Section 9 Job Design Managing Performance through Job Design

What makes jobs great?

 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 engineering comes from this perspective The Study of Jobs- Scientific Management

 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. The Study of Jobs- Scientific Management

Transition from Scientific Management for Performance to Job Design (Hackman & Oldham) for Satisfaction AND Performance

Job Design (Continued)

Job Characteristics Model

 Job Enlargement  Broadening the scope of a job by expanding the number of different tasks to be performed.  Job Enrichment  Increasing the depth of a job by adding the responsibility for planning, organizing, controlling, and evaluating the job.  Job Rotation  The process of shifting a person from job to job. Nature of Job Design

 Skill Variety  The extent to which the work requires several different activities for successful completion.  Task Identity  The extent to which the job includes a “whole” identifiable unit of work that is carried out from start to finish and that results in a visible outcome.  Task Significance  The impact the job has on other people. Characteristics of Jobs

 Autonomy  The extent of individual freedom and discretion in the work and its scheduling.  Feedback  Amount of information employees receive about how well or how poorly they have performed. Characteristics of Jobs

Job Characteristics Model

How can we affect jobs? Management strategies for affecting…  Skill Variety  Task Identity  Task Significance  Autonomy  Feedback  Job Enlargement  Broadening the scope of a job by expanding the number of different tasks to be performed.  Job Enrichment  Increasing the depth of a job by adding the responsibility for planning, organizing, controlling, and evaluating the job.  Job Rotation  The process of shifting a person from job to job.

Ways to Redesign Jobs Combine tasks so that a worker is responsible for doing a piece of work from start to finish. Skill variety Task identity Task significance A production worker is responsible for assembling a whole bicycle, not just attaching the handlebars. Group tasks into natural work units so that workers are responsible for an entire set of important activities rather than just a part of them. Task identity Task significance A computer programmer handles all programming requests from one division instead of one type of request from several different divisions. Allow workers to interact with customers or clients, and make workers responsible for managing these relationships and satisfying customers. Skill variety Autonomy Feedback A truck driver who delivers photocopiers not only sets them up but also trains customers in how to use them, handles customer billing, and responds to customer complaints. Vertically load jobs so that workers have more control over their work activities and higher levels of responsibility. Autonomy A corporate marketing analyst not only prepares marketing plans and reports but also decides when to update and revise them, checks them for errors, and presents them to upper management. Open feedback channels so that workers know how they are performing their jobs. Feedback In addition to knowing how many claims he handles per month, an insurance adjuster receives his clients’ responses to follow-up questionnaires that his company uses to measure client satisfaction. Change MadeJob Dim IncExample

Advice to Managers  Realize that increasing subordinates’ intrinsic motivation decreases your need to closely supervise subordinates and frees up your time for other activities.  To increase levels of intrinsic motivation and job satisfaction, increase levels of the five core dimensions.  Do not redesign jobs to increase levels of the five core dimensions if workers do not desire personal growth and development at work.  Before any redesign effort, make sure that workers are satisfied with extrinsic job outcomes. If workers are not satisfied with these factors, try to increase satisfaction levels prior to redesigning jobs.  Make sure that workers have the necessary skills and abilities to perform their jobs. Do not redesign jobs to increase levels of the core dimensions for workers whose skills and abilities are already stretched by their current jobs.  Periodically assess workers’ perceptions of the core dimensions of their jobs as well as their levels of job satisfaction and intrinsic motivation.

International Perspectives on the Design of Work The Japanese Approach  Emphasizes strategic level  Encourages collective and cooperative working arrangements  Emphasizes lean production

Using committed employees with ever- expanding responsibilities to achieve zero waste, 100% good product, delivered on time, every time Lean Production

International Perspectives on the Design of Work The German Approach  Technocentric - placing technology and engineering at the center of job design decisions (traditional German approach)  Anthropocentric - placing human considerations at the center of job design decisions (more recent German approach)

International Perspectives on the Design of Work The Scandinavian Approach  encourages high degrees of worker control  encourages good social support systems for workers

The Distinguishing Feature of Job Design in the Future FLEXIBILITY

Empowerment  Peter Drucker  The Practice of Management (1954)  “It does not matter whether the workers wants responsibility or not…The enterprise must demand it of him.”

Final Comments on Job Design- Safety  Safety Awards Safety Awards  Question on Job Design?