Effective Job Design and a Good Job Response - Coursework Example

Departmental Manager XYZ, Assistant Manager 28 May Implementation of effective job design within the organization This is in response to your request for the plan to implement effective job design within the organization. A comprehensive report detailing the likely benefits of implementing an effective job design along with their related implications and recommendations are provided for your study. Organization’s structure is characterized by the task and authority relationships. Jobs are the main pillar of this structure .The process of job design emphasizes the design or redesign of jobs to include aspects which lead to the accomplishment of both worker and organizational goals. Inadequately designed jobs often bring about dullness and consequently increased turnover, demotivation, low levels of job contentment, diminished efficiency, and an escalation in organizational costs. Many of these undesirable concerns could be circumvented or reduced through effective job design or proper detection of major job constituents. Businessdictionary.com defines job design as “Work arrangement (or rearrangement) aimed at reducing or overcoming job dissatisfaction and employee alienation arising from repetitive and mechanistic tasks. Through job design, organizations try to raise productivity levels by offering non-monetary rewards such as greater satisfaction from a sense of personal achievement in meeting the increased challenge and responsibility of ones work. Job enlargement, job enrichment, job rotation, and job simplification are the various techniques used in a job design exercise.” There are broadly two approaches to job design which is based on two different schools of thoughts. The first method involves fitting individuals to jobs. It is founded upon the hypothesis that people can be modified to any work condition. Thus employee attitudes towards the job are overlooked and jobs are aimed at producing maximum economic and technological productivity. This methodology uses the doctrines of scientific management and work simplification. In contrast, the second method involves fitting jobs to individuals. It is centered upon the theory that individuals are underutilized at the task and long for more challenges and accountability. Practices such as job rotation, job enlargement, etc. are used while designing jobs under the second alternative. The scientific management approach was devised by F.W. Taylor. The approach is based on the application of scientific principles to job design. Work, according to this approach should be scientifically analyzed and fragmented into predetermined tasks. Taylor supports job specialization so that detailed procedures, policies and work practices are formulated by managers, imposed by supervisors, and performed by employees. However, specialization of labor is the two-edged sword of job design. On one hand, specialization has made possible high-speed, low-cost manufacture, and from a money-oriented position, it has greatly improved our standard of living. On the other hand, extreme specialization (as seen in mass-production industries) often has severe hostile effects on workers, which in turn are passed on to management. In essence, the problem is to determine how much specialization is enough. The second approach of job design laid emphasis on designing a job around the people or employees and not around the organizational processes. In other words it recognizes the need of designing jobs that are rewarding (financially and otherwise) and interesting at the same time. According to this approach jobs should gratify an individual’s need for recognition, respect, growth and responsibility. Job enrichment, job rotation and job enlargement are the most commonly used approaches to job design under the second category which are also described below: Job enrichment - seeks to add profoundness to a job by giving workers more authority, accountability, and liberty of choice over how their job is done. It happens when the work itself is more interesting, when accomplishment is encouraged, when there are chances for development, and when responsibility, feedback, and credit are provided. Nonetheless, employees are the ultimate judges of what enriches their jobs. Job enrichment doesnt work for everyone. Some people are very resistant to more accountability or to chances for personal development, but researchers report that some people they anticipated to resist seized the occasion. Enriching jobs is a particularly effective way to develop employees provided the jobs are truthfully enriched, not just more work for them to do. Job rotation - is a technique that assigns employees to various jobs and departments over a period of time in a planned manner. Job rotation may be of considerable benefit if it is part of a larger redesign effort and/or it is used as a training and development approach to develop various employee competencies and prepare employees for advancement. At times, it may be used to control the problem of monotonous stress injuries by moving people among jobs that require different physical actions. Job rotation is also a mechanism to detect mistakes and frauds. It reduces the risk of collusion between individuals. Organizations dealing with delicate information or system (e.g. financial institutions) where there is an opportunity for personal gain can benefit by job rotation. Job enlargement - combines into one job with two or more tasks which are to be performed. It puts more variety into a job. By widening the range of tasks that need to be performed, hopefully the employee will experience less repetition and monotony that are common on production lines which rely upon the division of labor. Sometimes it is called “horizontal loading” as all tasks involve the same level of responsibility .The job enlargement approach often has positive effects on employee effectiveness. However, some employees view job enlargement as just adding more routine, repetitive tasks to their already boring job. Other employees regard it as eliminating their ability to perform their jobs almost automatically. Results have shown that this process can see its effects diminish after a period of time, as even the enlarged job role become the mundane, this in turn can lead to similar levels of demotivation and job dissatisfaction at the expense of increased training levels and costs. It should be used as part of a broader approach that uses multiple job design techniques. While designing a job, the following factors are taken into consideration. i. The volume of work - it will determine by and large the number of jobs. ii. The complexity of the work - to be carried out, both in terms of its variety or breadth and its technical difficulty or depth. iii. The work processes involved -It might be desirable for one person to be involved in an entire process, or the work flows may be such that the work process has to be divide between several different people. iv. The nature of the people currently employed in the organization-The extent to which jobs can be redesigned depend largely on the kind of people employed v. The sequence of flows in the process- the succession of events and their timings affect how the work can be organized. Where activities are carried out over a longer period, this is likely to be the cause of greater complexity. vi. The timescales - where immediate responses are required, specific jobs may have to be earmarked to provide such responses. Work requiring longer planning horizons is likely to be more complex and needs therefore to be done at a higher level. vii. The geographical scattering of the organization’s activities. viii. The involvement of other parts of the organization in the overall process- there may be a need for extensive communication and coordination and the design of jobs should take account of the way this is to be achieved. ix. The effect of information technology (Cushway and Lodge, 2001). The following are the benefits of a good job design: 1. An effective job design allows a good job response. Employees have the choice to alter tasks as per their individual and social wants, behaviors and conditions in the workplace. 2. Training is an essential element of job design. Job design lies due stress on training people so that are well conscious of what their job requirements and how it is to be performed. 3. Job design offers good work and relaxation timetable by clearly outlining the amount of hours an individual has to devote to his/her job. 4. A good job designs permits for alterations for physically demanding jobs by minimizing the energy spent doing the job and by aligning the manpower requirements for the same. Job design is a nonstop and developing process that is directed at assisting employees make alterations with the changes in the workplace. The ultimate objective is to reduce disappointment, increasing motivation and employee commitment at the workplace References Cushway, B. and Lodge, D. 2001, Organizational Behavior and Design, 2nd edition Read More