CHAPTER 13 Work Design Chapter Overview This chapter addresses the subject of job design by focusing on the following topics: • A definition of job design, job analysis, major job designs, perceived job content, job design strategies • The total quality management (TQM) approach to job design. Following a definition of job design, the issue of work/family balance and job design is explored, with a discussion on flexible work arrangements including job sharing, flextime, and telecommuting. The chapter then presents a comprehensive model of job design, which serves as the discussion framework for the remainder of the chapter. The analysis of jobs according to job content, job requirements, and job context is discussed. Four major concepts that comprise job design are discussed: job range, job depth, job relationships, and perceived job content. Discussion of perceived job content focuses on perceived job characteristics and the primary measures of perceived content. The three primary design strategies are described: • Job rotation • Job enlargement • Job enrichment The Job Characteristics model is presented as a special case of integrating job enrichment with job enlargement. There are five core job dimensions that should be stimulating or motivating to enhance job performance. The more predominant these dimensions are within the job, the more challenging the job becomes. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the problems associated with job design efforts and a look at the sociotechnical approach to job design and its relationship to Total Quality Management. Learning Objectives By the end of the chapter, students should be able to: 1. Define job design. 2. Discuss how job design can help improve work/family balance. 3. Describe alternative job design approaches that organizations use to improve job performance. 4. Discuss the various factors and relationships that link job design and job performance. 5. Compare job enrichment and job enlargement design strategies. 6. Identify specific individual differences that account for different perceptions of job content. Lecture Outline PowerPoint Slide Material from Text to Support Slide / Additional Comments Many companies in the United States are experimenting with work design and benefit offerings that encourage employees to achieve a balance between their work and personal lives. This trend is being driven by two major forces: first, organizations want to attract, motivate, and retain valued employees due to skill shortages in several key job categories (e.g., information systems, global marketing, etc.); and second, many employees are working longer hours, enduring longer commutes, and traveling more days out of each month and, as a result, may need flexible work arrangements to maintain and preserve their home life. Responding to these forces, more and more organizations are helping their employees achieve a better work/family balance. A major cause of effective job performance is job design—what we get when we clarify what each employee should be doing. In a more technical sense, job design refers to the process by which managers decide individual job tasks and authority. Apart from the very practical issues associated with job design (i.e., issues that relate to effectiveness in economic, political, and monetary terms); we can appreciate its importance in social and psychological terms. Jobs can be sources of psychological stress and even mental and physical impairment. On a more positive note, jobs can provide income, meaningful life experiences, self-esteem, regulation of our lives, and respect from and association with others. We must understand the implication of the term job redesign in the context of our discussion. It means that management has decided that it’s worthwhile to reconsider what employees are expected to do on the job. In some instances, the redesign effort may be nothing more than requiring the individual to use a computer rather than a calculator to do clerical work. In other instances, the redesign effort may require the individual to work with other employees in a team effort rather than to work alone on the task. The contemporary trend in organizations is to redesign jobs that require individuals to work together in groups. The issue of designing jobs has gone beyond the determination of the most efficient way to perform tasks. The concept of quality of work life (QWL) is now widely used to refer to “a philosophy of management that enhances the dignity of all workers; introduces changes in an organization’s culture; and improves the physical and emotional well-being of employees (e.g., providing opportunities for growth and development).” Indicators of quality of work life include accident rates, sick leave usage, employee turnover, and number of grievances filed. Indicators of quality of work life include accident rates, sick leave usage, employee turnover, and number of grievances filed. While one person may derive positive satisfaction from a job, another may not. It also recognizes the difficult trade-offs between organizational and individual needs. For example, the technology of manufacturing (an environmental difference) may dictate that management adopt assembly-line mass production methods and low-skilled jobs to achieve optimal efficiency. Such jobs, however, may result in great unrest and worker discontent. Perhaps these costs could be avoided by carefully balancing organizational and individual needs. Job design attempts to identify the most important needs of employees and the organization and to remove obstacles in the workplace that frustrate those needs. Managers hope that the results are jobs that fulfill important individual needs and contribute to individual, group, and organizational effectiveness. Managers are, in fact, designing jobs for teams and groups. Some studies have reported that employees who participate in teams get greater satisfaction from their jobs. But other studies report contrary results. So we’re left with the uncomfortable but realistic conclusion that quality of work life improvements through job design cannot be assured in specific instances. As we progress