Job Design

1. Job Design MANA 3320 Dr. Jeanne Michalski

2. Design of Work Systems • Job Specialization • Based on Frederick Taylor’s Scientific Management • Creates jobs with very narrow task (activity) assignments. • Resulted in high efficiency, quickly achieved job competency, low training costs, but also created monotonous jobs. OR • Job Enhancement • Started with Hawthorne Experiments • Increasing the amount of responsibility for quality and productivity that employees have for their own work.

3. Job Design • Job Enrichment (Herzberg) • “Vertical Enrichment” of jobs • Increasing duties and responsibilities • Job Characteristics Model (Hackman & Oldham) • Five characteristics of motivating jobs • Employee Empowerment / Involvement

4. Job Enrichment Factors • Increasing the level of difficulty and responsibility of the job • Allowing employees to retain more authority and control over work outcomes • Providing unit or individual job performance reports directly to employees • Adding new tasks to the job that require training and growth • Assigning individuals specific tasks, enabling them to use their particular competencies or skills

5. Job Characteristics • Job Characteristics Model(Hackman and Oldham) • Job design theory that purports that three psychological states (experiencing meaningfulness of the work performed, responsibility for work outcomes, and knowledge of the results of the work performed) of a jobholder result in improved work performance, internal motivation, and lower absenteeism and turnover.

6. Five Core Job Characteristics • Skill variety • Task identity • Task significance • Autonomy • Feedback

7. Five Core Job Characteristics • Skill variety • The extent to which the work allows an employee to use a variety of acquired skills. • Task identity • The extent to which work allows an employee to complete a whole or identifiable piece of work. • Task significance • The extent to which the employee perceives that his/her work is important and meaningful to those in the organization or to those outside the organization. • Autonomy • The extent to which the employee is able to work and determine work procedure at her/his own discretion. • Feedback • The extent to which the work allows the employee to gain a sense of how well job responsibilities are being met.

8. Job Characteristics Skill variety Task identity Task significance Autonomy Feedback PsychologicalStates Meaningfulness of the work performed Responsibility for work outcomes Knowledge of the results of the work performed. Job Characteristics Model • JobOutcomes • Improved work performance • Increased Internal motivation • Lower absenteeism and turnover

9. Job Characteristics and Reengineering at GTE * Indicates a statistically significant difference between ratings of job before and after Process Re-engineering

10. Job Characteristics Survey Items • I have autonomy in my job. That is my job permits me to decide on my own how to go about doing the work. • My job involves doing a whole and identifiable piece of work. That is, the job is a complete piece of work that has an obvious beginning and end. • There is variety in my job. That is, the job requires me to do many things at work, using a variety of my skills and talents. • In general, my job is significant or important. That is, the results of my work are likely to significantly affect the lives and wellbeing of other people. • Managers or co-workers let me know well I am doing my job.

11. Next Logical Analysis?

12. Employee Empowerment • Participation • Authority to change job processes? • Self-managed teams • Information • Is business information shared? • Does the job involve performance feedback? • Innovation • Is the organization receptive to new ideas? • Rewards / Accountability • Are rewards contingent on individual performance?

13. Designing Work for Group/Team Contributions • Employee Involvement Groups (EIs) • Groups of employees who meet to resolve problems or offer suggestions for organizational improvement • Also known as quality circles (QCs) • Success with EIs requires: • Comprehensive training for group members • Recognition of the group’s contributions • Continuing input and encouragement by management • Use of a participative/democratic leadership style

14. Benefits of Employee Teams • Increased integration of individual skills • Better performance (quality and quantity) solutions to unique and complex problems • Reduced delivery time • Reduced turnover and absenteeism • Accomplishments among team members

15. Forms of Employee Teams • Cross-Functional Teams Permanent teams of mixed specialists with common goal. • Project Teams Temporary teams typically organized to develop a new product or service. • Self-Directed Teams Permanent Highly trained individuals autonomously performing a set of interdependent job tasks within a natural work unit. • Task Force Teams • Temporary teams typically organized to solve a major problem. • Process-Improvement / Quality Teams Teams organized to monitor quality and improve processes • Virtual Teams A group with widely dispersed members linked together through computer and telecommunications technology.

16. Characteristics of Successful Teams • Commitment to shared goals and objectives • Motivated and energetic team members • Open and honest communication • Shared leadership • Clear role assignments • Climate of cooperation, collaboration, trust, and accountability • Recognition of conflict and its positive resolution

17. Flexible Work Schedules • Compressed Workweek • Shortening the number of days in the workweek by lengthening the number of hours worked per day. • The four-day, forty-hour week, generally referred to as 4/10 or 4/40. • Reducing weekly hours to 38 or 36 hours or scheduling 80 hours over nine days (9/80), taking one day off every other week.

18. Flexible Work Schedules • Benefits • Recruitment and retention of employees • Coordinating employee work schedules with production schedules • Accommodating the leisure-time activities of employees while facilitating employee personal appointments • Improvements in employee job satisfaction and morale • Disadvantages • Overtime payments required by the Fair Labor Standards Act for employees working over 40 hours in one week. • The additional stress on managers and employees, and long workdays can be exhausting.

19. Flexible Work Schedules • Flextime • Working hours that permit employees the option of choosing daily starting and quitting times, provided that they work a set number of hours per day or week. • All employees are required to be present during a designated “core period.” • Flexible hours reduce absenteeism and tardiness. • Employees can schedule their working hours for the time of day when they are most productive.

20. Flexible Work Schedules • Job Sharing • The arrangement whereby two part-time employees perform a job that otherwise would be held by one full-time employee. • Job sharers may work three days a week, creating an overlap day for extended face-to-face conferencing. • Telecommuting • The use of personal computers, networks, and other communications technology such as fax machines to do work in the home that is traditionally done in the workplace.

21. Advantages of Telecommuting • Increased flexibility for employees • Ability to attract workers who might not otherwise be available • Lessened burden on working parents • Less time and money wasted on physical commuting • Increased productivity • Reduced absenteeism