged jobs
 Increased accident rates may occur
 Current technology in some industries
does not lend itself to job enlargement and
enrichment

Job simplification
 It
is a design method where by jobs
are divided into smaller components
& subsequently assigned to workers
as whole jobs
 Simplification of work requires that
jobs be broken into their smallest
units & then analyzed.
 It helps the employee to learn
rapidly, short work cycles allows
task performance with little mental
effort
Job Rotation
 It
refers to the movement of an
employee from one job to another.
 Job themselves are not actually
changed, only the employees are
rotated among various jobs.
Job Characteristics Model a framework for understanding
person-job fit through the interaction
of core job dimensions with critical
psychological states within a person
Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS) the survey instrument designed to
measure the elements in the Job
Characteristics Model
Types of Approaches
 Engineering
Approach
 Human Relation Approach
 The Job Characteristics Approach
 Socio technical Approach
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Scientific Management in
Practice

Pay is the principal outcome used to
motivate workers to contribute their
inputs.
– Piece-rate pay system
Scientific management focuses exclusively
on extrinsic motivation and ignores the
important role of intrinsic motivation.
 Specific disadvantages:

– Workers may feel that they have lost control
over their work behaviors.
– Workers may feel as if they are part of a
machine and are treated as such.
– Workers have no opportunity to develop and
acquire new skills.
4
Scientific Management




A set of principles and practices designed to
increase the performance of individual workers
by stressing job simplification and job
specialization.
Job simplification: The breaking up of the
work that needs to be performed in an
organization into the smallest identifiable
tasks.
Job specialization: The assignment of workers
to perform small, simple tasks.
Time and motion studies: Studies that reveal
exactly how long it takes to perform a task
and the best way to perform it.
Job Characteristics Model
Core job
dimensions
Skill variety
Task identity
Task significance
Autonomy
Feedback
Critical
psychological
states
Experienced work’s
meaningfulness
Experienced
responsibility
for work’s outcomes
Knowledge of work
activities’ results
Employee
growth,need,
strength
Personal and
work outcomes
High internal
work motivation
High-quality
work performance
High satisfaction
with the work
Low absenteeism
and turnover
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The Job Characteristics Model
 Advocated
by Hackman & Oldham
 An approach to job design that aims to
identify characteristics that make jobs
intrinsically motivating and to specify the
consequences of those characteristics.
 Four key components
– Core job dimensions
 Motivating
potential score
– Critical psychological states
– Consequences: work and personal outcomes
– Individual differences
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Core Job Dimensions
Skill Variety: The extent to which a job requires a worker to use
different skills, abilities, or talents.
Task Identity: The extent to which a job involves performing a
whole piece of work from its beginning to its end.
Task Significance: The extent to which a job has an impact on the
lives or work of other people in or out of the organization.
Autonomy: The degree to which a job allows a worker the freedom
and independence to schedule work and decide how to carry it out.
Feedback: The extent to which performing a job provides a
worker with clear information about his or her effectiveness.
Social Information Processing (SIP)
model








SIP Model - a model that suggests that the
important job factors depend in part on what
others tell a person about the job
Four premises:
1) people provide cues to understanding
the work environment
2) people help us judge our jobs
3) people tell us how they see our jobs
4) people’s positive & negative feedback
help us understand our feelings about our
jobs


1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
According to this approach, jobs are designed
by taking a holistic or systems view of entire
job situation including its physical & social
environment.
Following guidelines are have been developed
A job needs to be reasonably demanding for the
individual in terms other than sheer endurance
and yet need some variety
Employees need some minimum area of
decision making
Employees need to be learn on the job & to go
on learning.
Employee need some minimal degree of social
support & recognition at the workplace
Employees need to be relate what they do &
what they produce at the workplace
Human Relations Approach



1.
2.

The HRA recognized the need to design jobs in
an interesting manner.
Advocated by Herzberg.
Acc to him there are two types of factors .
Motivators like achievement, recognition, work
itself, responsibility, advancement & growth.
Hygiene factors like working conditions,
organizational policies, interpersonal relations,
pay &job security.
He emphasized on the psychological needs of
the employees in designing the jobs
Outcomes of Various Job Design Approaches
Decreased training time
Higher utilization levels
Lower error likelihood
Less mental overload
Lower stress levels
Higher job satisfaction
Higher motivation
Greater job involvement
Higher job performance
Lower absenteeism
+
+
Mechanistic
Approach
-
Lower job satisfaction
Lower motivation
Higher absenteeism
Motivational
Approach
-
Increased training time
Lower personnel utilization
Greater chance of errors
Greater chance of mental
overload and stress