into the 21st century, organizations will continue to direct more attention and resources toward helping employees balance their work and family demands. Driving this work/family tension are a number of variables related to the changing demographics of the workforce. Although not as dramatic as originally anticipated, a trend is emerging in which some organizations are trying to accommodate diverse employees’ needs by offering flexible work arrangements. Examples of flexible work arrangements include job sharing, flextime, and telecommuting. It is believed that by allowing employees more control over their work lives, they will be better able to balance their work/home demands. Many have argued that companies that offer and encourage participation in such family-friendly work arrangements will reap one or more of the following benefits: higher recruitment and retention rates, improved morale, lower absenteeism and tardiness, and higher levels of employee productivity. Job sharing is a work arrangement in which two or more employees divide a job’s responsibilities, hours, and benefits among themselves. Flextime is another type of flexible work arrangement in which employees can choose when to be at the office. Telecommuting refers to the work arrangement that allows employees to work in their homes part or full time, maintaining their connection and communication with the office through a BlackBerry, phone, fax, and e-mail. The conceptual model in Figure 13.2 is based on the extensive research literature appearing since the 1970s. The model includes the various terms and concepts appearing in the current literature. When linked together, these concepts describe the important determinants of job performance and organizational effectiveness. The model takes into account a number of sources of complexity. It recognizes that individuals react differently to jobs. While one person may derive positive satisfaction from a job, another may not. It also recognizes the difficult trade-offs between organizational and individual needs. Quantity and quality of output, absenteeism, tardiness, and turnover are objective outcomes that can be measured in quantitative terms. For each job, implicit or explicit standards exist for each of these objective outcomes. Industrial engineering studies establish standards for daily quantity, and quality control specialists establish tolerance limits for acceptable quality. These aspects of job performance account for characteristics of the product, client, or service for which the jobholder is responsible. But job performance includes other outcomes. The jobholder reacts to the work itself. She reacts by either attending regularly or being absent, by staying with the job or by quitting. Moreover, physiological and health-related problems can ensue as a consequence of job performance. Stress related to job performance can contribute to physical and mental impairment; accidents and occupation-related disease can also result. Job outcomes include intrinsic and extrinsic work outcomes. The distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic outcomes is important for understanding people’s reactions to their jobs. In a general sense, an intrinsic outcome is an object or event that follows from the worker’s own efforts and doesn’t require the involvement of any other person. More simply, it’s an outcome clearly related to action on the worker’s part. Contemporary job design theory defines intrinsic motivation in terms of the employee’s “empowerment” to achieve outcomes from the application of individual ability and talent.16 Such outcomes typically are thought to result solely in the province of professional and technical jobs; yet all jobs potentially have opportunities for intrinsic outcomes. Such outcomes involve feelings of responsibility, challenge, and recognition; they result from such job characteristics as variety, autonomy, identity, and significance. Extrinsic outcomes, however, are objects or events that follow from the workers’ own efforts in conjunction with other factors or persons not directly involved in the job itself. Pay, working conditions, co-workers, and even supervision are objects in the workplace that are potentially job outcomes but aren’t a fundamental part of the work. Dealing with others and friendship interactions are sources of extrinsic outcomes. Most jobs provide opportunities for both intrinsic and extrinsic outcomes so we must understand the relationship between the two. It’s generally held that extrinsic rewards reinforce intrinsic rewards in a positive direction when the individual can attribute the source of the extrinsic reward to his own efforts. Job satisfaction depends on the levels of intrinsic and extrinsic outcomes and how the jobholder views those outcomes. These outcomes have different values for different people. For some people, responsible and challenging work may have neutral or even negative value depending on their education and prior experience with work providing intrinsic outcomes. The purpose of job analysis is to provide an objective description of the job itself. Individuals who perform job analysis gather information about three aspects of all jobs: job content, job requirements, and job context. Many different job analysis methods help managers identify content, requirements, and context. The functional job analysis (FJA), describes jobs in terms of 1. What the worker does in relation to data, people, and jobs. 2. What methods and techniques the worker uses. 3. What machines, tools, and equipment the worker uses. 4. What materials, products, subject matter, or services the worker produces. The first three aspects relate to job activities. The fourth aspect relates to job performance. FJA provides descriptions of jobs that can be the bases for classifying jobs according to any one of the four dimensions. In addition to defining what activities, methods, and machines make up the job, FJA also defines what the individual doing the job should produce. FJA can, therefore, be the basis for defining standards of performance. Job requirements refer to education, experience, licenses, and other personal characteristics that are expected of an individual if he’s to perform the job content. In recent years, the idea has emerged that job requirements should also identify skills, abilities, knowledge, and other personal characteristics required to perform the job content in the particular setting. One widely used method, position analysis questionnaire (PAQ), takes into account these human factors. The PQA takes into account these human factors through analysis of the following job aspects: 1. Information sources critical to job performance. 