Modelling of Job Specialization - Essay Example

Running Head: Job Specialization Student Name: Name of Institution: Course Code: Date of Submission: Introduction Work specialization refers to the process of focusing job design in a manner to reflect individual working in an area of expertise. Although job specialization reduces employee flexibility in terms of making them unable to handle other activities, the idea is still widely used in job designs of most organizations. Job specialization when a certain work is broken down into smaller units. This means that employees will perform fewer tasks. The act of dividing jobs into smaller units is seen as coming with advantages and disadvantages such as increasing work efficiency and increasing boredom respectively (Williams and Williams, 2010, p. 176). The idea of work efficiency comes into play in the sense that employees have less tasks to complete and will take quite some time before employee switch jobs. Most organized structures have clear dimensions of how jobs are formally divided, grouped, and coordinated. However, the problems associated with the job specialization approach are better handled using a well-established job characteristic model that involves feedback, skill variety, and task identity. This model of characteristics will clearly play an important role in eliminating issues such as job boredom and poor or low job satisfaction that may result from job specialization. Background Advantages of Job Specialization One advantage of specialization is its role of creating more job opportunities. Since work is broken down into smaller units, with individuals handling smaller portions, there will be the need to employ more experts to handle some other areas. Likewise, most scholars argue that job specialization necessitates trade. Since specialization increases productivity, there are high chances that trade will be facilitated and thus increased chances of human wants being satisfied. In essence, increased job specialization stimulates trade and vice versa (Williams and McWilliams, 2010). Specialization also reduces the cost of production. This is because as employees gain more experience in their respective jobs, they result in work efficiency that in turn results in high productivity in a short period. This will also result in efficient and improved worker output within a limited cost. These benefits of low production cost will definitely pass on to the consumer in the form of low prices and high quality. In that case, such products are likely to generate high profits since the production cost is maintained at minimum levels. Another important benefit of job specialization is that of expertise development. Most employees gain more experience and expertise in their respective tasks after working on it for a long time. With more expertise gained over time, employees will definitely produce more quality products in a more efficient way with less time (Williams and McWilliams, 2010). It also results in increased output for consumers since employees are now more experienced. In the case where technology is used in production, employees are likely to gain expertise and use technology in other areas of production. Disadvantages Job specialization always implies repetition of same activity and can lead to boredom. This can often be the case. Individuals working in specialized jobs are often bored and may lead to employee burnout. The level of burnout depends on the demands of the production cycle for employees and usually becomes even worse when an organization overworks its employees for longer periods. In the long run, employee burnout and boredom will result to poor employee morale and low job satisfaction (Williams and Williams, 2010, p176). This can be controlled by the introduction of multi-tasking to offer room for employees to learn new skills and have a control over a wide area of experience. Furthermore, job specialization can lead to poor communication and collaboration within an organization. Work design that favors specialization can make work units to turn inwards, concentrate on its unit goals, and lose focus on the general and common goals that lead to the entire success of the organization. This poor communication and coordination among units can hinder the realization of predetermined goals and objectives of the production cycle and even result in poor quality of the products. However, the use of technology is important in enhancing communication among work units and in breaking down the barrier between them. This will facilitate the realization of general organizational goals and objectives. Example of Job Specialization An example of job specialization is that suggested by Frederick W. Taylor, an industrial engineer, in 1911. The idea introduced then later became the foundation of job specialization of the modern day engineering and scientific management. Among the principles he pointed out include the replacement of the rule-of-thumb work methods with other methods based on scientific research and dividing the work to smaller units then assigning employee each unit according to their areas of specialization. Internal Motivation Job specialization plays an important role in determining the direction of internal employee motivation. In most cases, employees feel motivated when they see their expertise improving with time. Producing high quality goods with more efficiency also enables employees to gain some sense of self-fulfillment. However, at extreme ends, specialization may bring disgrace in internal motivation. For instance, an employee that views job specialization as denying them the opportunity to learn new skills may feel less motivated. However, the entire idea includes the fact that employees will learn to be responsible and have a better knowledge of the results. Eliminating Boredom and Low Job Satisfaction The job characteristics model that is necessary for eliminating boredom and employee burnout and to improve job satisfaction has Five core job dimensions, which all lead to three critical psychological states, which in turn result in job outcomes (Hsieh and Chao, 2004). It is among the widely used methods to design jobs with high motivation strategies and improve job satisfaction. The core job characteristics include skill variety, task identity, autonomy, task significance, and feedback. These job characteristics lead to psychological states such as mindfulness, knowledge of results, and responsibility. These psychological states will lastly lead to job outcomes such as motivation, performance, job satisfaction, absenteeism, and turnover. Skill variety is the extent to which certain activity calls for an employee to utilize various skills to accomplish it. Such multi skills are always of high level and thus enhancing job performance (Mrugank and Ashwin, 2005). A car wash employee whose job is mainly directing motorist to various methods used car wash (such as automated machine or hand was) demonstrates low level of skills while an employee whose assignment is maintain automated car wash machine and actually participate in preparing chemical used demonstrates high levels of skills. Task identity on the other hand refers to the degree to which a person can be able to take on a certain task from its start to the end in a more effective manner. In most cases, the identifiable task needs the person in charge to accomplish the task from its beginning to the end. A good example is a Web designer whose main role to design parts of a web by using other designer’s work. In the end, such a person will not have the right to claim total credit of the work and thus can be said to have a low task identity. However, a webmaster with the ability to design the entire web can be said to have a high job identity. Additionally, autonomy refers to the levels with which employees have the freedom to make decisions on how to complete their respective tasks. Offering employees with the freedom to choose their methods of task completion is of much importance. Giving employees their freedom at work is an important factor in determining the success of employees themselves and that of the company as well. This success if possible since autonomous employees can perform their activities more efficiently and thus improved productivity (Waheed and Rehman, 2011). It will also offer room for employees to be more creative and on their job by doing what is required of them than waiting for instructions. Employees will feel that they own the job and thus develop their own approaches. Finally, feedback is the ability of employees to learn their effectiveness at workplaces. Feedback at work may come from several sources that include other people like unit supervisors, workmates, subordinates, and customers, or in other cases, coming from the job itself. A good example can be demonstrated with a salesperson. A salesperson that offers a presentation to any given customer without having a prior knowledge of customer decision is likely to have low feedback at work (Murgank and Aswin, 2005). However, if such person receives notification later on that said the product was sold based on the presentation, then the individual will definitely have high feedback at work. Conclusion Job specialization has both advantages and disadvantages. Among the common advantages, include reduced cost of production, developing expertise, and the creation of more job opportunities. On the other hand, the common disadvantages of job specialization include poor coordination and communication and its tendency to lead to employee boredom and burnout. However, the most efficient job characteristic model used to overcome the disadvantages of job specialization is that of five core job dimension that comprise of task identity, skill variety, task significance, autonomy, and feedback. List of References Hsieh, A and Chao, H 2004, A reassessment of the relationship between job specialization, Job rotation and job burnout, International Journal of Human Resource Management; vol. 15, no. 6, pp. 1108 - 1123. Mrugank, V & Ashwin, W 2005, Motivating salesperson customer orientation: insights from the job characteristics mode, Journal of Business Research, vol. 58, no. 5, pp. 584 – 592. Waheed, A & Rehman, M 2011, An Empirical Study of Impact of Job Satisfaction on job Performance in the Public Sector Organizations, Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business, vol. 2, no. 9, pp. 167 - 181. Williams, C & McWilliams, A 2010, MGMT 1st, Asia-Pacific Edn, Cengage Learning Australia Limited, South Melbourne. Read More