1. Efficiency, Motivation, and Quality in Work Design
Chapter Seven
Efficiency, Motivation, and Quality in Work Design
Thomson South-Western Wagner & Hollenbeck 5e

2. Chapter Overview This chapter examines the following topics:
The Efficiency Perspective
Methods Engineering
Work Measurement: Motion and Time Studies
Evaluating Industrial Engineering and the Efficiency Perspective
The Motivational Perspective
Horizontal Job Enlargement
Vertical Job Enrichment
Comprehensive Job Enrichment
Sociotechnical Enrichment
Evaluating the Motivational Perspective
The Quality Perspective
Quality Circles
Self-Managing Teams
Automation and Robotics
Evaluating the Quality Perspective

3. Introduction
Work design: the formal process of dividing an organization’s total stock of work into jobs and tasks that its members can perform

4. The Efficiency Perspective
To achieve efficiency, companies minimize the resources consumed in providing a product or service
The efficiency perspective on work design is concerned with creating jobs that conserve time, human energy, raw materials, and other productive resources
It is the foundation of the field of industrial engineering, which focuses on maximizing the efficiency of the methods, facilities, and materials used to produce commercial products
Methods engineering and work measurement are two areas of industrial engineering that have had noticeable effects on the division of labor in modern organizations

5. Methods Engineering
Methods engineering is an area of industrial engineering that originated in Frederick Winslow Taylor's work on scientific management and attempts to improve the methods used by incorporating the two endeavors of process engineering and human factor engineering
Process engineering: assesses the sequence of tasks required to produce a particular product or service and analyzes the way those tasks fit together into an integrated job
Process engineers study what is to be produced and decide what role humans should play in its production
Human factors engineering (ergonomics): experts design machines and work environments so that they better match human capacities and limitations

6. Work Measurement: Motion and Time Studies
Industrial engineers sometimes examine the motions and time required to complete each job
Frank and Lillian Gilbreth
Work measurement: area concerned with measuring the amount of work accomplished and developing standards for performing work of an acceptable quantity and quality
Micromotion analysis and time-study procedures
Micromotion analysis: analyzes the hand and body movements required to do a job
Time-study techniques are used to measure the time actually consumed by job performance and sometimes specify the time that a job should take to complete
Stopwatch time analysis
Standard time analysis

7. Evaluating Industrial Engineering and the Efficiency Perspective
All industrial engineering methods attempt to enhance productivity by simplifying jobs
There is a danger that simplification will be carried too far
Workers may become bored, resentful, and dissatisfied
May result in dire health consequences
The simplification intended to enhance the efficiency of work processes may actually reduce that efficiency if carried too far

8. The Motivational Perspective
The motivational perspective has the central tenet that jobs should be designed in such a way that performing them creates feelings of fulfillment and satisfaction in their holders and suggests that fitting the characteristics of jobs to the needs and interests of people who perform them provides the opportunity for satisfaction at work

9. Horizontal Job Enlargement Vertical Job Enrichment
Horizontal job enlargement is based on the idea that increasing job range will reduce the repetitive nature of the job and thus eliminate worker boredom
Job range: the number of tasks that a jobholder performs
Job extension: an approach in which several oversimplified jobs are combined into a single new job
Job rotation: workers switch jobs in a structured, predefined manner
Vertical job enrichment is an attempt to increase job depth and is based on the work of Frederick Herzberg
Job depth: amount of discretion a jobholder has to choose job activities and outcomes
Herzberg found that certain characteristics of the work situation influenced employee satisfaction while others affected dissatisfaction
Motivator factors
Hygiene factors

10. Comprehensive Job Enrichment
Comprehensive job enrichment programs that combine both horizontal and vertical loading improvements are usually more successful at stimulating motivation and satisfaction
Many such programs are based on the J. Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham model

11. The Hackman-Oldham Model
According to Hackman and Oldham, jobs that are likely to motivate performance and contribute to employee satisfaction exhibit the following five core job characteristics:
Skill variety
Task identity
Task significance
Autonomy
Feedback

12. The Hackman-Oldham Model
The five core job characteristics influence the extent to which employees experience three critical psychological states or personal, internal reactions to their jobs
Experienced meaningfulness of work
Experienced responsibility for work outcomes
Knowledge of results

13. The Hackman-Oldham Model
Each job characteristic influences a particular psychological state
Skill variety, task identity, and task significance affect the experienced meaningfulness of work
Autonomy influences the experienced responsibility for work outcomes
Feedback determines whether a worker will have knowledge of the results of his or her work
If workers experience all three states simultaneously, four kinds of work and personal outcomes are likely to result:
High internal work motivation
High-quality work performance
High satisfaction with work
Lower absenteeism and turnover
The model proposes that several individual differences determine whether the core job characteristics will actually trigger the critical psychological states
Knowledge and skill
Growth-need strength
Context satisfactions

14. Implementation
Hackman and Oldham developed the Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS); this questionnaire measures workers’ perceptions of the five core job characteristics, the three critical psychological states, and certain moderating factors
The deficiencies identified by this questionnaire can be corrected in several ways:
Oversimplified jobs can be combined
Natural units of work can be created
Give workers the responsibility for establishing and managing client relationships
Vertical loading
Feedback channels

15. Sociotechnical Enrichment
To counteract the negative effects of oversimplified group work, mangers can use a sociotechnical enrichment approach
Originated in the early 1930s
Researchers from England’s Tavistock Institute set out to correct faults in coal mining processes
Results indicated that employees should work in groups that allowed them to talk with each other about their work as they performed their duties in order to increase satisfaction and performance
Contemporary sociotechnical designs normally create semiautonomous groups

16. Implementation and Evaluating the Motivational Perspective
The decision to adopt sociotechnical design principles has important implications for shop floor operations
Contrast between a traditional assembly line and semiautonomous groups
Sociotechnical work designs typically eliminate traditional assembly line operations
All enlargement and enrichment techniques are aimed at designing jobs that satisfy the needs and interests of holders
Alone, horizontal job enlargement and vertical job enrichment have largely failed to achieve this goal
Methods incorporating both are more successful
Some doubts have been raised about the validity of the Hackman-Oldham model

17. The Quality Perspective
Within the last 25 years, a third perspective on work design emerged in the search of new ways to improve the quality of goods and services produced in North America
Founders of the quality perspective include
W. Edwards Deming
Philip B. Cosby
Joseph M. Juran
These quality experts inspired Total Quality Management (TQM)

18. Quality Circles
Quality circles are small groups of employees (3-30 members) who meet on company time to identify and resolve job-related problems
QCs were invented in the U.S. and exported to Japan by Deming and Juran
Usually, QC membership is voluntary and remains stable over time
Managers have attempted to use QCs to counteract the negative effects of job specialization and simplification

19. Self-Managing Teams Automation and Robotics
Self-managing teams group employees together into permanent, empowered teams
Management responsibilities of these teams include:
Duty to continually assess the work of the team
Redesigning jobs of team members
Automation is a 3rd approach available to mangers to improve quality
It has implications for the design of jobs
Automation is used to eliminate repetitive, physically demanding, mistake-prone work
Industrial robots
Flexible manufacturing cells

20. Evaluating the Quality Perspective
The quality perspective represents a hybrid of the efficiency and motivational perspectives on work design
Relevant evidence seems to support the conclusion that work design implementation stimulated by the quality perspective may have positive effects on workforce motivation, satisfaction, and productivity