2. Information processing and decision making critical to job performance. 3. Physical activity and dexterity required of the job. 4. Interpersonal relationships required of the job. 5. Reactions of individuals to working conditions. Job context refers to factors such as the physical demands and working conditions of the job, the degree of accountability and responsibility, the extent of supervision required or exercised, and the consequences of error. Job context describes the environment within which the job is to be performed. Numerous methods exist to perform job analysis. Different methods can give different answers to important questions such as “How much is the job worth?” Thus, selecting the method for performing job analysis isn’t trivial—it’s one of the most important decisions in job design. Surveys of expert job analysts’ opinions bear out the popularity of PAQ and FJA. Job analysis began in the factory. Industrialization created the setting in which individuals perform many hundreds of specialized jobs. The earliest attempts to do job analysis followed the ideas advanced by the proponents of scientific management. F. W. Taylor stated the essence of scientific management as follows: First: Develop a science for each element of a man’s work that replaces the old rule-of-thumb method. Second: Scientifically select and then train, teach, and develop the workman, whereas in the past he chose his own work and trained himself as best he could. Third: Heartily cooperate with the men so as to ensure that all of the work is done in accordance with the principles of the science that has been developed. Fourth: There is almost an equal division of the work and the responsibility between management and workmen. Management takes over all work for which it’s better fitted than workmen, while in the past; almost all of the work and the greater part of the responsibility were thrown upon workmen. These four principles express the theme of scientific management methods. Management should take into account task and technology to determine the best way for each job and then train people to do the job that way. In the short space of time since the advent of scientific management, the American economy has shifted from factory-oriented to office-oriented work. The fastest growing segment of jobs is secretarial, clerical, and information workers. The growth of these jobs is due to technological breakthroughs in both factory and office settings. Technological breakthroughs in automation, robotics, and computer-assisted manufacturing have reduced the need for industrial jobs. But that same technology has increased the need for office jobs. Still, the modern office isn’t a mere extension of the traditional factory. The modern office reflects the pervasiveness of computer technology. Its most striking feature is the replacement of paper with some electronic medium; usually a personal computer In recent times; managers and researchers have found that human factors must be given special attention when analyzing jobs in the electronic office. Job designs are the results of job analysis. They specify three characteristics of jobs: range, depth, and relationships. Job range refers to the number of tasks a jobholder performs. The individual who performs eight tasks to complete a job has a wider job range than a person performing four tasks. In most instances, the greater the number of tasks performed, the longer it takes to complete the job. A second characteristic is job depth, the amount of discretion an individual has to decide job activities and job outcomes. In many instances, job depth relates to personal influence as well as delegated authority. Job range and depth distinguish one job from another not only within the same organization, but also among different organizations. To illustrate how jobs differ in range and depth, Figure 13.3 depicts the differences for selected jobs in firms, hospitals, and universities. Job relationships are determined by managers’ decisions regarding departmentalization bases and spans of control. The resulting groups become the responsibility of a manager to coordinate toward organization purposes. These decisions also determine the nature and extent of jobholders’ interpersonal relationships, individually and within groups. As we already have seen in the discussion of groups in organizations, group performance is affected in part by group cohesiveness. And the degree of group cohesiveness depends on the quality and kind of interpersonal relationships of jobholders assigned to a task or command group. The wider the span of control, the larger the group and, consequently, the more difficult the establishment of friendship and interest relationships. Simply, people in larger groups are less likely to communicate and interact sufficiently to form interpersonal ties than people in smaller groups. Without the opportunity to communicate, people will be unable to establish cohesive work groups. Thus, an important source of satisfaction may be lost for individuals who seek to fulfill social and esteem needs through relationships with co-workers. The basis for departmentalization that management selects also has important implications for job relationships. The functional basis places jobs with similar depth and range in the same groups, while product, territory, and customer bases place jobs with dissimilar depth and range. Thus, in functional departments, people will be doing much the same specialty. Product, territory, and customer departments, however, comprise jobs that are quite different and heterogeneous. Individuals who work in heterogeneous departments experience feelings of dissatisfaction, stress, and involvement more intensely than those in homogeneous, functional departments. People with homogeneous backgrounds, skills, and training have more common interests than those with heterogeneous ones. Thus, it’s easier for them to establish satisfying social relationships with less stress, but also with less involvement in the department’s activities. Job designs describe the objective characteristics of jobs. That is, through job analysis techniques managers can design jobs in terms of required activities to produce a specified outcome. But yet another factor—perceived job content—must be considered before we can understand the relationship between jobs and performance. Perceived job content refers to characteristics of a job that define its general nature as perceived by the jobholder. We must distinguish between a job’s objective properties and its subjective properties as reflected in the perceptions of people who perform it. Managers can’t understand the causes of job performance without considering individual differences such as personality, needs, and span of attention. The pioneering effort to measure perceived job content through employee responses to a questionnaire resulted in the identification of six characteristics: variety, autonomy, required interaction, optional interaction, knowledge and skill required, and responsibility. The index of these six characteristics is termed the Requisite Task Attribute Index (RTAI). The original RTAI has been extensively reviewed and analyzed. One important development was the review by Hackman and Lawler, who revised the index to include the six characteristics shown in Table 13.1. Variety, task identity, and feedback are perceptions of job range. Autonomy is the perception of job depth; and dealing with others and friendship opportunities reflect perceived job content perceptions of job relationships. Employees sharing similar perceptions, job designs, and social settings should report similar job characteristics. Employees with different perceptions, however, report different job characteristics of the same job. For example, an individual with a high need for social belonging would perceive “friendship opportunities” differently than another individual with a low need for social belonging. Individual differences in need strength, particularly the strength of growth needs, have been shown to influence the perception of task variety. Employees with relatively weak higher order needs are less concerned with performing a variety of tasks than are employees with relatively strong growth needs. Thus, managers expecting higher performance to result from increased task variety would be disappointed if the jobholders did not have strong growth needs. Even individuals with strong growth needs cannot respond continuously to the opportunity to perform more and more tasks. At some point, performance turns down as these individuals reach the limits imposed by their abilities and time. Differences in social settings of work also affect perceptions of job content. Examples of social setting differences include leadership style and what other people say about the job. As more than one research study has pointed out, how one perceives a job is greatly affected by what other people say about it. Thus, if one’s friends state their jobs are boring, one is likely to state that his job is also boring. If the individual perceives the job as boring, job performance will no doubt suffer. Job content, then, results from the interaction of many factors in the work situation. The field of organization behavior has advanced a number of suggestions for improving the motivational properties of jobs. Invariably, the suggestions, termed job design strategies, attempt to improve job performance through changes in actual job characteristics. The earliest attempts to design jobs date to the scientific management era. Efforts at that time emphasized efficiency criteria. With that emphasis, the individual tasks that constitute a job are limited, uniform, and repetitive. This practice leads to narrow job range and, consequently, reported high levels of job discontent, turnover, absenteeism, and dissatisfaction. Accordingly, strategies were devised that resulted in wider job range through increasing the requisite activities of jobs. Two of these approaches are job rotation and job enlargement. A job rotation strategy involves rotating managers and nonmanagers alike from one job to another. In so doing, the individual is expected to complete more job activities because each job includes different tasks. Job rotation involves increasing the range of jobs and the perception of variety in the job content. The pioneering Walker and Guest study was concerned with the social and psychological problems associated with mass production jobs in automobile assembly plants. The study found that many workers were dissatisfied with their highly specialized jobs. In particular, they disliked mechanical pacing, repetitiveness of operations, and a lack of a sense of accomplishment. Walker and Guest also found a positive relationship between job range and job satisfaction. Findings of this research gave early support for motivation theories that predict that increases in job range will increase job satisfaction and other objective job outcomes. Job enlargement strategies focus upon the opposite of dividing work—they’re a form of despecialization or increasing the number of tasks that an employee performs. Although, in many instances, an enlarged job requires a longer training period, job satisfaction usually increases because boredom is reduced. The implication, of course, is that job enlargement will lead to improvement in other performance outcomes. The impetus for designing job depth was provided by Herzberg’s two-factor theory of motivation. The basis of his theory is that factors that meet individuals’ need for psychological growth (especially responsibility, job challenge, and achievement) must be characteristic of their jobs. The application of his theory is termed job enrichment. The implementation of job enrichment is realized through direct changes in job depth. Managers can provide employees with greater opportunities to exercise discretion by making the following changes: 1. Direct feedback—the evaluation of performance should be timely and direct. 2. New learning—a good job enables people to feel that they are growing. All jobs should provide opportunities to learn. 3. Scheduling—people should be able to schedule some part of their own work. 4. Uniqueness—each job should have some unique qualities or features. 5. Control over resources—individuals should have some control over their job tasks. 6. Personal accountability—people should be provided with an opportunity to be accountable for the job. Job enrichment and job enlargement aren’t competing strategies. Job enlargement may be compatible with the needs, values, and abilities of some individuals, while job enrichment may not. Yet job enrichment, when appropriate, necessarily involves job enlargement. A promising new approach to job design that attempts to integrate the two approaches is the job characteristic model. Hackman, Oldham, Janson, and Purdy devised the approach, basing it on the Job Diagnostic Survey. The model attempts to account for the interrelationships among (1) certain job characteristics; (2) psychological states associated with motivation, satisfaction, and performance; (3) job outcomes; and (4) growth need strength. Figure 13.3 describes the relationships among these variables. Although variety, identity, significance, autonomy, and feedback don’t completely describe perceived job content, according to this model they sufficiently describe those aspects that management can manipulate to bring about gains in productivity. Steps that management can take to increase the core dimensions include 1. Combining task elements. 2. Assigning whole pieces of work (i.e., work modules). 3. Allowing discretion in selection of work methods. 4. Permitting self-paced control. 5. Opening feedback channels. These actions increase task variety, identity, and significance; consequently, the “experienced meaningfulness of work” psychological state is increased. By permitting employee participation and self-evaluation and by creating autonomous work groups, the feedback and autonomy dimensions are increased along with the psychological states “experienced responsibility” and “knowledge of actual results.” Problems associated with job design include the following: 1. The program is time-consuming and costly. 2. Unless lower-level needs are satisfied, people will not respond to opportunities to satisfy upper-level needs. And even though our society has been rather successful in providing food and shelter, these needs regain importance when the economy moves through periods of recession and high inflation. 3. Job design programs are intended to satisfy needs typically not satisfied in the work-place. As workers are told to expect higher-order need satisfaction, they may raise their expectations beyond what’s possible. Dissatisfaction with the program’s unachievable aim may displace dissatisfaction with the jobs. 4. Job design may be resisted by labor unions who see the effort as an attempt to get more work for the same pay. 5. Job design efforts may not produce tangible performance improvements for some time after the beginning of the effort. One study indicated that significant improvements in effectiveness couldn’t be seen until four years after the beginning of the job design program. Evolving from the research at the individual level, the concept of job design has also been applied to work groups in organizations. For a variety of reasons, the use of work teams has become common in organizations. Admittedly, work teams do not always achieve high levels of productivity, cooperation, or success. It can be argued that overall team effectiveness can be enhanced through job design methods that increase the motivation of team members. One group of researchers has taken the position that the job characteristics identified and developed by Hackman and colleagues can also be applied to teams. It has been argued that appropriate work team job design can lead to higher levels of team productivity, employee satisfaction, and managers’ judgment of effectiveness. Drawing on the Job Characteristics Model presented in Figure 13.3, the following characteristics should be addressed when designing jobs for work teams: 1. Self-management—This concept is similar to autonomy at the individual job level and refers to the team’s ability to set its own objectives, coordinate its own activities, and resolve its own internal conflicts. 2. Participation—This issue refers to the degree to which all members of the team are encouraged and allowed to participate in decisions. 3. Task variety—This concept is the extent to which team members are given the opportunity to perform a variety of tasks so as to allow members to use different skills. 4. Task significance—This term refers to the degree to which the team’s work is valued and has significance for both internal and external stakeholders of the organization. 5. Task identity—This concept focuses on the degree to which a team completes a whole and separate piece of work and has control over most of the resources necessary to accomplish its objectives. Although research investigating these five aspects of team job design is limited, preliminary findings are somewhat promising. After an extensive review of the literature on effective work groups, one set of researchers studied the degree to which work group job design could affect such important effectiveness outcomes as work group productivity, group member satisfaction, and managers’ judgments of group effectiveness. Total quality management (TQM), according to those who espouse and practice it, combines technical knowledge and human knowledge. To deal with the inherent complexity and variability of production and service delivery technology, people must be empowered with authority to make necessary decisions and must be enabled with knowledge to know when to exercise that authority. Aspects of TQM job designs have appeared throughout this discussion. We’ve discussed job enrichment including provision of autonomy, creation of work modules, and development of trust and collaboration. We’ve seen these attributes of jobs in the practices of organizations discussed throughout this chapter. Job design strategy focuses on jobs in the context of individuals’ needs for economic well-being and personal growth. But let’s put the issue in a broader framework and include the issue of the sociotechnical system. Sociotechnical theory focuses on interactions between technical demands of jobs and social demands of people doing the jobs. The theory emphasizes that too great an emphasis on the technical system in the manner of scientific management or too great an emphasis on the social system in the manner of human relations will lead to poor job design. Rather, job design should take into account both the technology and the people who use the technology. There’s no contradiction between sociotechnical theory and total quality management. In fact, the two approaches are quite compatible. The compatibility relates to the demands of modern technology for self-directed and self-motivated job behavior. Such job behavior is made possible in jobs designed to provide autonomy and variety. As worked out in practice, such jobs are parts of self-regulating work teams responsible for completing whole tasks. The work module concept pervades applications of sociotechnical theory Review objectives. Lecture Tips Lecture Ideas 1. One way to enhance student understanding of the impact of the social setting on job perceptions is to have them review their past job experiences and consider: (1) What was the effect of comments by work peers on their perceptions of the job? (Students should report that the effects were considerable, especially if they worked in a small work group). (2) If they worked on a work team, did group norms exist, and how did these norms affect their perceptions? (3) What other aspects of their job’s social setting did, or could potentially, influence their job perceptions? 2. To enhance student understanding of job depth and job range, it is useful to select a particular type of job and have students discuss the job’s level of range and depth and strategies for increasing the job's levels. See Figure 13 2 for some potential jobs to analyze. 3. Have students identify motivating factors within a job they have performed. Project and Class Speaker Ideas 1. Invite a job engineer to discuss the art of determining the most effective degree of labor specialization for particular jobs. The speaker could discuss the factors involved in determining the correct degree of specialization. He/she could likely tell some interesting stories concerning problems encountered when a job was over or under specialized (and present additional insights into the use of the functional analysis and position analysis questionnaire techniques). 2. If a local company has implemented a job enrichment effort, invite a manager who has been substantially involved in the effort to discuss the project with your class. The speaker could address: (1) management's reasons for the effort (what it expects to gain); (2) the implementation process; and (3) the challenges encountered, focusing on particular problems and how management solved them. 3. If a faculty member in your school's management department has conducted research in the job design area, he or she could provide an interesting overview of future directions in job design research and job design development in organizations. Given the field's emphasis on the Job Characteristics Model, the researcher could address the strength of research support for the model to date (and the problems in effectively testing the model in organizations). 4. You could also approach the issue of the pros and cons of job enrichment by assigning as a class project, a class debate on the merits of job enrichment. Two teams could be organized with one team assuming an advocate's position and the other team presenting a critic's perspective on job enrichment. Each team's presentation should be based on library research; the rest of the students should also research the issue and be prepared to question each team following its presentation and to resolve the debate question. 5. As an individual student project, have your students develop a written report on enriching a job with which they are familiar. In their report, students should: (1) assess the job's task variety, task identity, feedback, autonomy, and friendship opportunities; (2) explain the steps to enrich the job; (3) discuss how those steps would affect the jobholder's psychological response to the job and the organization (e.g., redesign costs, changes in supervisor-jobholder relationships, and so on.) Discussion Questions 1. Many jobs are designed so that employees are rewarded not only for their individual contribution but also for their work in groups and teams. Do you think that rewarding team effort is just as motivational as when an employee is rewarded for his or her own contribution? Explain. Answer: Student answers will vary, depending on how they feel about group rewards and how they feel about their own performance abilities. For instance, a “slacker” may prefer group rewards, which allows them to do some social loafing and still have a shot at a reward. High performers, on the other hand, may resent everyone getting a reward based on their very obvious contributions. However, there will be social pressure to improve performance for the overall good of the group. Rewarding team effort can be just as motivational as individual rewards, but it depends on the context. Team rewards encourage collaboration, enhance group cohesion, and can leverage diverse skills and perspectives, fostering a collective sense of achievement. However, for employees who value personal recognition or whose contributions are distinct and measurable, individual rewards might be more motivating. Ideally, a balanced approach that recognizes both team and individual contributions can effectively motivate employees by addressing diverse motivational needs. 2. Explain the differences between job rotation and job enrichment and analyze the relative advantages of these two approaches in organizations you have worked for. Answer: Since the job's basic characteristics remain the same in job rotation, it does not have the same potential to impact employee motivation and performance that a job enrichment design strategy would. Students may have an easier time recalling examples of job rotation from their own work experiences than examples of job enrichment. Job Rotation involves periodically shifting employees between different tasks or roles to develop diverse skills and reduce monotony. Job Enrichment entails enhancing a job's content by increasing autonomy, responsibility, and opportunities for personal growth. Advantages of Job Rotation: • Reduces boredom and increases flexibility. • Helps employees acquire a broad skill set. • Aids in career development and succession planning. Advantages of Job Enrichment: • Enhances job satisfaction and motivation. • Increases employee engagement and commitment. • Improves the quality of work and innovation. In organizations I've worked for, job rotation helped in building versatile teams and filling skill gaps, while job enrichment improved job satisfaction and performance by making work more meaningful and engaging. 3. Under what condition could you see yourself entering into a job-sharing arrangement with a fellow co-worker? Please describe. Answer: While student responses will vary job sharing has become relevant in certain industries throughout the country. Job sharing is prevalent in retail because of cost effective applications for the employer. In job sharing, employers are not obligated to provide fringe benefit coverage to part time employees. Job sharing arrangements among co-workers exist in the retail and service sectors. An employee could job share with another in any number of sales related functions in merchandising, finance accounting, as well as maintenance and service related functions. This application has merit when an operation has peak hours of activity throughout the day. Flextime and flex schedules can prevail in job sharing activities. Finally in telecommuting job sharing could take place within the home as well as the office. I would consider entering into a job-sharing arrangement if it offered flexibility to balance work and personal life, while ensuring that the arrangement provided equal opportunities for professional growth and a clear division of responsibilities. This would be particularly appealing if it allowed me to work part-time without sacrificing career advancement or job satisfaction. 4. As a current or future manager, assume that your company could only offer one of the following job design approaches: job sharing, flextime, or telecommuting. Which one would you choose to offer your employees as a way to help them balance their work and personal lives? Justify your choice. Answer: Answer will vary widely by student depending on their personal preferences, past experiences, and type of employment they will be seeking. For example, someone in hotel management could not offer telecommuting. Students should provide good reasons for the option they offer, including the benefits to the employee as well as to the organization. I would choose flextime as it offers employees the ability to adjust their work hours to better fit their personal schedules, providing flexibility without altering job responsibilities or requiring coordination with a partner. This approach supports work-life balance while maintaining productivity and team cohesion. 5. What characteristics of jobs can't be enriched? Do you believe that management should ever consider any job to be incapable of enrichment? Answer: Jobs subject to enrichment are invariably of such small range that additional autonomy would be meaningless. Consequently, it is necessary to load the job with additional range to provide any significant opportunity to enrich it with managerial prerogative. The issue then is whether any job has such large range or depth that it cannot be enriched. Students can perhaps provide examples of jobs that defy efforts to enrich them. 6. Explain the relationships between feedback as a job content factor and personal goal setting. Is personal goal setting possible without feedback? Explain. Answer: Feedback to correct mistakes and gauge progress is essential. The example is often used by a person on a driving range attempting to correct a bad slice with the long irons. Rhetorically: How long would that person practice if a fog drifted in and made it impossible to see where the golf ball was going after each swing? 7. This chapter has described job designs in various service and manufacturing organizations. In which type of organization is job enrichment likely to be more effective as a strategy for increasing motivation and performance? Explain. Answer: No evidence exists to indicate that job enrichment is more effective in service or manufacturing organizations. Examples of applications in both types of organizations appear throughout the literature. The increasing importance of the service sector as a source of jobs has increased attention paid to the kinds of jobs that can be enriched in service organizations. 8. What do you think of companies such as Motorola and Hewlett-Packard that establish job design policies to help employees balance their work and life commitments? Do you think such policies will help these firms attract and retain more employees? Explain. Answer: Firms such as Motorola and Hewlett-Packard should create job design policies, procedures, and rules. Reengineering of jobs is essential due to changing technologies that would apply to these firms. Job design is essential to make jobs more enriching, challenging, and enhancing the quality of work life for individuals and employee groups. A suggestion is self-managed teams can enhance collaboration, communication, and the end result is increased employee commitment. These policies will attract an enthusiastic and highly motivated employee that wants to be challenged to excel in performing a job. Plan for change of jobs is a reality; therefore employees who are creative and intuitive will perform under these conditions. These policies will continue to attract and gain employee loyalty to fit the job design around employee needs, wants, and desires. 9. Think about your current organization or one for which you worked in the past. To what extent would a ROWE (Results-Only Work Environment) fit the organizational culture? Explain. Answer: Skoglund suggests that ROWE works as long as employees have a clear idea of what they need to accomplish in their jobs, co-workers are prohibited from making negative comments when an employee leaves the office “early,” and the rules are applied to everyone (the owner, secretaries, etc.). 10. As you understand the idea and practice of total quality management, do you believe that it's the wave of the future in American organizations? Explain. Answer: Although TQM, as a specific management initiative, may not be continued in the next century, the ideas behind TQM have become ingrained in most business settings, particularly the notions of benchmarking, empowerment, and continuous learning. That may change, however, as global competition in nearly every field forces companies to cuts costs in order to remain competitive. In other words, “being good enough” may replace “we’re the best.” Case for Analysis: Work Redesign in an Insurance Company Case Summary The executive staff of a small life insurance company is considering a proposal to install an electronic data processing system, which would allow the company to redesign the jobs of employees who have complained that their jobs are boring (absenteeism and turnover have increased). To facilitate more challenging jobs, the organizational structure would be changed from functional to customer departmentalization, and each employee would handle all transactions for a respective client(s). The EDP would maintain present efficiency, but management would not obtain any productivity gains from the redesigned jobs. Answers to Case Questions 1. Explain which core characteristics of employees’ jobs will be changed if the consultant’s recommendations are accepted. Answer: Because an employee would be handling all transactions relating to a particular client(s), task variety, the number of procedures and activities required by the job, would increase. The jobs would also likely possess greater task identity, because they now involve all activities related to assigned clients. Thus, a whole identifiable piece of work. Task significance (the employee’s perception of the job’s importance) may also increase. 2. Which alternative redesign strategies should be considered? For example, job rotation and job enlargement are possible alternatives. What are the relevant considerations for these and other designs in the context of this company? Answer: In evaluating all possible job redesign strategies, management should consider factors such as implementation costs, benefits, changes in workflow, potential problems in implementing the strategy, and probable reactions of employees and managers to the change. Job enlargement merits consideration; however, many students will argue that it falls short of what the situation requires. Job enlargement does not involve increasing task depth, which employees want. It increases the number of tasks the employee performs in one job, but autonomy is not affected. 3. What would be your decision in this case? What should management be willing to pay for employee satisfaction? Defend your answer. Answer: Most students will agree that the company should install the EDP. Doing so will involve organization-wide change, but so will any major job redesign strategy. Present work force efficiency will be maintained, although equipment costs will not be recovered. However, students should realize that indirect financial benefits would likely accrue from lower absenteeism and turnover (despite the internal operations manager’s comments). Also, as the Job Characteristics Model proposes, the enriched jobs may increase work quality (fewer errors in processing claims, recording premiums, etc.) which provides additional financial benefits. Students may disagree concerning the extent to which management should pay for employee satisfaction. The answer depends on the student’s perspective on a company’s responsibilities to its employees. My decision would be to implement flextime, as it balances flexibility and productivity, directly improving employee satisfaction and engagement. Management should be willing to invest in employee satisfaction by offering flexible work arrangements, as it leads to higher retention, increased productivity, and overall better performance, which ultimately benefits the organization’s success. Experiential Exercise: Conducting a Basic Job Analysis Objectives 1. To familiarize students with the initial step of conducting a job analysis. 2. To illustrate the types of information that a job incumbent (person currently in the job) needs to provide a job analyst. 3. To engage students in the actual process of asking another person about the details of his or her job. The Exercise in Class Students may find that job incumbents may not be able to communicate the necessary detail about their jobs when interviewed. Additionally students may observe that the interview questioner while necessarily structured must also have some flexibility to allow the interviewer to determine the true scope of the position. Ten Term Paper Topics 1. The Modified Workweek at (selected company): A Profile 2. Why Job Enrichment Fails 3. A Plan for Enriching (selected job) 4. Job Design in a White Collar Society: Future Challenges 5. A Profile of Flextime at (selected company) 6. An Historical Overview of the Development of Job Analysis 7. Challenges in Implementing a Job Enrichment Program 8. A Job Analysis Report on (selected job) 9. Topic for Term Paper Debate: Is Job Enrichment an Oversold Innovation? 10. The Organizational Costs of Under and Overspecializing Jobs Instructor Manual for Organizations: Behavior, Structure, Processes James L. Gibson, John M. Ivancevich, James H. Donnally, Robert Konopaske 9780078112669, 9781259097232, 9780071086417, 9780071315272
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